his home in dallas. at the time and for weeks thereafter it wasn't clear who the assassin was. it would be determined by the warren commission that the assassin was lee harvey oswald and that he may well have used the same rifle in trying to kill walker that he would use in daley plaza to kill kennedy. it's marina oswald in the warren commission investigation who says her husband tried to kill the president. he had admitted that to her. >> did marina oswald come here? >> she did, indeed. she came on more than one occasion. she was here for, i think, several days in february 1964. she was the lead-off formal witness for the commission. and she was an important witness because she made it clear that she thought her husband had killed president kennedy and she thought he had done it alone.

she's called back more than once after serious questions are raised about her truthfulness. among other things, in her initial interviews with the fbi and secret service, she denied she had any knowledge of this mexico city trip. it turned out later she knew all about it. she knew all about it before her husband had gone there. >> the so-called magic bullet and what was the significance of that for the commission? >> well, i think it's probably the single most controversial piece of evidence from the kennedy assassination investigation. it's the bullet the commission staff would conclude had passed through the bodies of both president kennedy and texas governor connolly. that contradicted the initial fbi report on the assassination, which found three bullets had landed in the president's limousine. the first one hit president kennedy in the back. the second one hit governor connolly in the back. and the third one hit president kennedy in the head, which was

the fatal shot. the commission staff showed using the zapruder film that oswald would just not have had time to fire off three individual bullets into the limousine. if he didn't have time, that would suggest there must be a second -- at least one other gunman in daley plaza. the staff was convinced oswald acted alone as the gunman. it came up with a theory, the theory initially offered by one of the navy pathologists who conducts president kennedy's autopsy that perhaps one bullet had passed through both bodies. and that is what the commission staff, and i think subsequently a lot of serious scientists and technical teams have determined as well, that one bullet did pass through the bodies of both men and that this is that bullet. what surprised a lot of people is that this bullet wasn't much more damaged than it appears to be. it's sometimes referred to as

the pristine bullet. as you can see here, it is not fully pristine. it was damaged some. and some scientists would tell you they would have expected to see much more damage if it had gone through both bodies. but there are no rules here. a lot of ballistics investigation is much more art than science. and all of the8y most reliable scientific evidence suggests that, indeed, this bullet did pass through both bodies. it turned up in parkland hospital after the president's death. >> i think at the end here there's the original letter that accompanies the bullet. >> it falls off the stretcher and becomes important to the commission staff, especially to arlen spectre, to show this fell from governor connolly's stretcher since it had presumably passed through president kennedy's body before it hit connolly. at the end of the investigation,

the commission concludes it did, indeed, come from governor connolly's stretcher. >> you mentioned an fbi report that made conclusions that came out in december. >> an awful lot of confusion at the beginning of the investigation is created by what is supposedly an authoritative fbi report on the assassination. it's delivered to the white house and to the warren commission in december 1963. it's supposedly the result of this most aggressive fbi investigation of all time. the warren commission takes one look at it and most commissioners decide it's so inadequate, the investigation is being handled so poorly, the commission will have to do a much more aggressive investigation of its own. it continues to rely on the fbi to do a lot of the basic detective work but the relationship between the fbi and the warren commission was very strained.

and this initial report had a lot to do with setting the ugly tone that existed between the rest of the investigation. >> how could the nation's leading law enforcement agency with sophisticated labs and experienced agents make a report that these lawyers considered inadequate and sloppy? >> that's a good question. we now know, of course, that the fbi in the era of j. edgar hoover, was never as discipli d disciplined -- never had the integrity we would have hoped it to have. and the fbi had a big problem after the investigation. because it turns out the fbi did have lee harvey oswald under surveillance, pretty aggressive surveillance before the assassination. j. edgar hoover, who was really

