Winston Lawson was born
in 1929. After studying history at the University of Buffalo he worked
as a wholesale carpet salesman. In December 1951, he became a sales
representative for Carnation, a company manufacturing milk products.
Lawson joined the US
Army in 1953 and after basic training was sent to the CIC Counterintelligence
School in Holabird, Maryland. Based at Lexington, during the Korean
War he took part in the interviewing of prisoners.
In 1955 Lawson returned
to the Carnation Milk Company and had various sales or public relations
jobs with them in Poughkeepsie. He applied to enter the Secret Service
in 1956 but was not accepted until October 1959. He did general investigative
work in the Syracuse area, until being transferred to Washington
in March, 1961. Soon afterwards he was given responsibility for organizing
the security for trips being made by President John
F. Kennedy
and Vice President Lyndon
B. Johnson.
On 4th November Lawson
was asked to prepare for the presidential trip to Dallas, Texas. This
involved discussions with Kenneth O'Donnell
(special assistant to Kennedy), Roy
Kellerman
and Jesse
Curry (chief of police in Dallas). However, Curry
always insisted that Winston G. Lawson
was the person who made all the major decisions. This included the
order that the proposed side escorts for the motorcade were to be
redeployed to the rear of the cars.
Lawson drove the presidential
motorcade's lead car. In a statement he made later, Lawson commented:
"As the lead car was passing under this bridge I heard the first
loud, sharp report and in more rapid succession two more sounds like
gunfire. I could see persons to the left of the motorcade vehicles
running away. I noticed Agent Hickey standing up in the follow-up
car with the automatic weapon and first thought he had fired at someone.
Both the President's car and our lead car rapidly accelerated almost
simultaneously."
Lawson remained a member
of the Secret Service until he retired. He still works as a consultant
on security issues. On the 40th anniversary of the assassination he
gave an interview to Michael
Granberry of the Dallas
Morning News.: I must have thought a million times, what could
I have done to prevent it?... From Love Field to Dealey Plaza, there
were 20,000 windows. How could we possibly check them all?"
Granberry's
article goes on to say: "When the president's day began at the
Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, a persistent drizzle had forced the Secret
Service to consider covering the motorcade's cars in Dallas with protective
bubbletops. (Hours later, Dallas would end up sunny.) Though the bubbletops
were not bulletproof, the metal and the contour of the covering, says
Lawson, would have made it difficult for a bullet to do much damage,
and might have kept a gunman from even firing in the first place.
So he's asked himself a million times: Why couldn't it keep raining?"
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
William
Manchester, The Death of a President (1967)
There was
a sudden, sharp, shattering sound. Various individuals heard it differently.
Jacqueline Kennedy believed it was a motorcycle noise. Curry was under
the impression that someone had fired a railroad torpedo. Ronald Fischer
and Bob Edwards, assuming that it was a backfire, chuckled. Most of
the hunters in the motorcade - Sorrels, Connally, Yarborough, Gonzaiez,
Albert Thomas - instinctively identified it as rifle fire.
But the White
House Detail was confused. Their experience in outdoor shooting was
limited to two qualification courses a year on a range in Washington's
National Arboretum. There they heard only their own weapons, and they
were unaccustomed to the bizarre effects that are created when small-arms
fire echoes among unfamiliar structures - in this case, the buildings
of Dealey Plaza. Emory Roberts recognized Oswald's first shot as a
shot. So did Youngblood, whose alert response may have saved Lyndon
Johnson's life. They were exceptions. The men in Halfback were bewildered.
They glanced around uncertainly. Lawson, Kellerman, Greer, Ready,
and Hill all thought that a firecracker had been exploded. The fact
that this was a common reaction is no mitigation. It was the responsibility
of James J. Rowley, Chief of the Secret Service, and Jerry Behn, Head
of the White House Detail, to see that their agents were trained to
cope with precisely this sort of emergency. They were supposed to
be picked men, honed to a matchless edge. It was comprehensible that
Roy Truly should dismiss the first shot as a cherry bomb. It was even
fathomable that Patrolman James M. Chaney, mounted on a motorcycle
six feet from the Lincoln, should think that another machine had backfired.
