What is not as widely known, however, is that it had not even been James Tague's intention to watch the motorcade that day and it was just pure chance that caused him to be standing where he was at that moment.
The hand of fortune which played such a significant part in Tague's day was also hard at work on the lives of Ed Hoffman, Warren Caster, Johnny Calvin Brewer and the Newman family on Friday 22nd November 1963. There are probably others but I will concentrate on those five, mainly because I have had the privilege and pleasure of meeting and interviewing each of them.
Why was Tague in such an isolated position? It was hardly by choice. As mentioned above, he had never intended to view the motorcade. He worked as a car salesman for Cedar Springs Dodge but he had arranged to drive into downtown Dallas to meet his girlfriend (later his wife) for lunch. In his own words: "I accidentally came upon the motorcade." (2)
In his Warren Commission testimony before Assistant Counsel Wesley J Liebeler, Tague went on to explain that he was not planning to watch the parade but he became involved in a traffic jam as he drove east on Commerce Street and his car was literally stationery under the triple underpass (3). As he described it: "The car was just halfway out from underneath the underpass, and I got out of my car and stopped by the bridge abutment." It appears that the traffic on Commerce Street (a one-way street) had been stopped at the Houston Street intersection just a minute or so before Tague reached the underpass.
Tague indicated his exact position to Liebeler on a detailed aerial map of Dealey Plaza. It was marked as point no. 6 on what later became known as Commission Exhibit 354 (4). This was confirmed in the testimony of Dallas Deputy Sheriff Eddy Raymond ('Buddy') Walthers - although Walthers confused point no. 6 with point no. 9 (which was opposite the book depository) (5).
Watching the presidential motorcade as it came down Elm Street, Tague heard three shots, the first of which he described as sounding "like a firecracker". He was then joined by Deputy Sheriff Walthers ("I guess this was three or four minutes after") and he told Walthers "I recall something sting me on the face while I was standing down there." Walthers replied: "Yes; you have blood there on your cheek."
There has been considerable conjecture as to exactly which shot was responsible for hitting the kerb in front of Tague and causing a fragment of concrete to fly up and strike his cheek. Tague himself stated "I believe that it was the second shot, so I heard the third shot afterwards."
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of James Tague's involvement is that he was there at all. Once again, his own words sum it up perfectly: "I mean I just stopped, got out of my car, and here came the motorcade. I just happened upon the scene." (6)
The day of the assassination should have been just another ordinary working day at Texas Instruments in North Dallas for Ed Hoffman. Fate took a hand, however, during his mid-morning refreshment break. After finishing his usual paper cup of Dr Pepper, he was chewing on the ice cubes when he broke one of his teeth. After informing his supervisors, Glynn Bourland and Cecil Harris, he was given permission to leave work to visit his dentist for treatment (7).
He drove south on U.S. Highway 75 (North Central Expressway), exiting on to Ross Avenue and then continuing west on Elm Street, through Dealey Plaza and then on to the access ramp leading on to Stemmons Freeway. Here, he suddenly recalled that the presidential motorcade was shortly to pass this way and he decided that it would be worth delaying his dental treatment for a few minutes to see the President. Ed parked his car at the end of the Stemmons ramp and then walked back about 100 feet to a vantage point on Stemmons where it passes over the start of the ramp. His idea was to view the motorcade as it passed directly beneath him.
What Ed did not realise at that time, of course, was that this also afforded a perfect view across the triple underpass into Dealey Plaza - and more importantly directly into the area of the railroad yards behind the grassy knoll and the picket fence.
Like James Tague's, Ed's unscheduled involvement in the crime of the century came about purely by chance. I consider that the Dr Pepper which Ed Hoffman drank that morning was far more significant than any soft drink which may have been enjoyed by an alleged shooter on the sixth floor of a certain large red-brick building in the north-east corner of Dealey Plaza!
Brewer was the manager of Hardy's shoe store at 213 West Jefferson Boulevard, Oak Cliff. This shop was situated in the same block as the Texas Theatre, the scene of Oswald's arrest. The close proximity of the two establishments can be judged by the fact that the theatre was number 231 (8).
Brewer had arranged to have Friday 22nd November 1963 off work and it had been agreed that his assistant would take charge of the shop in his absence. Brewer had not arranged this in order to watch the motorcade. He had just taken delivery of a brand new car - a 1964-model Ford Galaxie XL500 - and it was his intention to spend the day putting it through its paces. This plan was thwarted when Brewer's assistant telephoned him with the news that his newborn infant was ill and that he could not cover for Brewer that day. Johnny Brewer had no option but to come to work after all.