a force unto himself at that time, to prove that oswald was a lone wolf, he carried out this aas nation alone, that nobody else knew about it, that there was no conspiracy, certainly no conspiracy that the fbi could have foiled. and he seems determined to prove that regardless of what the facts might actually show. >> this is a model used by the warren commission. >> right. i think this model now exists at the museum now located in the texas -- what used to be the texas school book depository. you'll see small models of cars were used to try to indicate where the president's limousine and the other cars and the motorcade had been at different times. this is arlen specter, at the time assistant district attorney of philadelphia, assigned temporarily to the warren

commission. he's often referred to as the father of the single bullet theory. can you see him here demonstrating how the single bullet theory would have happened. that the body -- that a bullet passing through the body of this first gentleman, who's silting in for president kennedy, that the bullet would have passed through kennedy and then hit governor connally in the back. the commission staff felt strongly from the earliest days that they needed to go to dallas. they needed to try to reconstruct as much of the assassination scene as they could. they wanted to take the rifle, the one oswald apparently used, they wanted to take it back to the sixth floor of the texas book depository, affix a camera to the top of it and see what oswald would have seen through the scope of his rifle when he was taking the shots. that's what they're doing here

with the assistance principally of the fbi. it turns out that chief justice warren did not want to do this reconstruction. he thought it was unnecessary. he didn't want to create this media ruckus in dallas, but eventually he's convinced it has to be done. >> then in the same film you can download online is a reconstruction, i think, of oswald's movements after the shooting? >> i think this is a reconstruction here of the perch on the sixth floor and this is, i guess, a gentleman in the role of oswald leafing the area of the perch on the sixth floor and showing how he would have left that floor and then left the building. >> and they end up following all the way down to the cafeteria where this man sits down to drink a coke. why was the timing of him leaving his perch and exiting the building so important?

>> it becomes important because witnesses do encounter oswald in this cafeteria downstairs. the question becomes, did oswald have time to fire the shots, then get from the sixth floor downstairs to the cafeteria where he is seen swigging a soda. the warren commissions concludes he does have the time to get down there. he's remarkably poised when he's confronted by these witnesses. that's true of oswald in several situations after the assassination. that he's poised and articulate as he denies he had any involvement in the assassination. well, i would just say this about the ballistics evidence. it's a confusing topic if only because certain expeerments are done by the warren commission, or at least done at the request of the warren commission, and many, many, many have been done in the decades since.

the most reliable scientific evidence shows that the dull ets and dull et fragments that can be identified appear to have come from oswald's rifle. >> this is one you requested that we look at, the national archives allowed us to videotape, a bus transfer ticket found in oswald's pocket after his arrest. >> this is fascinating to me because it reflects an investigation that was carried out by the warren commission staff but was not reflected in the warren commission's final report. which is that one of the most aggressive of the staff lawyers on the commission becomes convinced that oswald was trying to flee somewhere. that he had someplace in mind to go after the assassination. and this young lawyer, a fellow by the name of david bellin from des moines, iowa, finds this bus transfer from the day of the assassination, suggesting that oswald was going to use this bus

transfer to get somewhere in particular. oswald knew the bus routes of dallas. he used the public transport all the time. and the conclusion was that oswald was going to use the transfer because he knew there was a bus that he wanted to connect to. this young lawyer comes to the conclusion eventually that oswald may as well been heading back to new mexico. something happened during oswald's mexico city visit. he encountered cubans or those sympathetic to cuba who offered to help oswald if he could get back out of the united states after the assassination. as i say, that theory, and it was only a theory, but that theory is not reflected in the warren commission's final report because the warren commission leaders, chief justice warren in particular, wanted to rule out speculation. wanted to rule out that other people knew about or conspired with oswald. >> what was that dynamic like between someone who had a theory about the bus transfer and the commissioners? was there a lot of tension?