Chaney was an ordinary policeman, not a Presidential bodyguard. The
protection of the Chief Executive, on the other hand, was the profession
of Secret Service agents. They existed for no other reason. Apart
from Clint Hill - and perhaps Jack Ready, who started to step off
the right running board and was ordered back by Roberts - the behaviour
of the men in the
follow-up car was unresponsive. Even more tragic was
the perplexity of Roy Kellerman, the ranking agent in Dallas, and
Bill Greer, who was under Kellerman's supervision. Kellerman and
Greer were in a position to take swift evasive action, and for five
terrible seconds
they were immobilized.
(2)
Winston Lawson was interviewed by Samuel A. Stern on behalf of the
Warren Commission (23rd April, 1964)
Samuel A. Stern: What did you do in Dallas from the time of your arrival
in connection with trying to learn about people who might be potentially
dangerous to the President?
Winston
Lawson:
I was aware of the so-called Stevenson incident and so I didn't have
to be told that there.
Samuel
A. Stern: How did you become aware of that?
Winston
Lawson: I had read it in the paper, and so without making inquiries
1 was aware of that when I went there.
Samuel
A. Stern: You received no specific advice about that from PRS?
Winston
Lawson: No, sir; I was aware of this fact. And then of course it was
after I arrived there people were talking about it also. And although
to my know]edge none of the people involved in that particular incident
had threatened the President or were known to us as threatening the
President, I asked Agent Howlett if he would view some films of this
incident that I understood one of the local TV stations had. I was
informed of this by a local executive of the local paper who was on
the host committee, that they had such films. And Agent Howlett did
view these and had some still shots made of these individuals, although
we still did not know that they were against President Kennedy or
might harm him in any way. This was an extra on my part. I had asked
Agent Howlett if he had any contact with any individuals, informants
in the area that he might have, that the office might have about right-wing
elements and what they might do, and was told that prior to my arrival
in Dallas they had received some information on some right-wing activity,
and that an investigation had been made, and that he also had talked
to an informant or two I believe. But to their knowledge there was
nothing in the radical-type right-wing movement so-called in the Dallas
area that they knew of that was going to harm President Kennedy.
Samuel
A. Stern: Did anything else occur? Did you have any discussions of
this problem with the local police?
Winston
Lawson: We talked with the local police on many occasions as to what
would happen if there were demonstrations, pickets and so forth, if
they knew of any activity, and I believe S. A. Howlett from the Dallas
office did the same thing. The papers, the newspapers in Dallas had
a few articles on how watchful the police were going to be of the
crowd, with particular emphasis on disturbances or pickets, and some
of the local committee, host committee, as well as some of the local
political groups in the area were worried that perhaps the police
would be overzealous in controlling picketing or disturbances, and
asked me if I could find out just what the police were planning to
do in this event, that there were some wild rumors as to just what
the police were going to do. And because we like to have our local
Agents who have to work with the police in these areas maintain the
liaison I asked Mr. Sorrels if he would contact the chief of police
and find out exactly what they planned to do in relation to picketing,
and discussed the new ordinance that had been passed on the Monday,
November 18 I believe it is, prior to the President's visit. And we
were told that the police would accept peaceful picketing, but that
the new ordinance was strictly to give them some power to act if pickets
or individuals were interfering with lawful assembled groups, if they
were trying to make noise to drown out people who were bona fide speakers
at lawful groups, or if they were trying to interfere with any person
entering or departing a lawful assembly.
Samuel
A. Stern: Did anything occur in connection with a circular that was
being circulated at the time?
Winston
Lawson: Yes sir; I learned of a circular which had been distributed
in various parts of the city, blue in color with President Kennedy's
picture on it, and a list of grievances against him called treasonist
to the United States. I was given a copy of the circular in the police
chiefs office, and requested Mr. Sorrels, our local agent in charge
he had received a copy of this circular, and I asked him to check
with the district attorney's office, the Federal district attorney,
to see if it was against the Federal law. At quick reading myself
it didn't look like it was a violation of Federal law but I was in
no position to judge it, and I could see no direct threat.
(3)
Winston G. Lawson, United States Secret Service, statement (1st December,
1963)
On Friday, November 22, 1963, I handled general advance details, talked
over final arrangements with Mr. Jack Puterbaugh; Mr. Art Balas, White
House Communications Agency; Secret Agents Hickey and Kinney, and
talked to various individuals on the phone before departing the Sheraton-Dallas
Hotel. One of those who contacted me by phone was ASAIC Kellerman
in Fort Worth concerning car seating and instructions as to whether
the bubble top on the President's car was to be used. I also spoke
with SAIC Sorrels, Dallas office, on the phone concerning his taking
Secret Agents Hickey and Kinney to the airport. I departed the Sheraton-Dallas
Hotel with SA David Grant.
