Reclaiming History (69 page)

A
t the bottom of the ramp, there is considerable excitement as the reporters know it’s just a matter of moments before Oswald appears. Adjacent to them, in the level area between the Main Street entrance ramp and the Commerce Street exit ramp, the two unmarked police cars driven by Detectives Dhority and Brown are having a difficult time maneuvering in the tight quarters behind the armored truck.

Detective Brown swings a pea-green Ford up behind the armored truck, his partner, Detective Dhority, right behind him in an unmarked white sedan. But Brown doesn’t pull far enough forward for Dhority to get his vehicle in line behind it.

Captain Talbert can see the predicament and hollers to Brown, “Pull forward!”

When he does, Dhority drives the white sedan onto the Commerce Street ramp, then puts the car into reverse and begins backing up toward the jail entrance to wait for Oswald, but a mass of reporters, who have defied instructions and come out from behind the railing, is blocking his path.

Chief Stevenson and Captain Jones shout out to them, “Get out of the way.”

Captain Talbert, along the sedan’s left side, pushes at the newsmen, who do not respond instantly because their attention is fixated on the door where Oswald is expected to emerge.

“Get back, get back,” he repeats, tugging on their shoulders.

Detective Dhority finally resorts to blowing the horn at the reporters as he rolls the car back toward the door of the jail office.

Suddenly, someone shouts, “Here they come!”

Television floodlights flip on, bathing the garage in a blinding white light as newsmen start rushing as close as they can get to the jail office entrance, craning their necks over the cordon of detectives who are in place to shield Oswald, trying to get a glimpse of him. Stevenson, Jones, Talbert, and other officers hopelessly shout at the wave of humanity, their commands falling on deaf ears, “Get back! Get back!”
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Reporters Jerry O’Leary, Ike Pappas, and Mickey Carroll burst out of the basement stairwell as planned, arriving just before the jail elevator. As they rush through the public corridor and out into the garage, a police officer asks O’Leary and Carroll to show identification. They flash their press credentials and Ike Pappas manages to squeeze in close to the doorway where Oswald will emerge from the jail office.
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The jail elevator doors open and Lieutenant Swain and Detective Montgomery step off into the jail office, then move aside as Captain Fritz emerges. Fritz turns back and grabs Swain by the arm.

“I want you to lead the way,” Fritz tells him and motions for him to take the point position.

As Swain begins making his way around the booking desk toward the exit door, Detectives Leavelle and Graves cautiously step out of the elevator with Oswald between them.

Multiple voices ripple through the crowd of reporters: “Here he is. Here he comes.”
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Two of the three national television networks are on hand to broadcast Oswald’s departure from the City Hall basement. (ABC television opted to cover Oswald’s arrival at the county jail and consequently had no live camera coverage in the basement.)
¹³⁵¹
The NBC television network is just concluding a two-minute report from the Kennedy family compound at Hyannis Port when Frank McGee, the anchor in New York, hears through his earphone correspondent Tom Pettit in Dallas shouting, “Give me air! Give me air!” A switch is flipped in New York and the live camera feed from the basement of City Hall comes up on the screens of millions of viewers.
¹³⁵²

CBS correspondent Nelson Benton is also shouting into his microphone, “Take it, take it, take it! They’re at the door!” CBS cameras are picking up the scene, but the program controllers in New York refuse to cut away from the preparations in Washington, D.C., to move the president’s body from the White House to the Capitol rotunda. Dan Rather, in the local CBS affiliate control room in Dallas, leans on the guys in New York, “You’ve
got
to come to us now!”

“Hold on a just a minute,” New York says. “We have to get through this Roger Mudd piece, then Harry Reasoner has a one-minute essay.” Rather can’t believe it. It is clear to him that by the time New York switches over, the transfer will be over.
*
Only NBC is broadcasting live to the nation.
†

Detectives Leavelle and Graves fall in behind Swain and Captain Fritz as they escort Oswald through the jail office and toward the doorway leading out into the basement garage. Detective Montgomery is right behind them. Fritz looks toward the booking desk, where Lieutenant Wiggins stands.

“Are they ready?” Fritz asks.

