(1)
Chauncey
Holt was interviewed
by John Craig,
Phillip Rogers and Gary
Shaw for
Newsweek magazine (19th October, 1991)
We knew before
we left, sometime probably after November 18th. We were advised
that he was going to be in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, although
we were not privy to the route. We did not known what the route
was going to be. We had been told an incident was going to be created
which could be laid at the door of pro-Castro Cubans. The word attempted
assassination was never used. We assumed that from all this light
loaded ammunition that maybe somebody was going to try to take a
shot from somewhere, probably the Dal-Tex building, or one of the
buildings around there. But at no time was it ever intimidated to
us that an assassination or attempted assassination on Kennedy,
Connally... there were other targets there as well. Somebody might
have wanted to knock off Gonzalez. We had (been operating on) a
need to know basis. It may sound stupid but, if they had (told us),
I'd have been back at Grace Ranch, relaxing. It was such an elaborate
set up. When you think back, I couldn't possibly have been so duped.
When we saw him on TV and he said, "I'm just a patsy!"
I tell you the word really rang home....
A need to
know operation are central, not only to the CIA, but for organized
crime or anything else. The information is imparted to individuals
on a need to know basis. If you try to inquire, just one time, if
you show a some curiosity, just one time, as to what is going on,
then you won't be around. You'll either be dead, or you'll be ostracized.
Not only is it isolation from top to bottom, but latterly as well.
It operates not only at the higher ups, naturally they are interested
in protecting themselves more than anyone else. These guys down
here are protecting themselves, too. It's just another example of
plausible deniability. I say, "Hey, give me a lie detector
test!" If they ask, "Did you, were you there for the purpose
of assassinating Kennedy or engaging in an attempted assassination
of Kennedy," and in all honesty, we could say, "No, I
wasn't."
(2)
Chauncey
Holt was interviewed
by John Craig,
Phillip Rogers and Gary
Shaw for
Newsweek magazine (19th October, 1991)
At the time of
the shooting, the moment the shots were fired, we knew something
went awry. We didn't know why, but from the screaming and carrying
on we knew that there had been one hell of a bad incident. At the
time, what went through our minds was, "Hey, we had gotten
ourselves into something that is way over our heads." So I
scooted under the train, went under to the other side, encountered
Harrelson and Montoya, we searched out the car, which was not too
far from the engine, climbed in it, closed the door and sat there
in silence, while I monitored the radio and listened to what was
going on.
We were
in the railroad car by 12:31-12:32, almost immediately... as soon
as the shooting started, and there was pandemonium and people were
running all over the place. When actually, we look back on it, we
could of easily of lost ourselves in all of this stuff. We could
have gotten right up to the grassy knoll and thrown ourselves on
the ground, like everybody else was, and started screaming, and
that would have been the end of it.
We were
in the box car a long time. Actually we heard a lot of transmissions.
I estimated that it was almost 2 o'clock, although my watch was
still on Arizona time. I had a bad habit of not changing my watch.
So I think we stayed in there till practically 2 o'clock. We were
still in there during the time when we heard the transmissions involving
Tippit and back and forth. We heard a lot of other communications.
We heard the call than an officer had been dying. I am told and
I believe it was somewhere around 1:15 when we heard about the incident
at the Texas theater, although we didn't know what happened.
So I thought
it was possibly 2 o'clock before the train actually started to move.
We started to move, backing down the tracks a little ways. We thought
it was going to move, then we starts to backup. I thought they were
going to switch us onto another track.
Then suddenly
the thing stopped. They opened the door and there was a whole bunch
of police officers with shotguns and everything else. We saw, the
box car was not a fully loaded box car, but in this box car was
ammunition, unusual ammunition. Defcord?, crates that looked like
they were possibly claymore mines, drums marked : MUD, which seemed
like drilling mud, which was unusual to be with the rest of this
material. Which I assumed to be C-4 or some plastic explosives.
The officer
too us out, we tried to identify ourselves. We said, "Hey,
we're federal agents working on this thing," and they said,
"Come with us." So we strolled along and actually we went
back, we came out of the yard, we went by the Texas Depository building,
across the street. I would say Harrelson and I were sort of dragging
along, but Montoya, he was really digging out. He was actually right
up behind the lead officer. He turned us over to two officers, the
officer in charge, we later learned was Harkness.
In the photos,
the individual in front is the individual I knew as Richard Montoya
(Charles Rogers). The individual behind him I knew as Charles Harrelson.
I had reason to believe that who he actually was, even though I
didn't know him that well. I 'm confident that's who it was. And
I'm the gentleman in the back, carrying the bag with the radio in
it.
We were
not placed under arrest. We were taken across, and someone interviewed
us momentarily, and turned us over to someone else. A person I later
learned was Captain Fritz, he said not two or three words to us.
He said he was turning us over to the FBI. His name was Gordon Shanklin.
