The Texas Observer DEC. 13, 1963

A Journal of Free Voices A Window to The South 25c

Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Dallas Much has been written about Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, of New Orleans, Fort Worth, and, for a time, the Soviet Union, but I have learned the most about him as he was on November 22 in Dallas from two long interviews here, one with a man who had an argument with him less than a month before that day and one with a man who knew him as well as anyone who has spoken up. His mother, too, has had a part of her say, but she is determined to sell her story; she did not know him well at the end; and he had moved beyond her influence. His brothers kept then ovvr: cywnsel. His wife has yet to talk to reporters, other than a Life team who did not report much from her. And he is dead now. The argument occurred at a meeting of the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union at Selectman Hall on the S.M.U. campus Oct. 25. Michael Paine, Os- wald's only close acquaintance, as far as is known, during the last months of his life, had brought him as a guest. The program for the evening was built around a showing of a film developing the theme that a Washington state legislator had been defeated by right'-'wing attacks based on previous communist-type associa- tions of the legislator's wife. The discussion was running along the theme that liberals should oppose witch-hunts, but with scru- pulous methods. Oswald rose during the discussion, Paine said, and said he had attended the rally addressed by Gen. Edwin Walker two nights before in Dallas. "He • . gave some examples of how they were exhibiting anti- Semitism," Paine recalled. A woman said that during a discussion of the Adlai Stev- enson affair the night of Oct. 24, she heard Oswald leaned forward to Paine and say, "I was there." Rev. Byrd Helligas, associate minister of the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, remembers having seen Oswald in discus- sion at a coffee table. Oswald struck Helli- gas as "erudite," with a good vocabulary Photographs by Russell Shaw and a knowledge of a wide variety of sub- jects. In discussion about the movie pro- All the photographs in this issue were Times. We have interspersed them through- jector, Helligas said, Oswald showed intelli- taken on Padre Island by Russell Shaw, a out this issue with the permission of the gence about mechanical things. photographer of the Corpus Christi Caller- Caller-Times. (Continued on Page 3) 5he Sutiect of Tnem.oriat It is too early to assess the subject of wrote : "As a teacher in Dallas I have tried Dallas. This will take more inquiry and to instill in my students a respect for the reflection. One cannot yet be sure, either, leaders of our country." The theme of her Hundreds of thousands of Texans have whether Dallas is doing something about letter was this: "The city of Dallas paved already paid John Kennedy's memory hom- itself, and if it is not, whether it will. We the way for the tragic event here." age on Elm Street, near the Triple Under- do know that some of its leading citizens pass, where he was slain. Millions of Ameri- So the mother of the teacher at the assas- are very determined that something shall sination scene was right. The teacher who cans and citizens of the other nations will be done. But there is a distance to go. go there in pilgrimage as long as there is wrote to us was right. Mrs. Cowan learns Dallas too long has been daily fed a diet to her sorrow. civilization. of suspicion and reactionary demagoguery In the name of those we have been by the Dallas News to become in a month It is not enough that, under pressure of among, who have driven the fatal curve, of words a shining city where people say publicity, Supt. White and the school board and walked the witness grass, and studied forth without fear. reinstated Mrs. Cowan Monday. It may be over the flowers, in the name of the griev- A school teacher paying homage to the a good sign, but real damage has been done. ing faces and the energyless hearts, the President there where he fell gave a report- Consider the implicit warning to every Observer calls upon the city fathers of Dal- er a statement—and then tearfully with- teacher in Dallas: las to construct a Kennedy Memorial there drew it when her mother said she'd be fired Say something civic, or keep your mouth where the President was shot. by the school authorities if she stood by it. shut. Mayor Earle Cabell of Dallas favors Dal- She went away crying and insisting, "But If this is the way the Dallas power struc- las citizens giving money to a fund to erect mother, I didn't say anything." ture means to shine up its image again— a monument in Washington. He opposes We have in hand a letter from another we do not say that it is; we only fear that building a memorial near the Triple Under- Dallas teacher : "This letter is not for pub- it is—then we must conclude that the lead- pass. lication. I'm a teacher—and teachers of lib- ers of Dallas do not know that there is a Perhaps the Dallas power structure does eral bent are circumspect in this school ad- relationship between the image and the not want a memorial there, and wants the ministration. . . • The teachers in this sys- reality. place unmarked, and the fact that the deed tem just don't speak out." They are not two different kinds of was done there, if not forgotten, at least Last weekend Mrs. Elizabeth Cowan, 25, things, existing apart from each other. A not unduly remembered. married, and a fourth grade teacher in Dal- true image cannot be conjured by public In all understanding but in all earnest- las public schools for five years, was sus- relations men, no matter how slick they are. ness, gentlemen, we say that the people pended by Supt. W. T. White for a letter The only image of value is the image that want this monument there. No matter how from her published in Time Magazine. reflects the reality. The only honest way politicly you- sinint the —siibject off your She has not been told that she violated to fix an image is to fix a reality. agendas, and no matter how many study any rule. School authorities told her, she Don't the gentlemen know this? ❑ committees you have come up with reasons said, "just that they think I signed it as a teacher, and since I was a teacher, I im- not, the people want their monument to the NO VOTE President right there where he was slain. plied I was speaking for all the teachers of Dallas." The Observer suggests that citizens of Two schoolboys put up a flag there and this area abstain from voting in the con- stood guard on it themselves, in their She signed the letter, she said, with "just my name." However, she said, "I started gressional runoff of Dec. 17. Neither Jake R.O.T.C. uniforms. Flowers from stores and Pickle nor Jim Dobbs should be the con- yards and fields appeared on the grass un- a sentence with, 'as a teacher,' and that was f I gressman from this Democratic district ; bidden in wild colors like shattered rain- it. In the sentence in question, Mrs. Cowan why vote for either? ❑ bows. Every day people have come to stand on the scene there. Thanksgiving and week- ends since the death, they have driven by in their cars three abreast in steady THE TEXAS OBSERVER A Window to the South streams, past and over the place where he A Journal of Free Voices was killed. As we left Dallas we saw that 57th 'YEAR — ESTABLISHED 1906 a picket fence had appeared from some- Vol. 55. No. 27 7480° December 13, 1963 where, to put the flowers on. Incorporating the State Observer and the torial policies and contents of the Observer. Under fire the President hallowed that None of the other people who are associated place forever. Let the fact be known for East Texas Democrat, which in turn incor- porated the State Week and Austin Forum- with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own all to know and not forget. Advocate. work, but not for anything they have not them- Of all that has been said about him noth- Editor and General Manager. Ronnie Dugger. selves written, and in publishing them the edi- ing sounded out so true as this, that he was Partner, Mrs. R. D. Randolph. tor does not necessarily imply that he agrees our first president who became a martyr Business Manager. Sarah Payne. with them, because this is a journal of free for peace and freedom without having to Contributing Editors, Bill Brammer, Chandler voices. The Observer solicits articles, essays, and fight a war to do it. He was the second Davidson, J. Frank Dobie, Larry Goodwyn, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones. Jay Milner. creative work of the shorter forms having to great emancipator. He is with Lincoln now. Willie Morris. Charles Ramsdell. Roger Shat- do in various ways with this area. The pay Think of all the monuments there are in tuck. Dan Strewn. Tom Sutherland, Charles depends; at present it is token. Please enclose Texas: monuments to many men of innu- Alan Wright. return postage. Unsigned articles are the edi- tor's. merable names meaning much to few. Staff Artist. Charles Erickson. • Contributing Photographer. Russell Lee. The Observer is published by Texas Observer We know that grief is no argument in Subscription Representatives: Austin, Mrs. Co., Ltd.. biweekly from Austin, Texas. En- how to proceed, but we would be shocked Helen C. Spear, 2615 Pecos, HO 5-1805; Dallas, tered as second-class matter April 26. 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act if the leaders of Dallas permitted there to Mrs. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth. TA 1-1205; Fort Worth, Mrs. Jesse Baker, 3212 Greene St.. of March 3. 1879. Second class postage paid at be any basis for the belief that they are WA 7-2959; Houston. D.Irs. Shirley Jay, 10306 Austin. Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $5.00 more concerned about the Dallas image Cliffweod Dr.. PA 3-8682; Lubbock. Doris Blais- a year. Foreign rates on request. Single copies than they are filled with respect for the dell, 2515 24th St.: Midland, Eva Dennis, 4306 25c: prices for ten or more for students, or fallen President. Douglas, OX 4-2825; Rio Grande Valley, Mrs. bulk orders. on request. Jack Butler. - 601 Houston, McAllen. MU 6-5675; Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Let us have our monument to him, there San Antonio. Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle. 531 Elm- Observer. 504 West 24th St., Austin 5, Texas. where he fell. hurst, TA 2-7154; Tyler, Mrs. Erik Thomsen. Telephone GR 7-0746. 1209 So. Broadway. LY 4-4862. Change of Address: Please give old and new 2 The Texas Observer The editor has exclusive control over the edi- addresses t•nd allow three weeks. (Continued From Page 1) top—you are taking $1 for nothing,' " Os- but did not finish Harvard and Swarth- wald told him. more ; 35 now, and a research engineer, he THE MAN WHO ARGUED with "'No, I have spent time getting jobs. I is active in folk dancing circles in Texas. Oswald told the story only on condition pay the bills I buy their mistakes. I have The informant who argued with Oswald that neither he nor his wife, who was pres- an investment in my tools,' " the informant said Paine and his wife Ruth "are overly ent during part of the argument, be identi- replied. charitable, and they are overly respectful fied. The couple are friends of the Paines, " 'Well, you're a petty capitalist,' " Os- of other people." Until Nov. 22, the inform- and Paine had introduced Oswald to them wald retorted. ant said, Paine was a high-spirited fellow during the meeting. "The way he said it riled me just a bit," who played the guitar and sang a lot, folk This is what happened, as it is remem- the informant said. "It was very contemp- songs and classical music such as Handel's bered by the informant: tuous. . . . I just sputtered for a few min- "Messiah." utes. I disliked this man unfairly. He be- Although they have been besieged with Paine had told the couple that his es- lieved this, and it's his right to believe it." callers and questions, the Paines have not tranged wife Ruth and he had befriended fled into privacy since the assassination. Mrs. Oswald, and that Oswald had visited The talk turned to other subjects. Is it "I guess we all have to face the fact," Mrs. at Mrs. Paine's house over weekends to see not true that Americans have more civil Paine says, "that we were associated with Mrs. Oswald, who was staying there. Paine liberties than Russians? the informant asked Oswald. "'Very definitely, the man is the man who killed the President." had told the couple that Oswald had defect- After his wife took in Mrs. Oswald and ed to Russia and was a Marxist. freer here than in Russia,' " Oswald re- sponded. her child, Paine had about four long con- The informant and his wife went to the The subject of civil rights and President versations with Oswald, at dinnertimes and A.C.L.U. meeting as guests, also. They were Kennedy came up. In connection with civil the night after the A.C.L.U. meeting. rankled by the way Oswald made his point rights, Oswald said, " 'I think Kennedy is "When I first met him, he was very eager against