At about 8:50 am we arrived
at the Dallas Trade Mart. I looked over the security of the parking
lot and area where the President was to enter the building. Inside
the building I checked on details of the luncheon, answered various
questions from interested parties, talked with Agent Stewart already
on duty at head table, and left Agent Grant to complete the final
preparations and survey for the President's visit and departed for
Love Field.
I arrived at Love Field
shortly after 9:30 am and checked to see if police security was in
effect on a special hole cut in fence for our motorcade's use. I also
located the motorcade vehicles and drivers who had been asked to arrive
by 9:30 am I checked with Major Nedbal, USAF Advance Officer, on positioning
of airplanes and other information. Questions of various press, Host
Committee, political committee, communications and press technicians
had to be answered. I started forming the motorcade, parking the vehicles
and busses in proper positions, instructed drivers, checked and gave
instructions to police at press area. I answered the security phone
on a number of occasions and talked with Agent Hill in Fort Worth
concerning Dallas weather conditions. The weather cleared and the
President's car was placed in position for departure from airport
without the bubble top covering it. I met some members of Greeting
Committee and checked over flowers to be presented to Mrs. Kennedy
and other ladies. I checked with Chief Curry as to location of Lead
Car and had WHCA portable radio put in and checked. I also checked
to see if escort vehicles were in position down the apron from reception
area and checked to see if police were posted for crowd control.
About this time the press
plane arrived and was met by me. White House Press and Transportation
Staff were given instructions. I learned sound equipment, Presidential
Seal, flags and a special chair had been sent by them direct to Trade
Mart from Fort Worth, and so the police escort and vehicles arranged
for these items to be taken to Trade Mart were not needed. Traveling
press were requested to go either to their buses or press area....
The motorcade proceeded
over the scheduled route from the airport. During the course of the
trip I was watching crowd conditions along the route, requesting Chief
Curry to give specific instructions to escort vehicles, keeping Lead
Car in proper position in front of President's car depending on its
speed and crowd conditions watching for obstructions or other hazards,
and in general performing normal duties of advance agent in the Lead
Car. Chief Curry was giving instructions at my suggestion to escort
vehicles for keeping crowd out of street, blocking traffic in certain
areas, requesting pilot vehicle to speed or slow up, and giving orders
needed for us to proceed unhampered.
The President's car made
one unscheduled stop, apparently at his direction, which was not uncommon.
This lasted only a few moments and motorcade proceeded on. On a few
occasions I noticed agents leap off the follow-up car to intercept
someone or when they thought someone was trying to reach the President's
car. They were able to return to positions on the follow-up car.
The motorcade proceeded
at about 15-20 miles per hour until the very heavy crowd concentration
in the downtown area, when it slowed to approximately 10 miles per
hour.
At the corner of Houston
and Elm Streets I verified with Chief Curry that we were about five
minutes from the Trade Mart and gave this signal over my portable
White House Communications radio. We were just approaching a railroad
overpass and I checked to see if a police officer was in position
there and that no one was directly over our path. I noticed a police
officer but also noticed a few persons on the bridge and made motions
to have these persons removed from over our path. As the lead car
was passing under this bridge I heard the first loud, sharp report
and in more rapid succession two more sounds like gunfire. I could
see persons to the left of the motorcade vehicles running away. I
noticed Agent Hickey standing up in the follow-up car with the automatic
weapon and first thought he had fired at someone. Both the President's
car and our lead car rapidly accelerated almost simultaneously. I
heard a report over the two-way radio that we should proceed to the
nearest hospital. I noticed Agent Hill hanging on to the rear of the
President's vehicle. A motorcycle escort officer pulled alongside
our lead car and said the President had been shot. Chief Curry gave
a signal over his radio for police to converge on the area of the
incident. I requested Chief Curry to have the hospital contacted that
we were on the way. Our lead car assisted the motorcycles in escorting
the President's vehicle to Parkland Hospital.
Upon our arrival there
at approximately 12:34 pm, I rushed into the emergency entrance, met
persons coming with two stretchers and helped rush them outside. Governor
Connally was being removed from the car when the stretchers arrived
and he was placed on the first one. Mr. Powers, myself and one or
two others placed President Kennedy on a stretcher and we ran pushing
the stretcher into the emergency area which hospital personnel directed
us to. I remained outside the door where the President was being treated
and requested a nurse to find someone who would know hospital personnel
who should be admitted to the President's room. Other agents, in addition
to some members of the White House staff, then stationed themselves
at this door. ASAIC Kellerman and myself went to an office in emergency
area and used a phone to contact the White House Dallas switchboard,
who in turn contacted SAIC Behn, White House Detail in Washington.