He drove his new car to the shop and in his own words: "It was parked out in front of the store and I was feeding nickels to it all day long, just waiting to get off." (9).
Brewer had a transistor radio with him in the shoe shop and he listened to the live transmission describing the presidential visit to Dallas. He heard about the assassination and later there was mention of a shooting in the Oak Cliff area. A few minutes later, with police cars passing by the shop with their sirens sounding, Brewer's attention was alerted to a man acting furtively in the recessed entrance to the shop. This man's actions were so suspicious that Brewer left the shop and watched him walk down West Jefferson and enter the Texas Theatre without bothering with the formality of buying a ticket. The rest, as they say, is history!
In the case of Johhny Calvin Brewer, we can say in all certainty that had it not been for the sudden illness of his assistant's young child, he would probably have been miles away from Oak Cliff, enjoying his new car, rather than playing a leading role in the arrest of the alleged assassin of the President. Whether his assistant would have taken the same action as Brewer concerning the strange actions of the man in the doorway will never be known!
In November 1963, Warren Caster was the District Manager of the Southwestern Publishing Co., a book publishing company which rented premises within the Texas School Book Depository. Caster's office was situated on the second floor of the building, looking directly out on to Elm Street. (In the UK, of course, this would be called the first floor.)
Warren Caster is the man who, two days before the assassination, purchased two rifles (a Remington and a Mauser) during his lunch break. The Remington single-shot .22 was to be a Christmas present for his son and the .30-03 sporterized Mauser just took his eye and he bought it for himself. He brought them into the TSBD where he showed them to Bill Shelley, Roy Truly and Lee Harvey Oswald, among others. After work that day, he took them to his home in the northern part of Dallas in his car.
Thursday 21st November was just a normal day at the office but on Friday 22nd, Caster had a pre-arranged and unavoidable business engagement and he did not attend at the book depository at all. Instead, he drove up to North Texas State University at Denton (35 miles north of Dallas) for an appointment with Dr. Vernon V. Payne. He was thus out of town when the assassination took place. He learnt of the President's death when he and Dr. Payne heard the news from some students at the university. It was an added shock to learn that the site of the tragedy had been Dealey Plaza. Warren Caster immediately left Denton, battled his way through the traffic jams and eventually reached home.
Caster testified before the Warren Commission in Dallas on 14th May 1964. His testimony occupies just a page and a half in the 26 Volumes and was concerned solely with the purchase of the rifles and the fact that he had brought them into the TSBD on that Wednesday afternoon (11).
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Warren Caster's connection with the events of the day has been given minimal publicity - and is probably completely unknown to the majority of researchers. A good friend of Warren Caster, a Roger Williams, had telephoned him on Thursday 21st and had asked if they could meet in Caster's office the following day to watch the presidential motorcade. Caster explained that he had to be in Denton that day (22nd) and would miss the motorcade himelf.
He added that it would be useless to try to watch from his second floor office because the view would be obscured by the trees. The ideal place to watch, Caster told Williams, would be up on the sixth floor where the view was ideal. Williams thanked Caster and said that he would go to the Trade Mart to see the President there instead.
Now just suppose that Warren Caster had not had that meeting in Denton
scheduled for the 22nd ....... !
Bill and the younger boy, Clayton, managed to get a good view of the Kennedys from a position at the front on the fence line but unfortunately Gayle and Billy found themselves at the back of the crowd. They were able to see practically nothing. Bill realized the problem and managed to get his family out of Love Field very quickly. He remembered from a map published in the newspaper that the motorcade would pass through Dealey Plaza and he drove the family there. After parking the car, they found a suitable, unobstructed vantage point on the grass on the northern edge of Elm Street at the front of what later became known as the Grassy Knoll.
For Gayle, there was an added bonus in being able to see the motorcade. Her uncle, from whom they were renting their house, was DPD motorcycle officer Sergeant Stavis Ellis, one of the five lead motorcyclists in the motorcade (13).
Both Bill and Gayle still vividly recall the shock of hearing the shots and seeing the result as JFK was shot before their very eyes. Bill told us: "We were the closest individuals to the President as spectators ... when the third shot was fired." Vivid images of the Newmans remain in perpetuity thanks to the camera lenses of several of the plaza photographers. Convinced that at least some of the shots were coming from behind them, Bill and Gayle pushed their children to the ground and immediately covered them with their own bodies. Bill beat the ground with his fists in anger and frustration (14).