Gen. Walker during the open dis- doing a good job.' " The informant believed to talk," Paine said. •"He said no one at cussion. this was an exact quote. work wanted to talk about politics. Further along, he didn't support his arguments very "It got me that he was sticking in a dirty "That was the nearest thing to an ex- little comment—needling people. It wasn't well. . . . I think he really hadn't met, peo- clamation in the conversation. When he ple who were keen and who would try to a violent sharpness, it seemed like a subtle said 'good,' he had emphasis on the word, sift evidence and find the truth of the mat- seed for prejudicial sharpness," the inform- 'good,' " the informant continued. ant said. "It wasn't loud, it was the way he ter." "I thought he was impressive. I feel that He had a large vocabulary, but didn't use clipped his words. It had a sarcastic under- he had his mind made .up and he had a tone," his wife remarked. it properly; he wasn't intellectual, although closed mind and nothing could change the he might have been potentially. The Paines This couple, Oswald, Paine, and another way he thought it was. . . . He was good at agree that he did not read books at the man who listened most of the time but put argument and debate. He was cool. He had Irving house, despite the published reports in a few comments, composed the group as very, very good control of the English lan- that he was a reader. He watched TV a lot, the informant and Oswald squared off. guage. His expression was good. His con- football games, for instance; he especially Paine, who later said he knew what was trol was good. . . . He didn't seem violent liked shoot-'em-up westerns, Mrs. Paine going to happen, left the group as the argu- to me. He was very calm about expressing said. ment began. himself." "His discourse was not logical," Paine "We right quick came to the pros and As they left the hall at Southern Method- said. "When it got down to smaller exam- cons of communism versus capitalism," the ist University where the meeting had been ples, he didn't enter into it. . . I don't informant said. "I said to him, 'I know that held, the informant said to his friend Paine, think he had any expectation to find an you have communistic tendencies.' He inter- "Michael, we're going to have to set up this explanation that was different from the one jected, 'I am a Marxist.' It left me with the boy in business. We might convert him." that he accepted. . . . impression that it was decidedly different. Laughing, Oswald tossed back, "The "He had no program that I was aware of, —Of course, Stalinist, communist, Marxist money might corrupt me.' " or no ideas of how to modify the system .. . —to me he's a commie. . . • into a better one by evolution, or progres- "He was arguing the capitalists are guilty ALMOST EVERYONE in the sive, or small steps. Neither did he describe of exploiting the worker. He said it was a country believes that less than a month what his goals would be, what kind of a crime for the capitalists to exploit the later this haughty, dogmatic young man society or world he would like to have. . . . workers. . . . It seemed to me at one time took careful aim and fired three times, "He had to take everything in a big lump. I had argued him finally into a corner. . . . until the President lay slain in his car. What There were no partial applications of one- I said, 'You mean to tell me that in Russia, kind of man was Oswald ?—How did he self. It's a youthful idea," Paine said. they don't exploit the worker ?—the state think? No one can answer better than Mi- "It was the simplicity of his thinking, the doesn't?' He said, 'Yes, they do. It's worse chael Paine, who talked about him reflec- starkness of his principles, that made me than here.' " tively for three hours in the Irving home think that somebody who enjoyed eating from which Oswald is believed to have tak- or enjoyed anything couldn't be so obsessed Oswald said either that in Russia there or wouldn't take such pleasure in empty is not a true communism, or that there is en his Italian rifle to work on the fatal morning. principles." not a perfect communism there. Paine strikes one as a gentle, intellectual "I thought possibly I might convert the Quaker who responds to others sensitively rascal. But he said, 'But still, what you're O SWALD HAD FEW VAL- and takes care to avoid doing anything that UES. "He did feel the injustice of the ex- doing in your society, it's not a crime to would hurt anyone's feelings. He attended, exploit the worker,' " the informant re- ploitation of man by man, which I thought called. Oswald alternately referred to he emphasized because it was something he Americans or U.S. society as "we" and as found in Marx, and explained what he felt "your society." A Note on Parentheses the world had done to him. . . . "When I asked him why the country had Oswald's antagonist then offered himself Once again, I have had the problem of to be changed or something, he as an example of a capitalist: he said a cou- wishing to avoid, in the Observer's cover- said that in the capitalistic system it's based on the ex- ple of craftsmen work for him part-time age of the assassination, any rewrites of ploitation of man by man. When I first met for $3 an hour, and they work only when the voluminous published accounts. There- they want to and pretty much as they want him, it was apparent to me that he was fore, a simple strategem has been adopted, aware of his employer exploiting him—that to ; he figures his price for the products and observed throughout my reports this he was making him more money than he they make for him at the rate of $4 an hour issue from Dallas: any material that I have for their labor. was paying him. not myself obtained is enclosed in paren - "'Oh, you're taking the cream off the theses. —Ed. December 13, 1963 "I wonder if maybe he commun Ica led were not values to him, this to his employer [in his attitude at themselves, Paine said. work]. He apparently counted the goods On Nov. 4, national and value that his employer had—he men- A.C.L.U. received Os- tioned the cars or something that his em- wald's membership ap- ployer had. That was the only time that plication and $2 mem- he seemed to have any personal animosity bership fee. It has been toward an individual." presumed here that -he Oswald believed that malevolent forces picked up the form. at are conspiring against workers. ". . . I the Dallas A.C.L.U. didn't feel so discouraged about the evil of meeting. the world and therefore wasn't blaming Another remark the evil on intent as much as ignorance. Paine took as an indi- He felt it was malice," Paine said. cation Oswald was "out of it" occurred after "The only place we found agreement was the A.C.L.U. meeting. - our condemnation of the far right," in Oswald told Paine he Paine said. Oswald attended the meeting thought, on the basis addressed by Gen. Walker, Paine thought, of what a man had to "sort of try to get the pulse of American said to him in conver- society." sation at the meeting, "I think he was interested in the right that the man was a wing for its corroboration of what he was communist. reading." "I dismissed this in my mind as a pretty After early October, Paine said, he had Oswald was not bashful and thought him- inadequate description of a communist—. not given Oswald much of his attention. self able to cope with things well, Paine and if this is the way he finds his commu- "I had stopped talking to him, because I felt said. He was "not overly oppressed by the nists, he's still pretty lonely," Paine said. there was no growth. ruling bodies, shall we say—the ruling bod- "Also, he regarded all religions as alike. ies couldn't really get him down." Paine, too, remembers Oswald speaking . . . 'Religions are an apparatus of the state well of Kennedy on civil rights—"some- Paine could not recall why, but he did and the opiate of the masses.' . . . On the thing to the effect, 'I think he's doing a feel called upon, responding to Oswald, to question of religions, that was offensive to fairly good job on civil rights.' I had the argue with him against violence. me, because . . . within religions, religious impression," Paine said, "that of the peo- "I emphasized that so many of the values philosophy, there are all kinds of values ple on the political scene, he disliked Ken- which I considered most civilized and most expressed." nedy the least." precious were all diminished by a situation Oswald did not respond when Paine told of violence. He always fell silent. That was him he gave several hundred dollars a year typical of him, if he disagreed." HY WOULD HE KILL him to his church, the Unitarian, not because W he was forced to by the state, but because As to Russia, Mrs. Paine said, "I gath- then ? ered he'd been lonely there. He mentioned he wanted to. He had told Paine there were only 30 or going hunting with some friends. But I "He was always trying to put me in a 35 people in the book depository building. suppose it was the paucity of his descrip- category," Paine said. Oswald would say Paine speculated that he didn't like his tion of it." Although it was in their first to him that "I wasn't a Marxist, I wasn't a work, shuffling books around, and he start- conversation, a possibly relevant circum- socialist, I wasn't a liberal, I wasn't a con- ed looking out the window. "Here I really stance, Paine said, Oswald had cited restric- servative, I wasn't a Bircher, or a church- think it was, opportunity presented itself tions of his freedom in Russia, and had re- goer, or a non-churchgoer. He finally said, sented being assigned a job and assigned a for him to . ." 'Well, you just don't belong to any cate- place to live. He might not have had a strong motive, gory.' Paine . believed that Oswald wanted to be Paine said. "He didn't perceive the feelings ". . . it just meant [to him] that he didn't active in the U.S. communist movement, —all the values that people express in the have to bother with me. . . . I thought per- but was "out of it." realm of religion he didn't contemplate, or haps he didn't like to be harnessed with He received the Daily Worker, the com- didn't recognize, and the complexities of questions. After Oct. 1 I was polite to him munist paper from New York ; the Militant, life. . . . He didn't recognize shades and de- only for the sake of Marina," Oswald's wife. a Trotskyite paper; "Agitator" and "Agon- grees and complexities, and if you don't per- ok," Russian magazines, and the Minsk ceive that, I don't see how you can . . ." I LATER had a pang of sor- daily paper, Mrs. Paine said. Of the Daily Paine did not want to say, not being sure, row," said Paine. When he heard that Os- Worker, Paine said, "He told me that you that Oswald did not have much feeling. wald had joined A.C.L.U. and had indicated could tell what they wanted you to do by But, he said, "The only feeling that was he wanted A.C.L.U. to defend him if the reading between the lines. That was an in- common—he was polite in not showing it to defense lawyer for communists, John Abt, dication he wanted to be active in the move- me too much—was contempt for other peo- would not, Paine wondered. ment," but had to rely on guesswork as to ple. It's a kind of corollary of diSrespect. "He just really hadn't had much experi- what to do, Paine thought. . . . One goes with the other, I guess: . . . ence, and if I'd had longer and had persist- On Oct. 25, Paine said, he took Oswald ed, he might have found an avenue for con- to the A.C.L.U. meeting "to introduce him "He didn't express feelings for music— structive activity where he would join with to some of the values that were precious to he liked to bill and coo with Junie," his others," Paine said. me." On their leaving, Paine said, Oswald baby. "When I read a supposed eye witness "If he had had more of that in his youth, told him "that he could never join that report about this guy taking his time put- some place where he'd had_ a chance for organization, that it wasn't a political or- ting his reportedly well-aimed shots into people to listen to him, some place where ganization." From conversation afterward the President. . . ." he wouldn't have been rejected out of hand. in the car, Paine concluded that "it took Well, said Paine, "There aren't many Of course, I didn't think of that— I didn't him by surprise to find that I could care strong feelings [in him]. One with stronger think of saving someone. . . . about freedom of speech for its own sake feelings would require a stronger impulse. "That takes a big person—there, I wasn't and not for some ulterior purpose." Physically it's a very simple thing to pull big enough, I rejected him on my own." "He was quite aware of. freedom of a trigger. When you think of a presidential Then Michael Paine concluded: "I don't speech—he was quite aware of all his free- assassin, you think this must have been a know him well. Few people do, so it's only doms and wanted to use them," but they very strange person. I've seen many people relative to zero that it amounts to any- thing." 4 The Texas Observer who looked more inwardly tense than he." Was He a Loner or a Conspirator?