Mr. Kellerman informed Mr. Behn what had happened and we kept that
line open to Mr. Behn's office during our stay at Parkland Hospital.
I went outside into a corridor and noticed that agents had established
security to the emergency area then proceeded to rear of hospital
to make sure police security was keeping general public from the immediate
area. Upon returning to the emergency room office, I again assisted
in keeping line to Washington open, talked with Mr. Behn in Washington,
requested the Dallas White House switchboard to contact Austin, Texas,
where the 12 am (midnight) to 8:00 a.m. Secret Service shift was resting
and instruct those agents to take first available plane back to Washington,
DC. A few minutes later I learned a special Air Force plane would
take them from Bergstrom AFB (Austin, Texas) to Washington, DC, and
requested the Dallas White House switchboard to notify those agents
of this change. It was then I learned that Mrs. Kennedy wished to
return to Washington, DC, with the body of President Kennedy immediately,
and I returned to rear of hospital to see if enough motorcade vehicles
remained for transportation of agents, staff and others needing transportation
to the airport...
While waiting for the departure
of AF1, FBI Agent Vincent Drain, Dallas office, told me SAC Gordon
Shanklin, FBI, Dallas, Texas, had some information. I spoke with Mr.
Shanklin on the phone and he told me that an individual who had been
arrested for the investigation of the killing of a police officer
that afternoon had worked at the Texas Book Depository Building. I
asked Mr. Shanklin to relay this to an agent on duty in the Dallas
Secret Service office and then requested Chief Curry, who was with
me, to speak with Mr. Shanklin on the phone.
(4)
Winston Lawson was interviewed by Samuel A. Stern, John
J. McCloy, Gerald
Ford and Allen
W. Dulles during the Warren
Commission (23rd April, 1964)
Samuel A. Stern: Turning
now to the question of the motorcade route, Mr. Lawson, what can you
tell us about how that was selected?
Winston
Lawson: On November 8 when Mr. Kellerman was giving me some of the
information on the proposed trip to Dallas, all of the advance agents
for the respective stops were given the current itinerary as prepared
by the White House staff for their stops, and for the Dallas stop
there was a 45 minute time lapse from the time the President landed
at the airport until the time that he attended the luncheon, and at
the time that I left Washington, it had not been decided whether he
would attend this luncheon at the Trade Mart where it later was planned
to have it, or at the Women's Building on the Fair Grounds. And this
figured a great deal in the parade route, the 45 minutes.
Samuel
A. Stern: The 45 minute time interval?
Winston
Lawson: Yes, sir.
Samuel
A. Stern: Was established for you by the White House?
Winston
Lawson: Yes, sir.
Samuel
A. Stern: And were you specifically instructed to prepare a parade
route or was this your reaction to the time lag?
Winston
Lawson: This is my function. I wasn't specifically asked to, but this
would be the function of the advance agent.
Samuel
A. Stern: Were you instructed that there would be a motorcade?
Winston
Lawson: Yes, sir.
Samuel
A. Stern: And that is what this 45 minutes was for?
Winston
Lawson: That is correct.
Samuel
A. Stern: How was the actual route determined then once the Trade
Mart had been selected as the site for the luncheon?
Winston
Lawson: Various routes were under consideration. We could have gone
from the airport direct to the Trade Mart the way that we should have
returned, the 4 mile route returning from the Trade Mart to the airport,
or we could have taken a city street-type route all the way downtown
and all the way back, or we could have taken a freeway downtown and
a freeway back. But the route that was chosen was chosen because it
was the consensus of opinion that it was probably the best route under
the circumstances. It allowed us 45 minutes to go from the airport
to the Trade Mart at the speed that I figured the President would
go from past experience with him in advances, and as a regular working
agent riding in a follow-up car. It allowed us to go downtown, which
was wanted back in Washington, D.C. It afforded us wide streets most
of the way, because of the buses that were in the motorcade. It afforded
us a chance to have alternative routes if something happened on the
motorcade route. It was the type of suburban area a good part of the
way where the crowds would be able to be controlled for a great distance,
and we figured that the largest crowds would be downtown, which ,they
were, and that the wide streets that we would use downtown would be
of sufficient width to keep the public out of our way. Prime consideration
in a motorcade is to make sure the President isn't stopped unless
he plans it himself. You must have room to maneuver, alternative routes
to turn off from, room for buses and so forth, and particularly room
to keep the public out of the street.