Wiggins indicates that everything is in place, walks out from behind the desk, and steps through the doorway to the garage just ahead of Swain.
¹³⁵³

WNEW radio reporter Ike Pappas, just six feet from the doorway, speaks into his microphone, “Now the prisoner, wearing a black sweater, is being moved out toward an armored car. Being led out by Captain Fritz.”

Lieutenant Swain steps through the doorway of the jail office and into the bright television floodlights. Captain Fritz is a few feet behind him. Swain walks toward the sedan that will carry Oswald as it continues to roll back into position. The driver, Detective Dhority, hits the car horn again to clear the media away.

Leavelle and Graves hesitate momentarily at the doorway, holding Oswald just inside the jail office. “Is it okay?” Leavelle asks. Detective Wilbur J. Cutchshaw, standing just outside the doorway, answers Leavelle, “Okay, come on out, Jim.”
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Detectives Leavelle and Graves march out, Oswald firmly between them, but manacled only to Leavelle. For a moment Leavelle and Graves are blinded by their first exposure to the lights, making it impossible for them to observe any movements originating from their left front. But they soon regain their vision and are surprised that nothing is ready. The white sedan that is supposed to be parked about thirteen to fourteen feet just outside the door is still rolling back, struggling to get into position against the tide of reporters who have come around or over the railing they had been ordered to remain behind and are now surging toward Oswald.
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The driver blasts the horn again as Captain Fritz reaches for the backdoor handle.
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Oswald and his police escorts nearly come to a halt as the protective lane around Oswald begins to collapse. Detective Graves finds himself rubbing elbows with reporter Ike Pappas on his left.
¹³⁵⁷

Pappas thrusts his microphone forward and shouts a question as Oswald turns slightly toward him.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?” Pappas asks Oswald.

Suddenly, a man with a hat lunges from the crowd to Oswald’s left front, his arm outstretched with a gun in his right hand. Detective Don Ray Archer, to the man’s left, thinks it’s someone who has jumped out of the crowd to “take a sock” at Oswald.
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The man’s face is familiar to Leavelle, and in a split second he realizes the man is Jack Ruby.
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Detective Billy H. Combest, who is part of the line of officers forming a protective lane on each side of Oswald and his escorts, also recognizes Ruby and shouts, “Jack, you son of a bitch, don’t!”
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11:21 a.m.

BANG! The shot reverberates through the basement garage.
*
Several police officers jump at the sound. There is a cold moment of silence, a split second, then Oswald lets out a loud cry, “Ohhh!” and grabs his stomach, his face contorting in pain. No one can believe it. The unthinkable has happened.
†
Tom Pettit, the NBC News correspondent broadcasting television’s first live murder, instantly utters into his NBC microphone what would become the most famous and replayed live words in the entire Kennedy assassination saga: “He’s been
shot
,” Pettit exclaims. “He’s been
shot
. Lee Oswald’s been
shot
,” he repeats in a tone more declaratory than incredulous. “There’s been a shot,” Ike Pappas shouts out almost simultaneously, his astonishment captured on his personal audiotape. “Lee Oswald has been shot.” The police spring into action as Oswald’s knees crumple and he falls to the garage floor.

Leavelle pushes back on the gunman’s shoulder as Graves grabs the pistol. He can feel the man trying to squeeze the trigger again.

“Turn it loose! Turn it loose!” Graves yells, wrenching the revolver from the gunman’s hand with a twisting motion.
¹³⁶¹
A platoon of detectives pile on the gunman, knocking him to the concrete, his hat tumbling under their feet. “I hope I killed the son of a bitch,” Ruby manages to say while being held down on the floor of the basement.
¹³⁶²

Chaos breaks out as the crowd of reporters push madly toward the scuffle. NBC’s live national audience hears correspondent Tom Pettit shouting above the din, “There’s absolute panic, absolute panic here in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters…pandemonium has broken loose here!” The appalled anchormen at NBC headquarters in New York cannot contain their shock and outrage. While none of them are sure of what just happened, they know they have witnessed a disaster.
¹³⁶³

Captain Talbert vaults over the trunk of an unmarked squad car, throwing himself between the reporters and the melee on the floor.