Where did Lee Oswald get the money for sian-speaking wife worked against him. mittee in New Orleans. Obviously relevant his reported trip to Mexico? How did he Mrs. Paine said. also in this general connection are the facts ti plan to finance the trips he has been re- of Oswald's defection to Russia and the ported contemplating to Europe and Rus- T HERE ARE documents that published accounts about his application sia, and then to Russia via Cuba, possibly may implicate the communist and pro-Cas- for documents to travel to Russia through with an excursion through Europe? tro left in Oswald's activities. On the face Cuba in Mexico City at the end of Septem- Accounts in Dallas of his work history of them, as they are described in Dallas, ber.) and income the last year and a half of his none of them implicates anyone but Oswald life indicate that he bounced from one job in the shooting of the President. O SWALD was reported to be in to the next and led the life of a harried, Bill Alexander of the district attorney's Russia from late in 1959 through mid-1962. penny-pinching common laborer of uncom- office says that when he accompanied offi- The financial record pieced together here mon mind. cers to Oswald's Dallas room about 3 begins around the first of June, 1962, when He may have been exigent to the point o'clock or 3:30 the afternoon of the assas- the Oswalds' landlord in Fort Worth re- of desperation six weeks or so before the sination, he saw letters among Oswald's members them moving into a one-bedroom assassination, when he found himself out papers on letterheads of the Communist duplex there. The rent was about $60 a of a job, his Texas unemployment compen- Party of America, the Worker in New York month; while the apartment was small, it sation exhausted, and his wife about to City. and the Fair Play for Cuba Commit- was clean. The Oswalds stayed there give birth to their second baby. tee. through September of last year. His wife's benefactress, Mrs. Ruth Paine, The same man signed the letter from the On a job application in Dallas this year, says that Oswald told her he was a Communist Party and the one from the Oswald said he had worked before at a Marxist, but never said he was a commu- Fair Play for Cuba Committee, as an offi- Fort Worth firm. (This company has since nist. Such a disposition toward radical dis- cial in both instances, Alexander said. The merged with another one; its business has affection from the society, combined with "big letter"—three pages, typed and single- to do with welding. A division manager his doing so poorly in jobs and finances, spaced—was the one from the Cuba com- says Oswald worked there about 12 weeks, could have coalesced into a motive for his mittee, telling Oswald how to organize a probably from July to September as a shooting of the President. local Cuba committee and "conduct activi- sheet metal helper for less than $1.50 an hour.) Of course, there are many questions, and ties to avoid 'nosy neighbors,' " Alexander much more evidence that can bear on this said. The contents of the other letters were A man named Ernest C. Koerner, who question. But the financial evidence does not significant, he said. is presently very upset about all this, and not now appear, on the basis of what I've Justice of the Peace David Johnston, who speaks of finding out who this nation's found here, to sustain a conspiracy theory. arraigned Oswald, accompanied the officers enemies are, and taking up our guns again, lived in a duplex behind the Oswalds and Mrs. Paine said Oswald didn't tell her or on this search, too. He saw an American- made address book that he said contained worked at a large retail store in Fort his wife about his reported trip to Mexico Worth. this fall, but she speculated, on the basis quite a few writings in Russian and English Koerner said that the Oswalds had no of his habits as they are known to her, that and some other languages, possibly includ- he would have hitch-hiked to Laredo from ing Spanish. A map of Dallas showing the visitors that he saw, and frequently argued loudly in a foreign tongue. Occasionally New Orleans and then traveled to Mexico trajectory of the bullet that killed the presi- they went walking, with Oswald walking City by bus, which is a notoriosly cheap dent was also found on this search, John- far to the front of his wife; they had no mode of transporation. ston said. Alexander said that on the fly page of car, Koerner said. (Thereupon the Mexican government an- the address book, Red Square in Moscow Koerner related an incident that suggests nounced in Mexico City that contrary to appeared to have been drawn in ; but he Oswald was what is sometimes called earlier reports, Oswald did not drive to was not sure that was what it was. Lt. "cheap." Mexico City_, but took a bus into the in- E. L. Cunningham of the forgery bureau terior, and lived so frugally, he could have One day Koerner gave Oswald a discount saw John B. Connally's name in the book. slip that could be credited on the purchase made the whole inside Mexico, food and all, Detectives B. L. Senkel and F. L. Turner for $30.) of a TV set in the store where Koerner said they saw Fair Play for Cuba handbills worked. Oswald was curt about this at first, "He was a person to save money," Mrs. among the papers; Senkel reported seeing but when he understood what the slip was, Paine said. If, as reported, but not con- a large picture of Castro, enclosed in clear he told Koerner he had just bought a TV firmed, he had $150 stashed at Mrs. Paine's plastic. that day, but it wasn't working well, so in Irving, it might be relevant that Mrs. Other information would indicate that he would take it back the next day and Paine said the Oswalds had planned to papers of Oswald's found in the Irving buy another one on the discount slip. move Mrs. Oswald out of Mrs. Paine's, and home of Mrs. Paine included a letter on Koerner said that the next day he saw take an apartment of their own, after Communist Party of America stationery Oswald carrying the boxed-up TV he had Christmas. thanking Oswald for "photographic work." bought out of his house, presumably to turn "He tipped only five cents to that cab It can be reported from Irving that his ef- it in and buy another one on discount. driver [after the assassination]. A man fects there included letters and photograph- The Oswalds' landlord told a newsman trying to leave a trail wouldn't usually do ic negatives. Officers could not read some that on occasion Oswald was late paying that, but I think he couldn't stand to pay of the letters because of the language they his rent, and that the Oswalds left without any more," she said. were in. giving notice and with about $30 rent and "I thought he felt insecure in jobs. He (New York newspapers have reported some utility bills unpaid. lost jobs, and he wanted to save money, for that the Fair Play for Cuba Committee ad- Moving from Fort Worth to Dallas, Os- fear of being out of work." He felt that his mits having received five letters from Os- having been to Russia and having a Rus- wald, recounting his activities for the corn- December 13, 1963 5 wald went to work late in October, 1962, A slender woman with good features, New Orleans, he had scouted around Hous- for a Dallas printing firm, which hired him Mrs. Paine speaks rapidly and with percep- ton for a job without success and had been on referral from the Texas Employment tion and decision, and answers questions looking around in Dallas the last few days. Commission. headlong. She is sensitive against words As for his trip to Mexico—which reports He was paid $1.50 an hour, the secretary- like "charity" and "indigent," preferring published here state occurred between the treasurer of the firm thinks he remembers. kinder terms. time he left New Orleans and the time he This official did not ask him his previous Her home the morning I interviewed her arrived in Dallas—"he never breathed a work experience, because "he said he was about Oswald's money was still a shambles word of that to me or to his wife," Mrs. let out of the Marines. We put lots of boys from two searches and a week's neglect. Paine said. on who are just out of . the service." Books were strewn about a bedroom table "The Texas Employment Commission (I noticed War and Peace), and statues of B ECAUSE of a question of time, sent him as a young veteran with a wife Mercury and one she thought was Jason Mrs. Paine doubts a report from Alice, that and child, eager to go work and make a were in evidence. Saturday Review and Oswald was trying to get a job there on place for himself in the world. That's all Harper's . .. pastoral scenes on the walls Oct. 4. Alice could be on a route from Mexi- we knew," says the president of this com- . . . two golden eagles with stars around co to Dallas. their bases .. , a doll on the couch and the pany. On the phone from Dallas that day, Os- Samuel Ballen of Dallas, a Republican daughter watching the TV western . . . wash on the line out back, a rusted toy car, wald asked that Mrs. Paine pick him up and petroleum economist, interviewed Oswald drive him to Irving, but his wife refused for a job for about an hour and a half at a a skiff upended . . . dishes in the sink and Wheaties on the drainboard. him this, explaining that Mrs. Paine was time Ballen places at around last Decem- still weak from having given blood to the ber or January. Apparently Oswald was county hospital, an act having to do with looking for another job while he was work- ON MAY 8, Oswald telephoned Mrs. Oswald's care there. ing at the printing firm, perhaps knowing from New Orleans and told the women he had landed a job, with a photoengraving Mrs. Paine said Oswald therefore hitch- that he was not being well received there. hiked to Irving. This "indicates his use of "I would have had the feeling that he establishment near the French Quarter and the Mississippi River and that his pay was money," she said. was at the stage of destitution," Ballen said The Dallas Time-Herald has reported of Oswald at the time. "He was dressed $1.50 an hour, Mrs. Paine said. Mrs. Paine drove Mrs. Oswald to New Orleans and was that Oswald received small sums of money very, very modestly, not dirty, but very "ranging up to $10 or possibly $20 at a modestly. their guest for a few days in what she describes as their very modest, $60 or $70 time" through Western Union from an un- "I would have the impression that this a month apartment. known party during several months before would be a guy who could travel from place the assassination. The paper also said Os- to place with very few funds. He could During the summer the women ex- changed letters; in one of them at the end wald sent a telegram a few days before. travel from one end of the country to the the President's murder. other, and people would be buying his of August, Mrs. Oswald said her husband was out of work again. Mrs. Paine relates Such facts could certainly qualify or meals. I had the feeling . . . that he had no contravene other indications of his finan- money." that after vacationing in the East, she re- turned to Texas through New Orleans, vis- cial situation. Meanwhile, the printing firm decided to iting the Oswalds approximately from Sept. An official in charge of the Western let him go. "We tried to teach him to make 20 through 23. Union here denied knowledge of such camera prints . . . he didn't take any pride "I think they were definitely feeling the messages. "I absolutely know nothing about in his work, or he didn't care," the com- pinch of not having an income," Mrs. Paine anything like this in this office," said A. I. pany's financial officer said. He was given said. "I did feel charged by him to get the English, assistant operations director. notice at the end of last March and fired cheapest medical care" for his wife's child- "I would say that their story is withopt April 5 or 6, 1963, the president stated. birth. He gave Mrs. Paine a check he had foundation, because our people wouldn't Mrs. Paine met the Oswalds at a party saved from his printing firm job, but as it give 'em the information," the Saturday late in February, 1963, she said. She had worked out, Mrs. Oswald was eligible for manager, George Warren, also said. The the impression that Oswald became eligible free Dallas County care, and Mrs. Paine paper's city editor', Ken Smart, said, "We're for unemployment compensation under returned it to him, she recalled. standing by our story." Texas law about last May. Last Oct. 4 Oswald applied fora job at Mrs. Paine continued that Oswald first Mrs. Paine now