Samuel
A. Stern: What was the extent of your review of the parade route with
the local police?
Winston
Lawson: With the local police I went over the entire route on one
occasion, went to the various stops at other times and so actually
did parts of the route at that time, the part of the route which would
be near the stop like the airport and the Trade Mart. But the actual
route I went over with two police officers from the Dallas Police
Department.
John
J. McCloy: By went over you mean you actually drove along the entire
route?
Winston
Lawson: We drove it sir, with them taking notes, and them making suggestions
and Mr. Sorrels and I making suggestions.
Samuel
A. Stern: To what extent did they actually participate in the decision
that this be the route?
Winston
Lawson: They were asked their advice on possible routes that you could
go to the Trade Mart.
Samuel
A. Stern: And they had no disagreement with the route...
Winston
Lawson: No, sir.
Samuel
A. Stern: That was actually selected, no criticism of it? What arrangements
did you make with the Dallas police for security along the route,
starting from Love Field and getting to the Trade Mart?
Winston
Lawson: A good deal of it was trait control, both to keep people out
of our path as the motorcade progressed so that they would have at
least the major intersections covered and as many of the other ones
as possible. Those which were not, all intersections that were not
able to be controlled physically by a policeman or more than one policeman
were to be controlled by motorcycles that would hop-skip the motorcade,
or other police vehicles in the motorcade.
At certain times certain intersections were to be cutoff as we proceeded
so that it would allow time for any traffic ahead of us to clear the
area before we arrived there. Where it was felt from past experience
and the type of area that we were passing through there would be large
crowds, more police were requested for along the route, and on the
routes.
Samuel
A. Stern: Foot policemen or motorcycle patrolmen?
Winston
Lawson: Both, sir. They were requested at the corners to have more
than one policeman, so that there would be policemen for watching
the crowd and controlling the crowd, and other policemen who would
have jurisdiction over the traffic in the area, so that someone wouldn't
be watching the crowd and a car going by him or vice versa. We saw
the underpasses or overpasses or bridges that were on the route, and
they were requested to have officers, depending on the type of installation
there that I just mentioned, the type that it was, either under it
or over it, on the underpasses. The railroad lines were checked and
here was no rail traffic of a scheduled nature over the two rail crossings
that we would pass, none on the way in but two on the way out. However,
just to make sure that a switch engine or other trains wouldn't come
along about the time we were due there, and then stop the President's
motorcade, why we had police stationed at the railroad crossings that
were on the same level as the road...
Samuel
A. Stern: What about the deployment of police on rooftops of buildings
at any point along the route?
Winston
Lawson: We had - police were requested at points where I knew that
the President would be out of the car for any length of time.
Samuel
A. Stern: And where was that?
Winston
Lawson: At the Trade Mart and at the airport.
John
J. McCloy: May I interrupt at this point. During the course of the
motorcade while the motorcade was in motion, no matter how slowly,
you had no provision for anyone on the roofs?
Winston
Lawson: No, sir.
John
J. McCloy: Or no one to watch the windows?
Winston
Lawson: Oh, yes. The police along the area were to watch the crowds
and their general area. The agents riding in the follow-up car as
well as myself in the lead car were watching the crowds and the windows
and the rooftops as we progressed.
John J. McCloy: It was part of your routine duties when you were going
through a street in any city, to look at the windows as well as the
crowds?
Winston
Lawson: Yes, sir; and if the President's car slowed to such a point
or the crowd ever pressed in to such a point that people are getting
too close to the President, the agents always get out and go along
the car.
Gerald Ford: I would like
if I might to follow up with a question which you asked a minute ago
on the record. As I recall your testimony, Mr. Lawson, you indicated
that the police who were assigned along the route had the responsibility
to check windows and the crowd. Is that what you indicated?
Winston
Lawson: And also
the agents as they went by; yes,sir. It wouldn't be just a police
responsibility; no, sir.
Gerald Ford: How did the
police know they had that responsibility?