>> well, there was tension. not much communication, direct communication. a long of young staffers, most of whom are still alive and i interviewed for this book, they were really cut off from the commissioners. they were cut off from chief justice warren. there was very little interaction with them and that became a matter of great frustration. in the case of this business with the bus transfer and this theory about oswald going to mexico because somebody had promised to help him, that -- that never gets close to getting into the final report. it's actually senior staffers within the commission who ruled that out, again, because the commission doesn't want to encourage speculation, ion though some of the speculation might point to co-conspirators in the assassination. >> this is the zapruder camera as it's stored at the national archives. >> abraham zapruder is a dallas women's wear manufacturer who on

the day of the assassination wanted to record images of the. the's motorcade passing through de de de dealey plaza. this is his bell & howell movie camera and it turns out he captures all of the assassination. it's 20 seconds of film. it's certainly the most important piece of evidence that the warren commission had. it, as i say, documented every essential moment of the assassination and it acted essentially as a clock on the assassination. it could suggest when individual shots were fired and when individual shots hit the body of president kennedy and governor connally. zapruder very quickly after the assassination sold the film to "life" magazine. and that created an awkward situation where the warren commission didn't immediately have access to this very vital piece of information.

eventually "life" magazine hands over the original film so the commission could see it. and assist i say, i think it's undoubtedly the most important piece of physical evidence the commission had access to. >> there's another document you told us about in an e-mail. an unpublished memoir by winston scott. >> winston scott was the cia station chief in mexico city in 1963. he was almost certainly more powerful than any of the ambassadors in mexico city he served under. he had been there since the -- since, i believe, 1956. he had sources throughout the mexican government. and it turned out after the assassination that scott and his colleagues from cia in mexico city had oswald under pretty aggressive surveillance during his mexico city trip, scott told the warren commission when they

go to visit him. staff members go to mexico city to meet with him. he tells the warren commission that he does not believe there was conspiracy. certainly no conspiracy that had anything to do with mexico city or the surveillance that scott's staff conducted of oswald while he was there. years and years after the assassination it turned out that scott had decided to write his memoirs. and his memoirs, which were declassified only in the 1990s, showed that he apparently never told the truth to the warren commission. he thought there might well have been a conspiracy that involved some communist government. he thought it might be the soviet union. and the reasons for him not telling the truth to the warren commission in 1964 are baffling. i think there's good reason to believe that he knew much more about lee harvey oswald and what had happened in mexico than he ever wanted to share with the

warren commission. if only because it would prove that he knew that oswald might be a threat and yet never passed on that information to washington where it might have been used to save the president's life. >> towards the end of your book you mention a -- there's an eye-popping document from the cia that's 132-page sort of summary of what they knew about oswald? >> well, the cia many years after the assassination puts together this incredible chronology, day by day by day, of what they had known about lee harvey oswald, specifically foection cussed on what the cia knew about his travels to mexico. and it showed that the cia had been aware pretty quickly after the assassination, certainly shortly after the warren commission went out of business, that there was much more to the story of oswald in mexico city

than had ever been shared with washington. again, the record shows that the cia knew much more about oswald than it ever told anyone, even to this day, i believe. there are still documents about the kennedy assassination, about the cia's knowledge of oswald, that are still considered classified and are still under seal at the national archives. you know, there's reason to believe that the cia may have had contact in one form or another with oswald while he was in mexico city. and i think the cia may have feared that that fact, if is it had become known, would have created a massive scandal for the cia. a scandal that the agency did not want to address. years later congress would investigate the kennedy assassination. the house of representatives. and they would find witnesses from within the cia who said that the cia had photographs of surveillance photographs that were taken of oswald during his mexico city trip.