suspects that Oswald re- a second printing firm in Dallas, located took a $7-a-week room in Dallas for a week ceived jobless comp checks from Texas on Industrial Boulevard, which might have or so, but wanted TV and kitchen privileges authorities throughout his twenty weeks been regarded as a possible route for the and moved to his room on Beckley, where in New Orleans last summer, although he President's motorcade. The president of the the rent was $8 a week. He visited in Mrs. worked there during that period. firm where Oswald had worked five and a Paine's home weekends. His Russian-speaking wife was several half months starting a year earlier re- Mrs. Paine remembers that Oswald's last months pregnant and suggested to him that called: unemployment comp check arrived the he go to New Orleans, his birthplace, to "This application that this fella made to weekend before he went to work Oct. 15 for look for work, Mrs. Paine says. She relates this other company listed us as a previous the Texas School Book Depository in details of his setting out that seem to be employer. Their superintendent called me. Dallas, from the building of which the symtomatic of a penuriousness: I checked and found out that the reason President was shot. The terminal check Mrs. Paine called on the Oswalds about he was discharged was that he was not was smaller than usual, apparently because April 24 and found them packed for New competent in his work. Oswald was entitled only to part of a full Oileans. She took them to the bus station, "Nobody had had any real liking or dis- period's benefits at the end, and this "dis- where Oswald bought tickets for himself liking for him. Somebody mentioned he appointed him," she said. and his wife; but Mrs. Paine volunteered had heard he had a Daily Worker. So, just Oswald wanted "any kind of job, I think, that Mrs. Oswald could stay with her at shooting off at the mouth, as I think of it quite sincerely. He was very definitely dis- her home in Irving until he found a job and now, I said, 'Hell, for all I know, he may be turbed that last week [of his unemploy- sent for his wife. a Communist.' Damn if it doesn't look like ment benefits] . . . no job, no prospects, baby due any minute. He was relieved that The Oswalds accepted her offer, and Os- he was." wald cashed in the ticket he had bought for "He indicated he might be a Communist at least his wife had a place to stay." his wife. He also gave Mrs. Oswald about on the back of the application," said the When he got the job, he did not offer to $10 for her living expenses, and did not executive who had made the remark. contribute to his wife's support, and "she send any more, Mrs. Paine said. "It lasted Oswald wasn't hired. was living as my guest," Mrs. Paine said. a little while," Mrs. Paine said mildly. That very day, Oct. 4, Mrs. Paine said, "I felt he was very pleased to receive my Oswald telephoned his wife at Mrs. Paine's generosity, it was another way of saving B The Texas Observer in Irving and related that upon leaving money." The depository paid Oswald $1,25 an lunch. "He had very little money," Mrs. work, he may have known the President hour, $50 a week, which worked out to just Paine said. was coming, but he couldn't have known more than $108 each half-month, or a He asked her, she said, not to tell hos- the route. little more than $100 after deductions, Roy pital authorities he had gotten a job, ap- "He impressed me all along that he was Truly, an official of the firm, said. Oswald parently fearing there would be a charge just anxious to go to work for his family." received such paychecks Oct. 31 and Nov. for the child's birth if authorities knew. 15. Truly said there was overtime work to but when they asked her if he had, she He was not a neat dresser, but he wasn't be done, but Oswald did not ask to be let told them yes, and the fact did not affect sloppy. "He was that type of fella, if he do any of it, nor did he ask for wage ad- Mrs. Oswald's eligibility for free care. didn't have any money, he could hitch-hike vances, as some of the other workers did. The baby. the Oswalds' second girl, was across the country," Truly said. born Oct. 20 at Parkland hospital, where According to Will Fritz, captain of the the President and his accused assassin died homicide and robbery bureau of the Dallas A COUPLE OF TIMES after a the next month. police, Oswald had just $13 in his pocket weekend in Irving, Oswald went to work at "I still feel like he was just hunting a when he was cornered and captured in the the depository Monday with a packed job," Truly said. "When he did come to Texas Theater.

The Killer of the Accused Killer

The way Jack Ruby seemed to people he just lost his head—as an American he tion" for dogs and once drove by Silver- who knew him in Dallas depended on what just had to shoot the man that shot the man's house with six• little dachshunds in kind of people they were, and which way President," Silverman said. the back of his car. Apparently he wished they knew him, it seems. "I'm convinced it was not premeditated," he had children; he suffered "a tremendous Ruby was a member of the large con- the rabbi said. "He saw crowds, he saw emotional instability," Silverman contend- servative Jewish congregation in Dallas, people around, he saw this man, this as- ed, illustrating this with this story: and he ran a strip tease joint, the Carousel, sassin, the man had a smirk on his face, On Jewish New Year's, one of the high across the street from the Adolphus. as if he was proud of what he did." holy days, about two months ago, Ruby He was always befriending and trying Ruby told him, the rabbi said, " 'I kept called the rabbi, "crying on the telephone," to befavor policemen and newspapermen, thinking of Mrs. Kennedy coming back for because he and his sister had had a spat, and a lawyer told me that one day he saw and asked the rabbi to intervene for him him beating another man until blood flowed the trial, and the poor children.' " Ruby never mentioned to Silverman, as an ele- with her. He did, and the next day they had and the lawyer stepped between them. made up. And according to one of the men who ment in his motivation, indignation against will prosecute him for killing Lee Oswald, communists, to which Ruby's defense Ruby is, not exactly a status-seeker, which nobody can doubt that he did, Ruby lawyer, Tom Howard, has been quoted but a seeker of "the plaudits of the tried to create a tough-guy atmosphere alluding. crowd," Silverman said. Raised in abject around his burlesque place and his night "It would be awfully convenient if he poverty in a tough part of Chicago, and club, the Vegas, at the same time he was (Ruby) represented the right wing, but I'm failing to finish high school, he lusted after tipping off the police about questionable afraid it just wasn't that way," Silverman notoriety, and "he wanted to be a martyr," characters who might float into them. said. Silverman said. "To me, he was very shallow intellectual- People have been writing him, congratu- No one I talked to (or read about, for ly. I don't think he knew the difference lating him on his deed and even sending that matter,) as to Ruby alleged that he between a Republican and a Democratic him money for his legal defense. "His mind had any politics except patriotic fervor platform. All he knew was he loved Ken- is not working," Silverman said, citing, as about presidents. (The Dallas News and the nedy, he loved Eisenhower, he loved every an example, his request that the rabbi see Fort Worth Star-Telegram rode for a while president—it was a symbol of his Ameri- that instead of sending money to help in with the happenstance that .a man named ca," Silverman said. his defense, his admirers buy advertise- Jack Rubinstein, Ruby's name before he "It's incredible that there could be any ments in their local newspapers saying had it legally changed, was identified as a connection between Ruby and the commu- "that they approve of what he's done and communist in some old Washington files, nists, Ruby and Oswald, or Ruby and the that he's done the American thing." but the suspicion they were the same man right wing," Silverman said. was blown out of the tub by statements Silverman saw Ruby at services Friday from investigators in Washington who said A related conclusion is stated here also night after the assassination. "You could they knew.) by the first trial assistant in the district at- see tears. He was very disturbed, you could torney's office, Bill Alexander, to whom a see," he said. Ruby told him he had been large role in Ruby's prosecution will be as- very upset in conversations with his sister RUBY AS A SAYER of prayers signed, if Ruby is tried. "As of this point, and by watching TV about the assassina- was well known to his rabbi, although not I don't know of anything to connect the guy tion: that he had closed his own two clubs as well known as he would have been if with Oswald," Alexander said. and asked other operators why they did he had gone to church more than two or Ruby was not deeply religious, but was not close theirs. three times a year. sentimentally so, Silverman said. He did not Ruby was most concerned what people, When Rabbi Hillel E. Silverman of attend Sunday services, but came to church and what the rabbi, particularly, thought Shearith Israel visited Ruby in his cell here, on two or three religious holidays a year. of him. "I tried to comfort him, first of Ruby broke down crying "every three min- When, four or five years ago, his father all," Silverman said. utes," and at one point, when the question died, he attended 20-minute memorial ser- He told Ruby he had deprived the gov- of his psychiatric examination came up, vices at the synagogue every morning and ernment of an opportunity to bring Oswald he looked to Dr. Silverman and said, "Tell evening for eleven straight months; this is to trial, and this was not right. "It didn't me, am I insane?" when Silverman came to know him. occur to him. It wouldn't occur to a man Silverman has visited with him twice "He's a member of this congregation. like him," Silverman said. since he was locked up. I'm not proud of that fact," Silverman said. Speculation was abroad, too, Silverman "All he remembers is seeing a crowd of "It's a dastardly crime by a person who told Ruby, that he had some tie-up with people, and Oswald; and Oswald was just was obviously deranged." leering, there was a smirk on his face, and A bachelor, Ruby had a "morbid attrac- December 13, 1963 7 Oswald or Communists. He quoted Ruby : was he placing an ad in the Dallas Morning "He'd beat up people, thinking that would " 'I don't know these people. I have no Com- News at the time of the President's motor- make him a name," and on one occasion a munist background. I'll swear on this Bible cade in Dallas. patron bit a piece of his little finger off. that you gave me.' " This old associate of Ruby's jeered the Weinstein said. "He was in a terrible emotional state," interpretation that Ruby could have been "I don't speak to him. I haven't spoken Dr. Silverman said. "Every three minutes actuated by distress about the assassination. a word to him in two years," Weinstein he would start to cry, and then he would "Jack Ruby is for Jack Ruby, - he said. said. He's "very arrogant. very quick tem- say that he did the patriotic thing. He John Wilson, an attorney, said he wit- pered," and "not my caliber of person." thought he was doing the American thing nessed Ruby beating up another man in a Weinstein agreed with Alexander's opin- . . . this guy has a kind of a . . . hero com- bar in downtown Dallas about a year ago. ion that Ruby was open-handed with police- plex." "A guy ran in and started for the phone. men in the hope of getting favors from He had read a column about him by Vic- He was followed in by Ruby, who took a them, and also out of a genuine liking for tor Reisel in which Reisel discussed some couple of pokes at him.... Nobody did any- policemen. Chicago underground characters. "He said thing, and I saw blood begin to splatter, so "He did know a lot of police. He knew 'It's fantastic. I don't know these people,' " I went in between them. He had cut him up 'em all. He curried their favor all the Silverman said. pretty badly." time," said the club operator. Wilson identified the man he said Ruby Abe Weinstein, proprietor of the Colony was hitting as Frank Ferraro, and said Club, where Candy Barr used to writhe, RUBY'S RECORD with the Dal- Ferraro told him be had been staying with says he does not know Ruby, other than las police has been spotty. According