Winston
Lawson: In our police
meetings, of which we had three or four listed in here, we talked
about crowd control and watching the crowd, and of course the agents
just do that anyway. That is part of their function. And in the newspaper
accounts it said how watchful the police were going to be of all kinds
of activity, and actually they requested public assistance, as I recall
it, anyone that noticed anything unusual they had asked that they
notify the police.
Gerald Ford: When you meet
with police officials, in this case Chief Curry, Sheriff Decker, and
who else, is this clearly laid out that the members of their organization
have the specific responsibility of checking windows? Do you follow
to see whether this is actually put in writing to the members of the
police force, and the Sheriff's department?
Winston
Lawson: No, sir;
I do not follow to see if it was put in writing.
Allen Dulles: You mean
an external check don't you? You don't mean going through each building?
Gerald Ford: No. As I understood
it, policemen have the responsibility to check windows and to look
at the crowd, and I was just wondering whether there is any follow
to be sure that the chief of police and the sheriff or anybody else
actually makes this specific communication to the people in their
organizations.
Winston
Lawson: In this
particular instance there was not. Sometimes on my own advances I
have received copies of police directives. Sometimes this is covered
and sometimes there are other directives. This is not normal though.
It is just that the police say "Here is a copy of one of our
orders." Sometimes it is the posting of police, sometimes it
is that. In Berlin where I was assisting on an advance for President
Kennedy's trip in June, we received all kinds of information of this
type, even to the fact where the police had requested anyone to notify
them of anyone that tried to gain entry into their room that didn't
belong there, if it was a business office or if it was a private home
or if all of a sudden they discovered they had a friend that they
never knew they had before and all that. But this is not always done.
John
J. McCloy: I want
to get it clear. In your presence, in the instructions to the police
in Dallas, did you tell the police to keep their eye on windows as
you went along?
Winston
Lawson: I cannot
say definitely that I told the police to watch windows. I usually
do. On this particular case I cannot say whether I definitely said
that. I believe I did, but I would not swear to the fact that I said
watch all the windows.
John
J. McCloy: I have
heard it rumored that there was a general routine in the Secret Service
that when you were going through in a motorcade or by car, that the
problem of watching windows was so great that you didn't do it. It
was only as you came to a stop that it was the standing instructions
that then roofs should be watched and places of advantage would be
inspected or looked at. Is that true?
Winston
Lawson: No, sir;
the agents in the motorcade are to watch the route and the rooftops
and the windows as they can. Of course there were thousands of windows
there, over 20,000 I believe on that motorcade. But agents are supposed
to watch as they go along...
Gerald Ford: Did you look at or scan that building?
Winston
Lawson: I do not,
no, because part of my job is to look backwards at the President's
car. The speed of the motorcade is controlled by the President's car,
unless it is an emergency situation. If he stands up and is waving
at the crowd and there are quite a few crowds then, of course, the
car goes slower. If the density of the crowd is quite scarce or there
is a time factor why you are going faster. So the person in the lead
car in this rolling command car usually keeps turning around and watching
the President's ear.
(6)
House
Select Committee on Assassinations
(1979)
Findings of the Select Committee on Assassinations in the Assassination
of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963.
The
committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it,
that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result
of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman
or the extent of the conspiracy....
Agencies
and departments of the U.S. Government performed with varying degrees
of competency in the fulfillment of their duties. President John F.
Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A thorough and reliable
investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy was conducted. The investigation
into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate.
The conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good faith,
but presented in a fashion that was too definitive.
The
Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties.
The
Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed,
investigated or used by the Secret Service in connection with the
President's trip to Dallas; in addition, Secret Service agents in
the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President
from a sniper.
(7)
Michael Granberry, Dallas
Morning News (22nd November, 2003)
For retired Secret Service agent Winston G. Lawson, the memory of
Nov. 22, 1963, is an endless stream of windows.
"From
Love Field to Dealey Plaza," he says, "there were 20,000
windows. How could we possibly check them all?"
For
TV cameraman Mal Couch, then a precocious 25, seeing the rifle that
he believes killed President John F. Kennedy - its barrel sticking
out of one of those windows - marked "the beginning of the end
of the world."
Lawson,
75, and Couch, 65, are survivors of a presidential motorcade that
began in splendor and ended in horror.
Forty years have passed - a span of two generations, a lifetime for
some - since JFK's assassination. But for the people caught in the
maelstrom of the motorcade, the horrific day comes to life not only
in the passages of a textbook or the images of a documentary.
It
lives within them because it transformed them...