and it appeared there were tape-recordings of his telephone calls while he was in mexico city and all of this evidence would never be shared with the warren commission. in fact, the cia would claim the tapes were erased routinely before the assassination and these photographs never existed. and yet it sure appears they may well have existed. >> you begin in your book with mexico city and you end with mexico city. this is sylvia duran's name in oswald's address book. can we know what happens there? what's your conclusion when you think about mexico city? >> i'll tell you one bit of hope i have here is that there still may be questions to be answered in mexico city. there are people -- people alive to this day who seem to know much more about what oswald was doing in mexico city in the fall of 1963 than they ever shared with the united states government or that they were

ever asked about at the time. a lot of people seemed to have been ignored by the fbi and cia in 1963 and 1964. they seem to be able to place oswald in the company of people who may have wanted to see president kennedy dead. who may have encouraged him to go back to texas and do what he did. i think the single most eye-popping document in all the work i did on this book, and it is found at the national archives, is a letter that was sent by fbi director jay edgar hoover to the warren commission in june 1964 in which he reveals, and i think he reveals very reluctantly, that the fbi had come across reliable information to suggest that oswald, while he's in mexico, had been talking openly about his intention to kill president kennedy. that he had actually marched into an embassy, a communist embassy, certainly appears to

have been the cuban embassy, and announced that he was going to kill president kennedy. that letter from hoover to the warren commission seems to disappear. i've shown it to members of the warren commission staff, the men who should have seen it at the time, who should have been able to follow up and investigate further in mexico city, and they're convinced they never saw it. if they had seen it, you would think they would go back to mexico and find out who else heard oswald make that boast and what they did with it. people in mexico hearing this man talk openly about killing president kennedy. promising to help him get out of the united states. but the warren commission staff wasn't allowed to investigate because it appears they never saw this letter. >> this is a video of the government printing office's copy of the warren report, 26 volumes. did this work serve the public well?

>> i think unhappily history k;o shows the warren commission missed a tremendous amount of information. information was hidden from the warren commission. there is the possibility that at least people around lee harvey oswald knew what he was planning to do and may have encouraged him to do what he was going to do. you know, conspiracy is a loaded word but that does raise the question if there were others who conspired with lee harvey oswald to kill john kennedy. >> we're sitting in the conference room that the warren commission used. the same bookshelves, the same table. what did the people who came to you to ask you to write this book, what has been their reaction to your work? >> i think a lot of them have been horrified to discover just how much evidence was withheld from them in 1964. i think they all had a strong

sense that material had been destroyed or hidden from them way back then. i don't think they knew the extent of it until now. i think a lot of the people -- the warren commission staffers, who are central figures in my book and people i depended on in my interview, a lot of them are gratified to see that my book recognizes most of them were not trying to hide anything. many of them were eager to find a conspiracy if one existed. they really worked their hearts out on this investigation. some of them to the point of physical collapse. i think they're pleased by the fact that history will show they tried to do their jobs well. if the warren commission failed, it wasn't because of them. they tried to neighboring this work. >>. >> you've written two books about the warren commission and the united states. what lessons can the american public draw from your work about the value of these commissions? >> i'll tell you the largest

conclusion i've come to, which is that both the 9/11 commission and the warren commission were hindered by the fact that politicians and politicians played a role that have damaged the reputation of both investigations. i wonder if in the future we face the next national tragedy, whether we want to have truly independent scholars and historians run these investigations. i think that might have served us very well if real historians, real scientists, real tech technicians got involved in the assassination of president kennedy. >> you've been watching c-span's

american history tv. we want to hear from you. follow us on twitt twitter @c-spanhistory, connect with us on facebook at facebook.com/yspanhistory where you can leave comments, too. check out upcoming programs on our website, c-span.org/history you can leave comments, too. check out upcoming programs on our website, c-span.org/history you can leave comments, too. check out upcoming programs on our website, c-span.org/history. >> we would like to tell you about some of our other american history tv programs. be with us every saturday at 8 p.m. and midnight eastern for lectures in history. join students in the classroom to hear lectures on campuses across the country on topics ranging from the american revolution to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. again, that's lectures in history every saturday at 8 p.m. and midnight eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. festivities start at 10 a.m.