to Ruby, and Ruby had been good to him, so that he ran a club next door to his. police information, he was accused in 1949 he did not want to cause him any trouble. Several Dallas people who met Ruby of disturbing the peace; in 1953, of carry- The police who came, Wilson said, gave casually said he had made a fairly good im- ing a concealed weapon ; and in 1954, of Ferraro, not Ruby, the hard time, "because pression on them. One said he was not a technical liquor offense, permitting con- they knew Ruby, I guess." ostentatious; another, that he was almost sumption of beer after hours. Later Ferraro wrote Wilson from Mil- shy. Yet a third saw him as "a typical Chi- No disposition is shown of the 1949 case ; waukee, asking him to help him find coun- cago fella down here to run a night club." Texas law permits a businessman to carry sel in connection with the matter, but Wil- In his two clubs here now, the waitresses a gun if he is going home from his place son told him this would be difficult with- and bartenders keep a look-out for dis- of business with money on him ; the liquor him so far away, and the matter was guised photographers trying to sneak pic- case should not have been filed in the first dropped. tures from under their suit coats, and place, because no one saw anyone con- assure the reporters who make themselves suming the unfinished bottle of Schlitz in BARNEY WEINSTEIN, proprie- known that Jack Ruby was all broken up question, according to information here. tor of the Theater Lounge, said Ruby fever- over the assassination and had no connec- This year he was arrested in connection ishly sought publicity. tion with Oswald. (Except there was one en- with a case of simple assault ; nothing came "He does everything he can to get known. tertainer who said he saw Oswald in one of of the matter. He has no limits to just what he would do the clubs, he thought). At the Carousel, in "Jack blew in here in 1947," Alexander to get known," Weinstein said. Once Ruby between tedious and tiresomely long delays says. He ran a couple of lounges "wide complained to the top editor of a Dallas caused by an emcee who makes wisecracks open" for a while, but then decided to co- daily, wanting to know "why he couldn't and operates a puppet, stripper ladies dis- operate with the police while maintaining get more publicity," according to Wein- play their flesh, except for two bangles and a tough-guy atmosphere to attract custom- stein. a creeping G-string. ers, Alexander continued. "You can't exactly say he was a stool pigeon, but if a character drifted into his place, he would call the police," Alexander said. Nightly one or two police cars would stop by his place. Alexander thought Ruby Some Questions had probably "avoided some problems" be- cause of his cooperativeness. Ruby would make a grand entrance at the boxing matches after the preliminaries, There is reason to believe, it can be re- and that Kennedy looked around after it, when the lights were up, and would invite ported from here, that the federal report on before he was hit by a second shot and police and newspapermen to his place for the assassination is to state, (or will have began to slump. free beer, Alexander said. stated, if it has come out by the time this There has been speculation how the is published,) that all the bullet fragments President could have been shot in the front Alexander confirmed that Ruby was in the hall Friday at a time when Oswald was recovered after the shooting came from the of the neck by a sniper behind his car. How- ever, Dr. Malcolm Perry, the physician who brought through it. "I saw him," Alexander rifle that was presumed to be Oswald's. said. Thus, had he been of a mind, Ruby (Published leaks say it will report that treated the President's neck wound, says could hhve tried to shoot Oswald Friday Oswald acted alone.) here that the small puncture wound he saw instead of Sunday, when he did shoot him. Nevertheless, three questions. why Sen. on a midline below the Adam's apple could Ralph Yarborough, D.-Tex., smelled gun- have been caused by a bullet entering or How did he get in ? "He's got a pocketful by the fragment of a bullet exiting. of credentials," Alexander speculated. As powder nearly all the way to Parkland Dr. Robert Shaw, the physician who to Ruby's motive in shooting Oswald, Alex- Hospital after the President was shot ; how ander, one of his prosecutors, said, "I think to make allowances for, or discount, cer- treated Gov. Connally, said that the doc- tors here really cannot say for sure how he thought he was gonna be a national tain other things witnesses have told some many bullets were fired. For instance, in hero." The contention Ruby was temporari- of us reporters; and where Jack Ruby, ly insane is "pure baloney" in the judgment Oswald's killer, was at the time of the Gov. Connally, no metal was found in his most serious wound, only part of a bullet of the Dallas prosecutor, who had just spent shooting of the President, had been causing was found in his wrist, and his thigh $25 for two books on psychology. a little, but not much concern here at the A club operator who has known Ruby Observer's press time. wound was caused by a sliver of bullet Four witnesses who were close by during metal. for years adopts an attitude as skeptical as "We can explain all of his wounds by the Alexander's toward the construction, of the shooting, for instance, indicate that which Dr. Silverman is convinced, that they all thought at the time that the first trajectory of one bullet," but need to use Ruby acted in temporary insanity. The club shot came, not from the book depository other information to conclude that all three man asked why, if Ruby so loved Kennedy, building where Oswald was, but from some- of his wounds were caused by one bullet, place closer to the Triple Underpass. Two Dr. Shaw said. 8 The Texas Observer of them contend that the first shot missed, Dr. Perry mentioned the possibility, not precluded by his own examination, that spent some time checking cars on the lot, there was a wound in the back of the Presi- he said. WHERE was Jack Ruby at this dent's neck, and Dr. Shaw said he had He caught the smell of gunpowder there. time? he said: "a faint smell of it—I could tell it heard that there was. Such a fact would He has given as his main motive , for ease the befuddlement caused by the dif- was in the air . . . a faint odor of it." The shooting Oswald, his intense indignation ficulty of imagining Mr. Kennedy being wind was blowing toward him from the about Kennedy's death. He is not represent- shot in the front of the neck by a sniper building 350 or 400 yards away, and he ed as having gone to the motorcade to behind him. guessed that the gunpowder smell had been watch the President pass by. blown down into the area from the window. He could have easily done so if he had BUT THE SUSPICION there wanted to, because he was just four blocks just might have been a second sniper was FOUR WORKERS in the society away, in the advertising offices of the difficult entirely to allay. section of the Dallas Morning News were Dallas News, during the noon hour when Some officials knowledgeable about standing about mid-way between the de- the President was shot. guns agree here that gunpowder smells pository and the cement arch. They were At 12:10 p.m. the News reported, Ruby emanate from a weapon, not from its fired therefore in an excellent position to see walked into the paper's display advertising bullets' place of impact. Sen. Yarborough, what happened. Although one of them office to place an ad. According to Donald who said at Parkland hospital, while wait- wrote what she saw in the Dallas News of Campbell, an advertising representative, _ ing for confirmation of the President's Nov. 23, naming her three co-workers, they "he (Ruby) was all wound up. He remarked death, that "You could smell powder on agreed late last week that none of them had what a 'lousy business' he was in, but said, our car nearly all the way here," is a been interviewed by the F.B.I. 'if I'd get in some other business I'd have hunter and ran with a gun as a boy in the same headaches, or maybe more of They are Ann Donaldson, 26, News them.' the East Texas woods. society editor ; Mary 0. Woodward, 24, the Oswald and his rifle were reportedly six paper's food consultant; Maggie Brown, 22, Campbell confirmed that he left the of- stories high and perhaps 75 yards behind a society copy editor; and Aurelia Alonzo, fice about 12:20 p.m. leaving Ruby there. the President's car at the time of the shoot- 24, a society reporter. All are single. They Campbell said no one in the office had come forward as to Ruby's whereabouts between ing. Yarborough' was in the third car of had decided to use their lunch hour to 12:20 and 12:30 or so p.m.; but of course the motorcade, with then Vice President watch the President pass by. , and Mrs. Johnson. Some officials questioned there could have been some who saw Ruby Where they were standing is important then that Campbell did not know about. here could not explain why Sen. Yar-• to the accounts they gave. They were just borough would smell gunpowder. Georgia Mayor, a secretary in the ad- about midway between the depository vertising department, said, "I saw him at Dr. Perry said, "I'm inclined to discount building and the arch. The building was on 12:30 or 12:35. I came back from lunch olfactory sensations at a time when some- their left and the arch on their right; between 12:30 and 12:35. He was sitting thing like this is happening. As well as il- behind them, as they were of course facing there in that chair," by her desk. lusions of sight, there are olfactory illu- the street. sions which occur." The exact time of the President's shoot- The first shot, Miss Woodward wrote in ing may not be known. One source here Other details suggest either the confu- the News, was "a horrible, ear-shattering says it was perhaps 12:25 or 12:27; some sions, in senses and in emotions, which pre- noise coming from behind us and a little to reports say 12:30. Based on a remark that vailed at that assassination scene, or the the right." This would mean it came from is reported to have been made over the possibility that the first shot came from the arch or from behind the fence beside motorcade intercom just before the shoot- nearer the underpass, and not from the it, under the oak tree; not from the de- ing, the time was 12:31. building where Oswald was. pository. Miss Woodward stood by her account. Three. Dallas officers, traffic patrolmen HE FACTS, of course, have The President's car, had passed them T J. M. Smith and W. E. Barnett and accident been promised to a candid world, and investigator E. L. Smith, were stationed at when the first shot sounded out, said Miss should, but may never, answer all the ques- the bend from Houston onto Elm near the Brown. The sound, she said, "came to my tions. depository building, Patrolman Smith said. right. It was, you know, down by the Presi- For instance, the two women's belief There were no other officers between them dent. The sound was down there. That's they saw Mr. Kennedy look around after and the underpass, but were two officers what I heard, right down there around him. the first shot suggests not merely the possi- That's where we first thought it was." patrolling the trestle over the underpass, bility there was a second sniper, about according to Barnett. Officer Barnett said two officers were which great skepticism is justified; it sug- Patrolman Smith, interviewed while he patrolling the trestle, and no one could have gests much more plausibly another and was standing traffic duty on a downtown shot down onto the President's party from more plausible possibility, that the first street corner, recalled that he could not behind the railing on the trestle without shot missed. figure out where the shots were coming being seen by the officers. An officer is known to have examined, from. "He had just passed by and smiled at us," twenty minutes after_ the shooting, a "A woman came up to me in hysterics. Miss Alonzo said. "The sound seemed to be chipped place on the Main Street curb near She said 'They're shooting at the President coming from above our heads. I wasn't the Triple Underpass, on a line from the from the bushes.' I just took off," he said. sure.