He asked
us who were were, what we were doing there. Just about this time,
while were were doing this, there was a lot of confusion, a lot
of pandemonium, and actually a lot of, I would term jubilation on
the part of all of the police officers in there, especially Gordon
Shanklin, which led us to believe that our release was because of
something that happened. Although they had said it on a number of
occasions, someone else was arrested. They had caught someone in
the Dal Tex building. I heard someone say, "We got one of them."
But then when the matter came in that they had indicated they had
got the individual that had killed the cop in Oakcliff, all at once
it seemed to me, even what I considered prematurely, they indicated
they had the guy that shot the president too. And at that time the
level of attention on us... they had some other people they had
detained and looked like they were going to arrest, including Braden.
Jim Braden
was there. I didn't recognize him at first, because he had a hat
on with some kind of Texas style hat band on it, and I didn't know
him all that well, if you know what I mean. But I knew that I recognized
him like I recognize you.
But once
we got in there, and these events come off because they happened
almost at the time we arrived there. Then the attention shifted
a lot at once, from us to Oswald, who turned out to be Oswald. I
assumed that it was their normal enthusiasm about having captured
a cop killer, is what I thought. Because they treat cop killers
a hell of a lot different than they treat killers of anyone else.
Not the president of course. But at that point, Gorden Shanklin...
we hadn't been in there too long. We were there a little while.
And all this time... then who we are came up, then they were very
careless. We were strolling around, people were coming around. They
didn't treat us like dangerous suspects. They didn't handcuff us.
Plus they didn't search us, and we were heavily armed.
We were
taken to the Sheriff's Department, right there on Dealey Plaza.
Didn't walk far. We didn't make a statement. Weren't fingerprinted.
Weren't taken to the jail (where) I assume we would have been taken.
Then Gordon Shanklin said, "You're free to go."
(3)
House
Select Committee on Assassinations
(1979)
All three men are
shabbily dressed, befitting their apparent status as vagrants. Tramp
A, however, is the better attired, wearing well-fitting jeans and
a tweed-like sports jacket, although this, judged by 1963 styles,
was several years out of date. Tramp B is wearing ill-fitting slacks
and a double-breasted suit coat. Tramp C, from his battered fedora
to his won-out shoes, has managed to achieve a sartorial effect
similar to what one would expect had he been fired from a cannon
through a Salvation Army thrift shop. While such clothing might
be a disguise, their footwear seems consistent with their classification
as vagrants. All three men are shod in worn, low-cut oxfords that
appear to be leather-soled. Tramp C's shoes seem to be several sizes
too large for him.
(4)
James
H. Fetzer, Assassination
Science and the Language of Proof, included in Assassination
Science (1998)
Chauncey M. Holt,
for example, has reported that he was a counterfeiter who, while
working as a contract agent for the CIA, brought fifteen sets of
forged Secret Service credentials to Dealey Plaza for use by persons
in the immediate vicinity (KOGO AM-Radio, San Diego, 22 November
1995). He has told me that he arrived there in the company of Charles
Harrelson, father of Woody, who was a notorious hit man for the
Mob. Harrelson once said that he killed Kennedy, later retracting
it and claiming that he was out of his mind when he said it and
the very fact that he said it showed as much. He is serving a life-sentence
for the assassination of a federal judge with a high-powered rifle,
a very similar crime.
(5)
John
McAdams, The
Three Tramps (2002)
The next big break
in the case came when the Dallas City Council voted to release all
city records having to do with the assassination. Journalist Mary
La Fontaine, who was looking through the recently released records,
happened to look at a list of records released earlier in 1989.
There she found the arrest records that showed the tramps to be:
Harold Doyle, John Forester Gedney, Gus W. Abrams
Were these fellows in fact the three tramps? Ray and Mary LaFontaine,
working for the tabloid TV program "A Current Affair,"
set out to find Harold Doyle, whose address was listed on the arrest
record as Red Jacket, West Virginia. The trail led from West Virginia
to Amarillo, Texas, where the LaFontaines found one of Doyle's former
neighbors who remembered him talking about his arrest in Dallas.
Doyle was finally located in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He told his
story on camera, and was also questioned by the FBI.
The FBI
and private researchers sought the other two tramps. Gedney was
located in Melbourne, Florida, serving as a municipal officer, a
respected member of the community who had not spoken about former
life as a vagabond until interviewed by researcher Billy Cox, and
by the FBI. Both Doyle and Gedney told the same story of spending
the night before the assassination at a rescue mission. According
to Oliver Revell of the Dallas FBI office:
Both commented
that they had gotten fresh clothes, showered, shaved and had a meal.
They headed back to the railroad yard when they heard all the commotion
and sirens and everything, and they asked what happened. They were
told the president had been shot.
Abrams, the oldest of the tramps, was deceased. But researcher Kenneth
Formet interviewed his sister, with whom he had lived the last 15
years of his life. She remembered his vagabond days, saying "he
was always on the go hopping trains and drinking wine." When
shown a picture of the Dealey Plaza tramps she responded "Yep,
that's my Bill!"