eastern on c-span with the lighting of the national christmas tree followed by the white house christmas decorations with first lady michelle obama. and the lighting of the capitol christmas tree. and just after 12:30 p.m., celebrity activists talk about their causes. then at 8:00, supreme court justice samuel alito and former florida governor jeb bush on the bill of rights and the founding fathers. on c-span2 at 10 a.m. eastern, venture into the art of good writing with steve pinker. and at 12:30 see the feminine side of a super hero as jill lapore searches the secret history of wonder woman. at 7 p.m. author pamela paul and others talk about their reading habits. on american history tv on c-span3 at 8 a.m. eastern, the fall of the berlin wall with c-span footage of president george w. bush and bob dole with speeches from presidents john kennedy and ronald reagan. at noon fashion experts on first ladies' fashion choices and how they represented the stilsz of the times in which they lived.

and at 10:00, former nbc news anchor tom brokaw on his more than 50 years of reporting on world events. that's this christmas day on the c-span networks. for a complete schedule, go to c-span.org. each week american history tv's american artifacts visits museums, archives and historic places. next, we visit the national archives in college park, maryland, to learn about the kennedy assassination records collection. the warren report was released to the public 50 years ago on september 27, 1964. and we'll see video recorded by the national archives of many of the well-known artifacts from the investigation. including lee harvey oswald's rifle, the so-called magic bullet and the camera originals zapruder film. our guide is martha wagner murphy. >> the president john f. kennedy assassination records collection was created because of the

president john f. kennedy assassination records collection act of 1992. so, a short history, since the time of the assassination there's been numerous official investigations, starting with the warren commission and then some congressional investigations, church committee looked into it and then, of course, house select committee on assassinations. and then in the early '90s there was a movie that came out by oliver stone and at the end of that movie, he made a point of saying that all the records had now been open and available. >> mr. chairman, members of the subcommittee, my name is oliver stone. and i assure you it is with pleasure and some pride that i appear before this subcommittee today to urge the passage of house joint resolution 454. quote, to provide for the expeditious disclosure of records relevant to the assassination of president john f. kennedy. >> the purpose of the act was to make sure that all of the records that were considered

assassination related were collected, sent to the national archives and open to the greatest extent possible. there was an independent agency created, that was temporary, whose job was to make sure that the agencies were complying with this. and also to determine -- make sure that the records were open to the greatest extent possible. so, in response to that act, we created the collections and the collection has been here at the national archives ever since. we estimate that there's about 5 million textual pages, so pieces of paper. we also have photographs and some films, audio recordings and the like. >> if the public or researchers want access to these items, how does that work? >> so, for most of the textual records in our holdings, all they would need to do is come here and ask to have access. there are various finding aids on our website, www.archives.gov. the national archives has created a database of items

released after '92 in response to the act. in fact, the database entries were created by the agencies that were still holding the records, the national archives created the database itself. and then all of that data was transferred here and we made that available to the public. and so you can search on an item level the records that are in the collection. and if you see something that you'd like to see, you can come here, ask to see it on our business hours, when we're available. the box will be pulled from our hold area and made available in our research room here at the national archives in college park. okay. so, here we have three items, which you requested. unlike the physical artifacts, we were able to accommodate you and make these available to you because these are basically textual documents. they're not physical artifacts of the collection. so the first item you requested was commission exhibit 381-a, which is this item right here.

this is a bus transfer, which was found in the pocket of lee harvey oswald after he was arrested. and was obtained by the dallas police, event lually given overo the fbi and became an exhibit of the warren commission. the seconds item that you requested is lee harvey oswald's address book. so, this is a custom-made container made by our conservation staff. and, again, this is acid-free. this is mylar. they have this handy little lift so you can get it out of its well without having to pull on it. you can see there's a commission exhibit number on there. commission exhibit 18. and it has all of his handwritten items, including a map, addresses and telephone numbers. as you would expect.