—We looked up behind us. There are fatal window toward where the car passed. A cement arch stands between the deposi- some trees, there are some cement struc- He saw that it was a fresh chipping, and tory building and the underpass. On the tures. . . . I don't know whether I was perceived clear traces of lead. just confused," she said. underpass side of the arch, there is a fence The most reliable information in Dallas that lets through almost no light, and is Miss Donaldson said the four girls were as we left to put out this issue—a phrase neck-high; an oak tree behind the fence standing next to a lamp post, right in front that protects sources and glosses over a makes a little arbor there. A man standing of the man who took the 8mm films of the necessary indefiniteness, with the facts still behind the fence, further shielded by cars President's car during the shooting. She officially secret—is that the President was in the parking lot behind him, might have had seen her own group's picture in Life hit only once, and his neck injury was an had a clear shot at the President as his car Magazine, she said. exit, not an entry wound. began the run downhill on Elm Street Standing below the tree in front of the How, then, can Sen. Yarborough's, and toward the underpass. depository, and 50 or 70 yards from the car Officer Smith's, smelling gunpowder be ex- Patrolman Smith ran into this area. "I when it was hit, she said, the sound came plained? The gases ejected from the rifle found a lot of Secret Service men—I sup- from "somewhere behind me and then it muzzle could have carried that far, one wise pose they were Secret Service men—and sort of echoed all around." deputy sheriffs and plainclothes men," he old hand in Dallas law enforcement asserts. Misses Donaldson and Woodward attest R.D. said. He was so put off by what the woman that the first shot seemed not to hit anyone had said—he didn't get her name—that he in the President's car. December 13, 1963 9 nedy. And this coincidence illuminates the meaning of several newspaper cartoons, pre-eminent among them that of Bill Mauldin, which link the work and fate of The Funeral John Kennedy with that of Abraham Lin- coln. The determination with which these Jim Clark people waited to file past President Ken- nedy's bier was the greatest respect which Washington, D. C. along East Capitol Street. and the aimless they, at this dark hour, could pay him. During the winter Washington is cold, wandering became a determined march. Many had been close to the coffin as it wet, and grey. Bare, gnarled trees and the The people fell into a line, three or four passed up Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet they solemn white buildings are austere compan- abreast, that extended past Lincoln Park, remained to express individual feeling for ions of the wintry skies. This year, unlike some eleven blocks away. (Later in the the late President by visiting his bier at the three before, the grave landscape rep- chill, November night the line reached a the capitol. A feeling that whoever they resents not only a seasonal change along reported length of thirty-two blocks.) were, they had a responsibility to pay hom- the Potomac, but also a winter hour in the In the middle of Lincoln Park is a statue age to the man who, with such skill and determination, had been responsible for the experience of the Republic. of Abraham Lincoln. standing with his welfare of the nation for three years. My On Sunday and Monday, November 24 hand outstretched above . the kneeling fig- sentiments and, I believe, the sentiments and 25, 1963, the people of the capital and ure of a Negro. The Negro's chains are of most of the pe'ople were spoken by a thousands of others from throughout the newly broken: the manacles still bind his nation witnessed the late rites of John Fitz- wrists. Beneath the figures is the word: "bespectacled Negro" who, according to the Washington Star, said, "It's the last, gerald Kennedy. They were quiet, solemn, EMANCIPATION. The scene is reminiscent and observant. And by the hundreds of of a Protestant baptism, and the Negro least thing I could do for him." thousands these people paid what respects gazes upward, as one who has been freed The people who stood in line were mostly they could to the fallen President. from an original sin. It was fitting that the young. Many children had accompanied The first public ceremony was the re- people, a number of whom mentioned that their parents. About thirty to forty per moval of President Kennedy's body, resting they had been in the August 28 march for cent in line were Negroes. One Negro man, in a bronze, flag-draped casket, from the jobs and freedom, should file past the with two young children, asked me where White House to lie in state in the rotunda statue on the way to the bier of John Ken- I was from. Texas, I told him. His daughter,. of the capitol. As was done on the later oc- casions, the coffin was carried on a caisson pulled by six grey horses. It was followed by a black, riderless Arabian steed, signify- ing an ancient ritual, in which the spirit of the horse of a great leader accompanies him into the life hereafter. A military en- tourage led the procession, and the late President's family and associates in govern- ment followed in the wake of the cortege. From my viewpoint the most poignant scene was that of Robert Kennedy, look- ing constantly at the crowds through the open window of his limousine. It seemed he was trying to communicate to the peo- ple his understanding of the respect they were paying his brother, although recogniz- ing the futility of his effort in this most grievous hour. As the ceremonies in the rotunda began, the people who had lined the streets crowded toward the capitol, filling several blocks along the mall and the capitol grounds. Others had waited for the pro- cession in the park facing the capitol; and, as the ceremonies inside the rotunda took place, they could see the American flag in front of the capitol, symbolizing the senti- ments of the nation as it hung limply, at half-mast. When the speeches had ended and the dig- nitaries had left, the people began a mas- sive flow in one direction, then another, searching for an entrance to the capitol through which they might file past the bier of the President. They moved aimlessly, unsurely, like the masses in Sandburg's poem, as though asking, "Where to? What next?"

THEN THE WORD was passed that the line to the rotunda would form The writer, a student at the University of Texas from Carthage, went to Washing- ton for the funeral. 10 The Texas Observer about six or seven, looked up at me wide- by his example he gave to our generation eyed and asked, "Dallas ... Texas?" No, I As I WALKED PAST t he bier of a new meaning to political affairs, a fuller assured her. President Kennedy, my unbelief when I understanding of our responsibility as There were instances of humor which is first hea'rd of his death returned. How Americans. He did not so much teach, al- said to be common in civil rights demon- could he be there. in the coffin? Later, as though his words were compelling, as he strations. For example, before the line I thought about this moment, I sensed what revealed by his actions. The moment the reached a size of twelve abreast as we for me is the real meaning of John Ken- President was shot he was no more cou- neared the capitol, a Negro man told his nedy's tenure as leader of the United States. rageous than at thousands of other times wife; "After we have gone through the Because of his intense involvement in in the past three years. His courage was capitol, we're going to church." "Why?" Cold War diplomacy, civil rights legisla- not so much that of the final moment as she asked. A hazel-eyed Negro woman tion, and economic welfare for all Ameri- that which he called "the courage of life." walking with them answered, 'To pray and cans, the political process was identified This was the Kennedy style. The ultimate , get my feet warm." Other people commonly with one man, John Kennedy. But now that seen in the line were nuns, servicemen, and Kennedy is dead and the procedures of gov- respect we can give the fallen President is high school girls. ernment continue, we are able to see that to have such courage ourselves. Rep. Wright Contributes His Memories

This personal recollection from the having their breakfast. Besides, some of floor, the President before leaving for his President's last days and hours, including those people will probably need to be at suite took time to shake hands with the information that is of historical importance, work by 9:00, and it wouldn't be fair to young Latin-American girl who was operat- was conveyed to the Observer, at this jour- make them wait.' ing the elevator to thank her for her serv- nal's request, by Cong. Jim Wright of Fort "Characteristic, too, was the manner in ices to him. Worth. which he so unreservedly shared himself "On the way to Dallas there was some Writes Cong. Wright: with the people, voluntarily shaking hands conversation in which the President en- "The President, I felt, was at his very with long lines of the assembled throngs. gaged aboard the Presidential plane con- best. . . . He was smiling, relaxed, in char- When I went up in the elevator with him cerning the singular attitude of hostility acteristic good humor and obviously moved and Mrs. Kennedy Thursday evening and which had been demonstrated in Dallas on deeply by the spontaneity of the warm and arranged to come by the suite for him the occasions past to various public officials. demonstrative reception he was receiving following morning, I tried to express to the The President himself expressed no conclu- [in Texas]. First Lady our appreciation for her pres- sions. He seemed puzzled by the prevalent "En route to Dallas from Fort Worth, he ence. 'Thank you for doing this,' I said, Dallas attitude and asked questions of each expressed to me with obvious sincerity his 'You are putting up with a lot of pulling of us in an attempt to understand its gene- great appreciation for the enthusiastic re- and hauling.' Looking a little tired and dis- sis and cause. . . . ception he had received in my city. 'They heveled, she nevertheless managed to come "This was a great man indeed, and truly liked you, Mr. President,' I told him. 'I liked through with genuine warmth in her smile a fine human being. May his spirit live to them,' he grinned. as she replied, 'We enjoy doing it.' pervade our society." "Typical of him, I thought, was his deci- "When the elevator reached the eighth December 13, 1963 11 sion to speak first to the large crowd which assembled in the rain 'outside the Texas Hotel, prior to his scheduled appearance at the formal breakfast. This decision had been made on the evening before when we I ke VDSet Vet as a eittistmaS did not know that it would be drizzling and uncomfortable, but knew only that the pub- In many cases the Observer makes a very Name lic had been invited to be there at 8:45 in good Christmas gift, and a fairly inexpen- Address the morning. Some had suggested a change sive one. City, State in the schedule so as to let him speak first (Check here if you want us to sign your at the Chamber of Commerce Breakfast and The rates: for the first gift subscription, name to the gift card.) then to the crowd outside. He asked my $5; for the second one, $4.50; for the third thoughts on the matter and I urged that and for each subsequent gift subscription, Name he speak to the outside crowd first, since $4. You can send ten gift subscriptions for Address they would be there at the appointed hour $40. City, State and otherwise would have to wait. 'That's (Check here if you want us to sign your right,' he said, 'it wouldn't be right to keep We will send a straightforward, well- name to the gift card.) them waiting outside while others were printed gift announcement in color to each of the recipients, and we will hand-sign Name these with your name as the giver, if you Address so specify in the relevant place on the City, State forms below. El (Check here if you want us to sign your #rlytiz' name to the gift card.) Thank you. Since 1866 Please attach an extra sheet if necessary. TO: Sarah Payne, Business Manager, Texas The Place in Austin Observer, 504 W. 24th St., Austin, Texas This offer does not apply to renewals, except, of course, for renewals of previous et' . . . the students and the professors, Please send the Observer as a Christmas Christmas gift subscriptions. gift to the following people: the politicians and the lobbyists, dine Enclosed. . (No sales tax.) or drink beer in rather unfamiliar Name Signed: proximity." Willie Morris in Harper's. Address Name City, State 1607 San Jacinto Address El (Check here if you want us to sign your City, State GR 7-4171 name to the gift card.) (Adv.)