Despite being no more than a few feet away from the presidential limousinbe at the time of the shots, neither Bill nor Gayle Newman was called to testify before the Warren Commission. Bill is convinced that this is because he had said in a Sheriff's Department statement of 22nd November 1963 that " ... it seemed that we were in direct path of fire" and "I thought the shot had come from the garden directly behind me." (15).
Had the Newmans set off from home just five or ten minutes earlier that morning, perhaps they would all have had a perfect view of JFK and Jackie at Love Field and they would never have become among the closest and most important Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses.
According to author/historian Richard B.Trask, there could have been
an even greater sting in the tail. He states that the Newmans had gone
to Love Field "unfortunately forgetting their 8mm movie camera at home."
(16) With the willing assistance of my friend William Law, I checked this
out with Gayle Newman. She confirmed: "That's correct. We went off and
left it on the dresser that morning." (17) Obviously, any movie footage
of the presidential limousine shot from their location would have been
of inestimable value!
Sources and Notes
1. James Tague can be plainly seen (wearing distinctive white shirt) in the first of Frank Cancellare's series of still photographs (print in author's collection) and also at the extreme left in the Tom Dillard still photograph (no. 1-9 of his sequence) reproduced on page 453 of Richard B.Trask's Pictures of the Pain, published by Yeoman Press, Danvers, Massachusetts, 1994.
2. All verbatim quotes are italicised within quotation marks in this section and are taken directly from Tague's Warren Commission testimony (7H 552-558) and, where indicated, from that of Dallas Deputy Sheriff Eddy Raymond Walthers.
3. Tague's car is probably the light-coloured one immediately next to him in the Frank Cancellare photograph cited above. Deputy Sheriff Walthers described it as "gray" in his testimony. The stationery traffic on Commerce Street is also plainly visible in that photograph.
4. CE 354 (16H 949).
5. 7H 546 (testimony of Dallas Deputy Sheriff Eddy Raymond Walthers).
6. 7H 555 (testimony of James Thomas Tague).
7. I acknowledge two very important sources which have been responsible for many of the details contained in this section: Eye Witness by Ed Hoffman and Ron Friedrich, published by JFK Lancer, Grand Prairie, Texas, 1995; and Bill Sloan's JFK: Breaking the Silence, published by Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas, 1993.
8. I hesitate to criticise my good friend and highly-respected researcher Robert Groden, but I have to point out that the photograph on page 145 of his book The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald (published by Penguin Studio Books, 1995) bears an inaccurate and confusing caption. That photograph was taken during the making of the Oliver Stone film JFK and the shop which is shown bearing the name HARDY is in fact no. 221. Please refer to my own photograph, taken in November 1996, which shows the former Hardy shop in which Brewer worked (no. 213). It is now Cellular & Pager Express, a shop retail shop specializing in mobile and car phones and pagers.
9. From author's recorded interview with Johnny Calvin Brewer, Austin, Texas, 25th November 1996. Transcript published in The Dealey Plaza Echo, Vol. 1, No. 3, June 1997.
10. See Rick Caster: What's in a Name? in Vol. 1, Issue 3 of The Assassination Chronicles (September 1995) upon which this section relies heavily.
11. 7H 387-388 (testimony of Warren Caster).
12. William Law/Ian Griggs/Mark Rowe interview with Bill Newman at Mesquite, Texas, 20th November 1997. (Transcript published in The Dealey Plaza Echo, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 1998).
13. Sloan (see note 7 above), page 170. Also Todd Wayne Vaughan: Presidential Motorcade Schematic Listing, self-published, 1993; page 4.
14. Trask (see note 1 above), page 39 (Cecil Stoughton #8); page 156 (Richard O. Bothun #1-5); page 208 (Mrs Wilma Bond #1-4); page 333 (Harry Cabluck #2); page 376 (Thomas M. Atkins #8), page 401 (Frank Cancellare #2). The Cancellare photograph cited here sums up the bewilderment of the Newmans at that moment.
15. CE 2003, page 45 of exhibit (24H 219) (statement of William Eugene Newman)
16. Trask (see note 1 above), page 400.
17. Exchange of telephone calls and emails between William Law, Mrs
Gayle Newman and the author, 3rd February 1999.