the final item is a map of mexico city. oswald made a trip to mexico city prior to the assassination. and brought this map home. this was acquired by dallas police and the fbi and eventually the warren commission as well. on this side of the map they have a sort of smaller map with tourist spots, which are identified on this side. as can you tell, certain things were circled. it was like that when we received it. obviously, we wouldn't add anything like that. the backside is a larger map. again, with several items circled. i had found in secondary sources people have written that these -- some of the items that are circled, and i assume it's on this side, were actually the

embassies of cuba and the ussr, but i have not found the primary documentation of that. it's probably in the records that would document specifically what is circled on here. of course, the context for these are all documented well in the warren commission report. in order for something to become a commission exhibit, it would have been discussed in one of the testimony that was taken by the warren commission or would have been referenced in the warren commission report. >> so, 50 years later, are there still classified items? and how does the declassification process work? >> well, that was taken care of in the act itself. so, the assassination records review board, which was the independent agency, had a unique power. they were -- had the capability of overruling the agencies, even on a classification issue. and the only appeal that the agencies had was to the president of the united states. so, while the review board was in business, they made a final determination on the records. >> when the board reviewed these

records and applied its balanced judgment, we found little reason to continue to protect these records. in fact, many of them we found really should not have been protected during the 1960s. but we do have to remember the era in which this occurred, an era which national security concerns were heightened and caused the sealing of all of these important files. >> however, there were a few. there's still some that were renamed classified in part or in full. if you read the act, it says 25 years after the passing of the act everything must be made available. so that will be 2017, october of 2017. so we're already actually gearing up a process to get the withdrawn material processed and ready for release. >> what particular challenges does this collection present to the archives that other collections might not? >> well, one of the challenges is that we have a lot of physical artifacts. by artifacts, i mean, things other than paper. we have sort of the contents of

the boarding room where oswald was living. even things like his flip-flops and odd things like that. here at the national archives. and it's actually fairly unusual. the national archives does have some other artifacts but we're mostly a paper agency. and because of the huge interest in this, we have numerous people who want to have access to these materials. and so there's always a tension between conservation and access. and so, that's probably been our biggest challenge. and the way we have addressed that is by trying to provide as much access as we can through still pictures and film of the most popular artifacts that are in the collection. so that people can see them and have their research questions answered without actually looking at the actual, physical artifact. because every time we have to make an actual item available, we are risking a bit the

conservation of the item. and so, that's why for the press, we have provided "b" roll video of the artifacts themselves, which we did prior to the 50th anniversary. so, here we are in one of our conservation labs with one of our conservators. and she is going to show us, which is fbi exhibit b-1, which is oswald's wallet, including the contents. i'm going to answer a question that a lot of people have, which is, what is the staining that is on portions of those items? that is from the fingerprint chemical that was used by the fbi to try to obtain fingerprints. it ended up staining the artifact itself. so, i know some people think it looks like blood. it is not blood. this would have been in oswald's possession when he was arrested but not in his possession when

he was shot. and here she's laying out some of the items that were found, which we have encapsulated in mylar. the conservators here we have. some of the items that are in the wallet were things like his social security card, his selective service notice, a service i.d. because he was in the marine corps at one time. also, a fair play for cuba committee identification card. that was an organization that he belonged to. let's see. what else is interesting in here? other i.d., public library card. so all of these are just the contents of a wallet like you would have in your own wallet, whatever you have right now. this is something that we wouldn't normally make available to researchers. that's why we have filmed it. mostly because of the wallet itself, even more than the contents. there you can see he also had

some photographs that -- the woman in the picture is his wife. there you can see his marine corps photograph as well. so the next exhibit is fbi exhibit k-51 which was the camera used to take a very famous film of the assassination which probably most people have seen. it's in a case or we have a case to it, which you can see right there. as you can see, she's putting gloves on. we generally don't use gloves with paper items. but with the artifacts, it's common practice to waear a cottn gl glove. we do not store the camera in the case, which you can see here is the acid free box that the camera is stored in. and the material that's inside the box to protect it as well.