T about those Dallas statements," she added. "Everyone I've seen just twangs away how Distant Observations awful the assassination was for Dallas and —oh, yes—Kennedy. What are they going to say about this? I mean, the whole police force just standing there in those silly hats." Dallas from a Distance "About Oswald's death? Why, nothing. Dallas would never acknowledge a flaw in its very own police department. Nothing Harris Green that belongs to Dallas can be faulted. Os- wald, after all, came over from Fort Worth. He could be crazy. But inefficiency or out- New York City mattered." We closed the glum proceedings right callous stupidity in Dallas? Never. The slight boost in my reputation as an speculating on just how much due process Just wait." expert on all things Texan was about the this Oswald had left to him now that all Today, in its splendid coverage of every only positive thing that emerged over the the evidence had been made public before aspect of the President's funeral, the Times weekend of horrors that began with the even an indictment. Everyone agreed that quotes an 'editorial of the Dallas News. shootings of President Kennedy and Dallas he had damn little left. This said no blame or guilt is necessary— Patrolman J. D. Tippitt on Friday and "The Dallas police are trying to prove none at. all. "Our foundations are sound, ended Sunday when their accused assassin they're the best," I said. "Dallas will al- our leadership solid, our aspirations high." Lee H. Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby ways come first, no matter what. It's a I think it's safe to hazard my reputation while the Dallas police force stood around monstrous civic pride, founded more on as a prophet by predicting that Dallas will under their Stetsons, stonily avoiding any need than facts. A little thing like due never learn the lesson in tragic drama difect glance at the TV camera. process had damn well better move to one taught 2,500 years ago in Atehns, a city of At my office Friday, while secretaries side if it's impeding Dallas' march to prog- less than 600,000, that, without the help wept and editors and writers wandered ress." of Margo Jones or Paul Baker, produced from desk to desk or gathered in whisper- The Boston female phoned me Sunday to decent enough theatre dealing with the ing groups, I had been occasionally ap- tell me about Oswald. "You were right tragic flaw of pride—civic or otherwise. proached and asked, not too truculently, just exactly what kind of city is this Dal- las. Who could have done such a thing? I could answer the second question easily enough. A madman had killed Kennedy. No city can be blamed for that. No one disagreed. After a pause, everyone would just wander off. The first question—What kind of city is this Dallas?—would, I knew, be-answered soon enough by Dallas, itself. I predicted as much that evening to friends while we sat around in numbed dis- belief looking out on a strangely quiet New York City. "You can expect a keening note of self pity in any man-on-the-street inter- view from Dallas," I said. "Too many there are going to look on the assassination as a blow to their civic pride first and a national upheaval second—if at all." This brought a few protests, particu- larly from a remarkably fair-minded fe- male from Boston, but I persisted. "Just wait. Everyone is going to ask, in effect, `What will you all think of us?' As if that 12 The Texas Observer SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th Street Austin 5, Texas Enclosed is $5.00 for a one- year subscription to the Observer for: Name Address City, State 0 This is a renewal. 0 This is a new subscription. enson affair and asked him to go down to Who paid for it? Weissman and Burley Dallas to help him weather the aftermath.) drove a 1957 Ford and on their bond appli- The matter has not yet been laid to rest cations they said they had no private in- The by probing reporters. The ad cost $1,464. come and owned no real estate. Advertisement Dallas A Politica Notation Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas . . ." the big, black, full-page advertisement in the Dallas Morning News began. But. Austin borough for the Democratic senatorial nom- The now notorious ad, which appeared in The Observer will resume normal politi- ination next spring : the News the morning of the assassination, cal coverage in the next issue. There have "At the breakfast in Fort Worth [on went on asking why Kennedy had "ordered already been signs of the renewal of activ- Nov. 22]—where President Kennedy was to or permitted your brother Bobby . . . to go ity in Texas politics, however, and one in make the last speech of his life—he met soft on communists • . ." and why "the particular seems to call for minimal report- with Yarborough in the Texas Hotel within C.I.A is . . . having staunch anti-communist age in this issue. the hearing of a few people. allies of the U.S. bloodily exterminated." Leslie Carpenter, Washington newspaper- "President Kennedy spoke firmly and in It was signed by Bernard Weissman as man, has signed on as the Washington cor- tough language to Yarborough, according chairman of "The American Fact-Finding respondent for the Austin-American States- to a Texas congressman who said he over- Committee." The day after the assassina- man. His wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Carpenter, is heard every word which was said. tion, John Rector, the advertising manager press secretary and staff director for Mrs. "According to this Texan, President of the News, acknowledged (1) that he Lyndon Johnson,. Kennedy told Yarborough: 'You will either didn't know who Weissman was; (2) that Announcing that Carpenter would_ be ride in the same car with Lyndon Johnson he didn't know what the committee was; in Dallas or you will walk.' and (3) that the ad had been checked for writing for it from Washington, the Austin American-Statesman ran pictures and sto- "It was then that Yarborough agreed to publication "by our management" and ap- do so," Carpenter concluded. proved. ries about Carpenter and Mrs. Carpenter side by side last Sunday. Sen. Yarborough commented on this from Weissman and his sidekick, William Bur- Washington : ley, checked into a Dallas motel on Reiger On the front page of the same edition, "The statement that Kennedy said that Street Nov. 5. They applied for jobs as rug Carpenter wrote from Washington, in the I would either ride in the same car with salesmen with a Dallas company on Nov. 6, course of an account that Rep. Jim Wright, both giving Larrie Schmidt, a local insur- Fort Worth, might oppose Sen. Ralph Yar- December 13, 1963 13 ance agent, as a reference. They were hired Nov. 10. Schmidt acknowledged he knew Weiss- man and had tried to sell him an insurance policy and had had him in his home for coffee. It is also the case that Schmidt led a group of picketers at the Adlai Stevenson AMERICAN INCOME speech on the U.N. Oct. 24 in Dallas. Schmidt says his picketers had nothing to do with the two persons who spat on Mr. Stevenson and hit him with a picket LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY sign. By a curious irony, a Dallas woman says she heard Lee Oswald say at an A.C.L.U. meeting the next night that he had attended, not only the Walker "U.S. OF INDIANA Day" rally of Oct. 23, but also the Steven- son rally as well. From Nov. 10 daily through Nov. 21, ac- cording to sources speaking for the two rug Underwriters of the American Income Labor salesmen's employer in Dallas, a Schmidt called Weissman daily at work. On Nov. 22, a Jones, according to the telephone ticket, Disability Policy called and asked Weissman to meet Jones, according to the sources, "in the same place where the brothers met for lunch." Monday after the assassination Weiss- Executive Offices: man called and quit work. Tuesday, these sources say, an official of the rug company went to the two pals' apartment to pick up their sales samples and saw them and a few P. 0. Box 208 couples sitting around, the ad on the table before them, and heard someone say plac- ing it had been a mistake. Wednesday morning at 2 a.m. Weissman Waco, Texas or Burley got a wire, and later that day they told their landlord the F.B.I. had been to see them about the ad, they were in the clear, it had just been bad timing, and they'd been called back to New York. Bernard Rapoport, President (Interviewed by the New York Times in Mt. Vernon, New York, Weissman ampli- fied this information. He said that Larrie Schmidt had telephoned him after the Stev- Lyndon Johnson or get off and walk is a Secret Service personnel that he ride with conversation we had, he mentioned how base falsehood. the Johnsons. long we'd been friends, what good friends "I had already ridden with Johnson 15 The night of Nov. 21, he joined the_ John- we'd been." miles the night before in Fort Worth. I had sons in the ride into Fort Worth. He rode Many reports have been published that ridden in San Antonio with Henry Gon- with them again on the way to the Fort Texas Democrats had resolved their differ- zalez, and in Houston with Albert Thomas, Worth airport the next morning, and he ences, for the nonce anyway, the morning in their home towns. We had made previ- was in the third car of the motorcade with before the assassination. Sen. Yarborough ous plans to ride with our wives. As soon the Johnsons in Dallas when President had been added to the list of speakers for as we got past their home towns; I rode Kennedy and Gov. John Connally were shot the fund-raising rally scheduled the night in the lead car. with Johnson. I had planned to ride with of Nov. 22 in Austin, and it was widely him, if no one had any objections." Yarborough confirmed that he had con- In San Antonio and Houston, reporters versations with Kennedy on the trip, but understood that harmony was to be the saw Yarborough negative invitations from he would say only that about it: "The last theme of his speech and the evening. ❑

Running the Clown

Most of the streets in our neighborhood on the lawns, and once I sailed a garbage,- were named for dead writers, and, now Charles Langford can top up a driveway with a grating roar, which was a kindness to whoever knew .that I look back on it, it seems appropriate a condition of life. It was fall that licked enough. The small drama that took place little enough to leave it out. We had one into the streets from the prairies and egg, which we tossed unexpectedly to each there was both realistic and offensive to turned the grass brown and gave it the property, so it is fitting that the eyes of other, yelling "Think fast!" until we got smell of the pastures outside. In a curious tired of waiting for a target and smashed the district, so to speak, should have been parallel to the turning of the leaves, the fixed chastely and resolutely on the it on the fender of a parked car. We ran first cold weather caught the banana trees across other children, all of whom we Eighteenth Century. And so they were: and seared the young bananas a deep red. because we were close to Rice, presumably, knew, because of course we knew all the we were laid out on the prairie in a sort We made minor rituals, as adolescents: children in the neighborhood, but when of skewed mandala of the literature of the girls began to wear skirts again, and we first saw the clown, we did not recog- England: I lived on Swift, to the south suddenly became less familiar, older, and nize him, and he was noticeable, because were Addison, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, sweeter. The streets at night were damp he was dressed in an outgrown or discarded and Sheridan, while to the north Dryden and cool, and hollow; we had a habit then dime-store costume, with a conical hat and pointed us back toward Shakespeare. of getting up without much discussion and a mask, that was too stretched and skimpy going outside and walking wherever any for his bony frame. He wore tennis shoes Houston was a lot smaller then, and bits of us could think of. We stayed out very and carried a brown paper bag. He was of the original prairie were still scattered late on one of these walks, talking quietly, alone, which made him conspicuous enough, around, circumscribed but whole, pinched aimlessly, and honestly. and moving fast; though we could not see off by streets but still bearing dewberries I imagine that was why we were out on his face, we knew he was a boy from the and touch-me-not in spring and clumps of Hallowe'en, because we were getting too loping stride he took along the far side of johnson grass seven feet high in summer. old for it, as the city knew of Hallowe'en, the street, and his general long-legged But in the built-up sections, it seemed to anyway, with everything too expensive to boniness. We decided we didn't know him, me, only fall managed to establish itself break and the adults too eager to get into and we yelled something across to him as a recognizable season. There was some- the spirit of things. I was thirteen or about his being on our territory. He had thing about fall that harmonized with and fourteen, Jane Gwafney was a year or so to pull his mask down a little to get a reinforced the sense of our neighborhood, older, and the other girl, Betsey, was older good look at us, but otherwise he did not with its solid houses made of many shades than Jane, and tougher than either of us. move or say anything. We laughed and of brick. Anyway, winter and spring hardly All of us were dubious about having it went on ; he stood watching us for a while, exist on the Gulf Coast, and what there is thought that we were taking part in the but when, at the corner, I looked back, he of one is cut up and interleaved with the observances of children, and we carefully was on his way down the next block. other, so that we had, according to the steered away from the kind of house that northers, either an uncoordinated set of had papier-mache jack-o'-lanterns burning greens or cold mean enough to kill cattle; on the porch and a friendly aunt-sort of THE NIGHT was cool and foggy. our roses bloomed all year long, and quick- woman behind the door with candy, though We walked past a house that was not dis- ly burned out and died. Summer was merely I knew for