“Get back! Get back!” and “nobody out,” he shouts, shoving the newsmen back hard against the railing.
¹³⁶⁴
Several officers draw their pistols and Dick Swain, a burly detective, jumps in with his arms outstretched, fists tight. “I’ll knock you on your ass!” he yells at reporters.
¹³⁶⁵

Bob Huffaker, reporting live for CBS through its local channel, KRLD, reports excitedly into his microphone that “police have ringed the inside.” He gets only four words into a sentence, “And no one is…,” when he falters, buckling under the weight of reporters who are moving and pressing in on him. He holds on tight to his mike cord as they step on it, pulling him farther down. Still not uttering another word into his mike, he manages to regain his footing, but only at a low crouch as he thrusts upward as hard as he can, shoving men off his shoulders on the way up through the brawl.
¹³⁶⁶

Someone shouts, “Get a doctor!” as Detective Combest helps Jim Leavelle drag Oswald back into the jail office. Oswald is moaning as they take the handcuffs off him, his sweater ripped open by the gun blast.
¹³⁶⁷

Police detectives bring the gunman to his feet and rush him back into the jail office. Captain Jones spots some people running up the ramp out to the street. A number of reporters are trying to escape with the news.
¹³⁶⁸

“Block the exits! Don’t let anybody out!” Jones yells.
¹³⁶⁹

Fellow officers join in.

“Nobody out! Nobody out!”
¹³⁷⁰

An officer at the top of the ramp pulls his gun, “Get back down!” The reporters quickly retreat, a few managing to escape through the corridor near the jail office to the floors above, where they telephone their newspapers.
¹³⁷¹

One of them is
Washington Star
reporter Jerry O’Leary, who rockets up the public elevator to the third floor in search of a phone. He notices Chief Curry in his office, apparently unaware of what has happened. He pokes his head in.

“Oswald’s been shot,” O’Leary says.
¹³⁷²

Curry’s face turns ashen as the phone in the next office begins ringing.

A police officer comes in and confirms the news.
¹³⁷³

Secret Service agents Sorrels and Kelley are standing just outside Deputy Chief Batchelor’s office when they hear of the shooting. They both run for the basement.
¹³⁷⁴

Captain Talbert pushes his way into the basement jail office and over to the group of detectives who have the gunman on the floor. One of them has his knees on the man as they slap a pair of handcuffs on him. Everyone is talking all at once.

“Who is this son of a bitch?” Talbert asks.

“Oh, hell! You guys all know me, I’m Jack Ruby!” the gunman says.

Indeed, many of them do.

“He operates the Carousel Club,” an officer chimes in. Talbert, his mind swirling, manages to remember being introduced to Ruby by Lieutenant Pierce a while ago at a restaurant in Dallas.
¹³⁷⁵

A few feet away, Detective Combest bends down over Oswald as Leavelle unleashes the two pairs of handcuffs. Combest pulls Oswald’s sweater up and sees a bullet hole in the lower left part of his chest, the flesh around it bruised and purple. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of blood. Combest thinks that maybe the point of entry has been seared by the gun blast, or that perhaps the wound is not too serious. He reaches around Oswald’s right side and feels a lump. The bullet is just below the skin. It has almost passed completely through him. Oswald continues to moan and seems conscious.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Combest asks him. “Is there anything you want to say right now before it’s too late?”

Oswald’s eyes are open. He seems to recognize that Combest is speaking to him.

“Do you have anything you want to tell us now?” Combest asks again.

Oswald only shakes his head slightly, as if to say, “No.”
*

Combest goes on appealing to him, but Oswald is fading before his eyes. Finally, the detective is no longer sure that Oswald even hears him.
¹³⁷⁶

At the booking desk a few feet away, Patrolman Willie Slack, who was telephoning the dispatcher’s office at the time of the shooting to tell them that Oswald was on his way to the county jail, instead tells the dispatch operator, “This is Slack at the jail office. Somebody just shot Oswald. We need a doctor.”
¹³⁷⁷

The operator picks up the hotline to O’Neal’s Funeral Home, a direct connection to its ambulance service, and tells the man on the other end that Oswald has been shot, they need an ambulance at City Hall as fast as possible. He tells her that an ambulance is on its way. The operator then immediately informs police dispatcher Clifford E. Hulse.
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