so here is -- you will see that says on this label, which is on the outside of the box, it's a common means that we have of identifying the item so we can keep control. you will see rg 272, that refers to the record group for the warren commission. our records are arranged primarily here at the national archive bs by record group. these are like all of the others, we have maintains them in the same manner. so the next item is the t-shirt that oswald was wearing when he was shot. again, it is part of the warren commission records. it says fbi exhibit because the fbi collected it first. then it was transferred on to the warren commission and then eventually to the national archives. i will say we have had the records of the warren commission well before the passing of the jfk act. and those records were about

90% -- 98% open prior to the passing of the act. those records have been open and available here at the national archives for many years. so we have had these artifacts for a very long time as well. you will sometimes see on some of the artifacts that there are inissues. those initials were used as a means of documenting the transfer of custody from one organization to another, like the dallas police on to the fbi or between individuals within the fbi. and each one of these artifacts, you could fine in our files. this is the sweater he was wearing when he was shot. we have the -- they have put these in acid free boxes with acid free tissue to preserve them. any laboring that would have

been on the materials when they came to us we have preserved every artifact of the artifact. so any of these are all original labels. the national archives would not have placed the labels on here. this is the shirt that oswald was wearing when he was shot. he was shot when he was in the custody of the dallas police being moved from one place to another. and it was being filmed. it was unusual. there was a lot of press available. the conservators here have experience in pretty much everything we need them to. but if necessary, they certainly will reach out to an expert. but they have all been -- that's their education. they have been trained with deal with multiple materials. this item is commission exhibit 126. it was a blue bag that was found in oswald's affects.

it was picked up at his residence on north beckley street by dallas police officers. and so, this was a tag that was affixed by then. >> it says charge murder there. >> right. the thing to remember about the assassination is at the time that kennedy was assassinated, it was not a federal crime to kill the president. he would have gone on trial for murder in texas. so the dallas police were investigating that. >> does the archives have to work -- had to work with the dallas police? >> no. because all of these items were transferred to the fbi and then to the warren commission who would have given it the exhibit number and then it came to the national archives. it was within the custody of the u.s. federal government prior to transfer to us. national archives has the records of the u.s. federal government.

this is the famous rifle, which oswald used to assassinate the president. again, you can see the custom box that was created by the national archives conservation staff. again, it has its own commission exhibit number. which is commission exhibit 139. and we consider it part of the records of the warren commission. they were the organization who had custody last prior to transfer. so the next item is this blanket. this is the blanket found in the house of ruth payne. ruth payne was the woman with whom oswald's wife and daughter were staying at the time. oswald had stored some of his affects, i believe in their garage. and so it is it believed that he

actually had wrapped the rifle in this blanket while it was in ruth payne's garage. and it was found after the assassination. so next we will look at oswald's revolver. so after the president was assassinated, there was also a police officer who was killed. and he was killed by oswald using this revolver. and the interesting thing that i think a lot of people don't know is that oswald was initially arrested for the murder of the officer, not for the assassination of president kennedy. it was only when he was in police custody that they put together that they were looking for someone who was missing from the texas depository whose name was lee harvey oswald and we have him in custody because they had had him in custody for the killing of the officer. so this revolver is significant for several reasons.

and this is the shirt that he was wearing when he was arrested. here you will see our conservator handling it very carefully. she's going to, i think, spend a little time and try to put it on the form so you can see what it looks like. one of the interesting things about the shirt is that the fbi was able to find a piece of the fabric from the shirt actually attached to the rifle itself. and the rifle was found at the texas school depository. it's another piece of evidence used to connect oswald to the assassination. there you can see some initials. put on the shirt itself. everything that i'm telling you now, i just know because of working with the records. anyone could come in, they could read the warren commission report and most everything i'm saying is in the warren commission report.