my part that the year before turbed on Hallowe'en, where the red-pen- I had looked forward eagerly to Hallow- ciled card reading Please do not ring bell. 14 The Texas Observer e'en, and I think that none of us would Sick person inside. Thank you., newly have let what once had been an event pass wired to the screen door with hairpins, was without some gesture of celebration. unnecessary: inside lived a warm-hearted, Still, as long as the small children were graying woman and her terribly arthritic MARTIN ELFANT out, we stayed very much above the battle. mother, who once had been kind but was We strolled along, Betsey tore up some of growing tyrannical. A bit farther down Sun Life of Canada her old note-book paper and scattered it lived our refugee from Hitler, who was also our inventor: he designed an incuba- tor for premature babies that saved many 1001 Century Building EUR OPE of them. We crossed over to University and An unregimented trip stressing individual walked under a long line of live oaks on the Houston, Texas freedom. Low cost yet covers all the usual plus places other tours miss. Unless the edge of the Rice campus, down to the old standard tour is a "must" for you, discover iron and red-brick stadium where we had CA 4-0686 this unique tour before you go to Europe. come to ride our bicycles down the ramps, EUROPE SUMMER TOURS the nearest things there were to hills in the 255 Sequoia, Dept. J—Pasadena, California flat city. Somebody, Jane maybe, remem- bered the woman nearby who always made he could still have escaped us by doubling only one who had been stripped, and we as hot chocolate for Hallowe'en, so we went back. He was not so subtle. he wanted dis- painfully and irrevocably as he. there, a block or two away, and were led tance, just as we assumed. We dashed up I will say this: we understood just why into the dining room. The girls were on Swift, spun round the corner of a house, he had come to our neighborhood, and I their best behavior, and complimented the and cut through two or three back yards. suppose that proves, young or not, we al- woman on her silver and flowers. They did Behind a clump of fig trees and pomegran- ready knew the only reason for racialism it well: our people taught us that, and the ates there was a little space, not a true al- was to keep the Negro locked permanently girls were getting old enough to have prac- ley but a grassy pathway for utility lines: in his slum. We hadn't been taught that, ticed. The woman's husband asked me we burst into this, ran to the edge of a but we knew anyway. about something in the paper too, and I heavily-fenced back yard inside which was Meanwhile, here was our one lone bird, wish I could remember what it was; in a dog-run that was really a cage, and out a escaped and then caught. He was badly view of the initiation we were about to driveway toward Dryden. In the dog-run frightened, and reasonably so: there were receive, it would be fitting that the sub- a vicious doberman, supposedly returned no precedents for all this, and we grap- ject should have been something adult. from use by the army and unquestionably pling savages might do anything to him, As we were about to leave, some young maniacal, burst against the goat-wire and now. I imagine the fact that white girls children came to the door, and Jane made set off an insane clamor. It should have were mixed up in it made things just so us stay and help serve them, out of man- been enough to warn anybody. much worse, to his mind. Lying there un- ners. Back on the street, we were proud of Maybe the clown wasn't thinking about der my hands, he burned hate at all of us, her, for knowing what was right, and for trouble ahead of him. He was a house or but he was afraid, I could see, even to ask being able to do it without adolescent clum- two doWn the street when we skidded be- me why I didn't try to keep my silly nose siness. As we walked back toward our own hind some shrubs and looked out, holding in my own business. houses, Betsey mentioned the clown, but each other excitedly by the wrist or shoul- der as a sign to keep quiet, and he was Well, we were just as unhappy about it only to say that he had the right idea, that as he was. We knew what made him want we needed a paper bag for a kitty, so the trotting along somewhat dubiously, look- ing back. He walked right up on us be- to come try to rifle the whites, the one people could feed it. I had never heard of night he might have been able to get away a kitty before, and I was taken with the fore we burst out. He was caught for fair. I don't know that with it. He lay watching us, his eyes wid- word. I offered to make one out of my ening and narrowing with each deep, gasp- shirt. Jane asked me why I didn't wear a we knew exactly what we had in mind when we jumped at him, but when he ran, ing breath like the gills of a fish. The girls hat, and I asked them why girls didn't were already well out of the way; I got have pockets that were any good. It was that fixed that. He merely got in deeper when he dashed up a driveway trying to off his chest. He lay warily still, then about then, while were were stumbling grabbed up his stuff and bolted off, all at along giggling and really beginning to en- shake us: he nearly hit a corner of the garage, and he lost a step or two. We were once. He chose the alley, I remember, ra- joy a holiday, that we saw again, down ther than take another chance on the at the end of the block, the clown; it was already grabbing for him, yelling, "Run faster kid, we're gonna get your mask! street. We turned firmly and went the the perfect moment for him to show up other way. again, and we collapsed. He stopped when You better run faster!" he saw us, and naturally that set us off I tackled him, on the grass. We skidded, We went on with Hallowe'en, though all again. He stood warily, watching us, and he broke loose, then I scrambled up on him this made it about the last year. It was a slowly lifted his paper sack, so he could again. He burrowed his face in the grass while before anyone said anything and hold it in both hands; we were all on the while I got hold of him to heave him over. when I did mumble something, that he same side of the street this time, so he "Gloves!" I panted. "He's even got gloves." could have come with us okay or some could not dodge past us, and mask or no, This for some reason took me as being such, I was thinking that nobody would we could see he was very doubtful of us. particularly foolish, but he had known have known, with his mask. Betsey said That was funny to us, but we stopped what he was doing all the same. he was gone now anyway and we dropped laughing and started smiling: with the I pinned his arms and the girls held the subject, thankfully. best will in the world, we meant to show his knees. There wasn't much he could do No doubt, if this was fiction, I would him the joke, and induct him into it. We to keep the mask on. I was looking at him, know something more about our fluttering hooted to him to wait, and we began to so I didn't see the girls' faces, but I saw bird. As it is, I had never seen him before, trot down a half-block of sidewalk. his well enough, even in the dark, to know and I never saw him again. I don't know That decided him: he spun and ran from that he was a Negro. where he went, that night or any other. us, those tennis shoes stretching out hard. I think about him sometimes though, tim- The clown's hat slipped back, and he jerked T MAY HAVE BEEN a living orous behind his mask, standing before a it forward in a panic. He leaped diagonally cliche, all right, and I suppose it means lighted, 'solid, white man's house, trying to pull his skimpy costume down to meet through the vacant lot on the corner and that fiction writers are basically on the his cheap gloves, so that no black skin disappeared heading for Dryden. right track, but it is dead certain that none of that occurred to us then. He wasn't the shows. ❑ WELL, THAT WAS NONSENSE; we hooted again, but this time with amaze- ment and scorn: we were on our own ter- ritory here, hardly to be evaded or outrun A Journal That Failed by some stranger. The girls were tall and strong; they ran well for girls. I ran on This article was written before the as- Journal throughout its lifespan, so I feel the outside, on the grass, to give them the sassination, a circumstance that makes it very qualified to write about it, its oper- sidewalk, and the better track. There was more interesting.—Ed. • ators, and the obscene community it made a half-hearted effort to serve. a huge Spanish bayonet there; I whipped Honey Island Swamp, La. past it, twisting sideways and shrinking Believe me, I put more into that rag Communications are slow down here in than the wine and cheese I got out of it. away from the daggers, which scratched the swamp, like everything else, and I my shirt, and a bit of my neck, all with- And all that time it was mighty damp just got word that the Dallas County down in the cellar of the old red court- out losing a step. At the corner we no more Journal folded. than glanced down the side street; we house. knew he would turn again the first chance It was bound to happen sooner or later. Historically, the Journal took over a he got, to put some houses between him The Journal was a journalistic freak from publication known as Hudkins' Journal, and us. the start—the sort of thing that had no which was named by and for Alonzo Heidt If he had not thought the way we did, chance of survival in a community such as Hudkins III, a sometime newspaper report- Dallas. The writer lives in Mt. Enterprise. I was a constant contributor to the December 13, 1963 15 er, employee of H. L. Hunt, expert on everything, and one of the world's most unusual people. A corporation was formed, and it bought Hudkins out. The name was changed to the Dallas County Journal, and two news- men, a press agent, and an assistant dis- trict attorney brought a collection of jugs out to the offices of the Garland Daily News and put out the first edition. The next morning the folks at Garland surveyed the dead soldiers and asked the editorial team not to come back. That is the way things went from then on. That first issue said that the paper was a non-partisan weekly dedicated to down- town Dallas—particularly the area around the court house. The non-partisan bit was a laugh. The paper was written and edited on a hap- hazard basis by people with liberal feel- ings. There were a few Louis the XIVth types on the stockholder list, but they seldom did anything more than complain. They were, however, entitled to con- tribute at any time. Since they seldom did, it's hard to say whether or not their stuff would usually have wound up in the cir- cular file. The congregating point for the Journal staff—the paper was so informal that disappeared in the direction of Mexico City This Atmosphere of Hate there was no such thing as an editorial and the real death rattle set in. As a Texan living away from home, staff or a payroll—was Joe Banks Cafe, Birchville needs a paper put out by some- maybe what I have to say will be of some conveniently located on the lower part of body who isn't in love with ex-General comfort to Texans. Main Street. Whats-his-name or so afraid that Main Iowans feel as Texans should that the The beer is still a quarter at Joe's, so Street will cancel ads that he doesn't print shame of what has happened does not the Journal staffers were able to spend a anything. belong to Dallas, or even to Texas. All of lot of time observing life on Big Dee's But now there is no voice left to record us who have ever been intolerant or ac- main stream. Without moving you could the doings of the gas merchants at the cusative in our political differences have catch a glimpse of the whole circus. courthouse, the Popsy Hunt fans at the Cop contributed to this atmosphere of hate The Journal's business affairs were al- Shop, and those lovely "civic leaders" in which is the breeding ground for violent ways in worse shape than its editorial side, between. deeds. . . . so things never really got started. Then And that friends is too damn bad. It is a large body of common agreement Homer Montgomery, the assistant D.A., ED COCKE known as the democratic consensus which binds us together. Partisan political activity 16 The Texas Observer involves itself only in disagreement over the rather superficial aspects of the opera- tion of the system. ... After the campaigns Dialogue are over ; after the congressional battles are 1 finished, we must live and work together within the society. Charles P. Elliott, 1403 10th St., Coral- This Stored Hate ville, Ia. . . . the whole bizarre affair occurred in Staring Into Coffee the South—or at least in a state that shares The November 15th issue reports an in- hate with areas of the South. This hate is cident that happened in Columbus when a encapsulated by prejudice, is thus stored group of Democrats, which included some and preserved, but continues to ferment, Negroes, were refused service in a local somehow, and erupts now and again. cafe. What troubles me is the possibility that Mr. H. E. Tipton tells me that his group it was this stored hate which erupted in got off the bus, tired and sleepy, and went hostility in Dallas. Perhaps the probability into a Hempstead cafe. After most were of an event like that is greater in Texas, or seated a young Negro lady came in, and Louisiana, or Alabama, for example, than it before she could even say anything, a wait- is in other regions of our. country. ress walked up to her and said she would . . . Will some of the newspapers continue have to go around to the back door. Tipton to use the high ambient hate level to sell got up quickly and said he did not care to copies? Will persons like me continue to be served in the place. . . . his companion retire to their own tight little closed com- joined Tipton ; all three filed out. Tipton munities of reasonably rational but disin- was pretty put out because the rest of the terested workers who share similar defini- people looked at their coffee and ignored tions of right and wrong? the happening. Don C. Teas, 4634 Echo Glen Dr., Pitts- Ronald G. Skaggs, 2301 Huckleberry:- burg, Pa. Pasadena, Tex. '