Winston
Lawson grew up in western New York, where his father was an accountant,
his mother a teacher. He worked in counterintelligence in the Army
and developed an interest in law enforcement. So he applied to the
Secret Service when he and his wife, Barbara, were living in Syracuse.
He did so just in time: In those days, applicants could not be over
30, his age when he applied.
Prized
for being a stickler for detail, he became one of the agency's most
valuable "advance" men, the job he held when President Kennedy
came to Texas.
It
was his job to check out the host city - in this case, Dallas, where
citizens had recently heckled both Vice President Lyndon Johnson and
U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson.
"The
city was absolutely going out of its way to be cordial," said
Lawson, who lives in Virginia Beach, Va. As the motorcade left Love
Field, en route to downtown Dallas, Lawson and the other agents -
all of whom were in the procession - were staggered by the number
of people who lined the streets, the thousands who waved and cheered.
As the motorcade began the last leg of its journey, heading down Elm,
the feeling was one of triumph and vindication for Dallas.
And
then came the first shot.
Like
most witnesses, Winston Lawson recalls two more, though puzzled by
the quicker pace between the second and the third, which all but tore
the president's head off. The madness that ensued found him and other
agents racing to Parkland Hospital, where he was among the first to
see the president's body, crumpled in the Lincoln.
"You
could see the damage to the head, which was devastating," he
says. "You could see the color of the skin, which was gray, but
not gray, really. I knew it had to be a fatal wound. I never saw the
president alive again or his body again."
Instead, he embarked on a 40-year trial of re-examination. "I
must have thought a million times, what could I have done to prevent
it?" he said. "And what could I have done about 20,000 windows?"
He
says he believes fervently that Oswald acted alone. Conspiracy buffs,
he says, neglect to consider the 10 miles of the motorcade's route,
stretching from Love Field, to Lemmon Avenue, to Turtle Creek, to
Cedar Springs, to Harwood, to Main, to Elm, to history. The trip was
to take 35 minutes before arriving at the Trade Mart.
"There
were a million better places from which to have fired a weapon,"
said Lawson.
He
did not let the assassination derail him. Rather than go to a field
office, as most agents eventually do, he remained at Secret Service
headquarters until he retired. He also chose to remain in the agency's
protective division, a decision he admits was influenced by Dallas.
Whenever
he returned home from work, he would drive past the eternal flame
at President Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. "So
it never left me. It's something you want to remember, because you
don't want it to happen again. But you want to forget it because it
happened. It's a paradox."
One
he would not have been able to weather, he says, without the love
and support of fellow agents. "They would say to me, and it's
hard for me to say without breaking down or tears coming to my eyes,
'Win, if it had to happen to anyone, we're glad it happened to you.'
Because I was known for doing the best, most thorough advance in the
entire agency. They know I would have done everything and more"
to prevent what happened, he says.
"And
I can't tell you how much that support has meant over the years."
Lawson's desire to protect continues, even at 75. He handles security
for a high-profile client whose name he declines to reveal. But nothing
in the present can stop the litany of what-ifs involving the past.
When
the president's day began at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, a persistent
drizzle had forced the Secret Service to consider covering the motorcade's
cars in Dallas with protective bubbletops. (Hours later, Dallas would
end up sunny.)
Though the bubbletops were not bulletproof, the metal and the contour
of the covering, says Lawson, would have made it difficult for a bullet
to do much damage, and might have kept a gunman from even firing in
the first place. So he's asked himself a million times: Why couldn't
it keep raining?
"I've
spent years puzzling over thousands of what-if scenarios," he
says. "Was there anything else I could have done? I guess I'll
never have all the answers."
(8)
Winston Lawson, interviewed by the Sixth
Floor Museum (9th May, 2003)
Well, in a
couple of words, that’s false (the theory that the motorcade
route was changed). That myth is wrong…at first, we didn’t
know what route it was going to be because we didn’t know where
the speech/luncheon site was going to be. It was either going to be
at the Women’s Building at the state fair grounds or it was going
to be at the Trade Mart, and early on, in the first couple of days
of the advance, I went to both places. And it was later determined
that, for one reason or another, it would be better to go to the Trade
Mart… That route almost had to be what it was except for a couple
of places out near the airport. But eventually, we had to go down
Main Street, and of course, it’s one-way here now. But then,
we had to come over towards the School Book Depository and turn left
onto Elm here to be able to go onto the Stemmons Freeway, which we
needed to do in the best and most practical way to get to the Trade
Mart.
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