Read Online Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs - Free Book Online Page A

located down the slope to the west of the Depository,
Woodward heard a "horrible, ear-shattering noise" coming from behind
them and to their right. She thought it was some sort of joke, a car
backfiring perhaps.
    She saw both the President and Mrs. Kennedy look around as if they,
too, had heard the sound. The presidential limousine came to a halt. Then
Woodward heard two more shots, coming close together, and the President
slumped down in the car. A woman nearby began weeping and cried,
"They've shot him!"
    Mrs. Gloria Calvery and Karen Westbrook, both employees of a publishing firm with offices in the Texas School Book Depository, had gone out
during lunch to see the President. They were standing almost halfway
between the corner of Elm and Houston and the Triple Underpass. Both
heard the first blast and saw Kennedy struck by a bullet just as the
presidential limousine got directly in front of their position. Neither were
questioned later as to the direction of the shots.
    A. J. Millican, a co-worker of Howard Brennan, had no difficulty in
determining where the shots came from. Millican told authorities that day
he was standing on the north side of Elm Street about halfway between
Houston and the Triple Underpass. He said he noticed "a truck from
Honest Joe's Pawn Shop" park near the Depository, then drive off about
five or ten minutes before the President arrived. He told sheriff's deputies:
    Just after the President's car passed, I heard three shots from up toward
Elm right by the Book Depository Building, and then immediately I
heard two more shots come from the arcade between the Book Store and
the Underpass, then three more shots came from the same direction only
sounded further back. It sounded approximately like a .45 automatic, or
a high-powered rifle.
    Millican, who provided perhaps one of the clearest descriptions of the
firing sequence and the location of the shots, was never interviewed by nor
called to testify to the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee
on Assassinations. He died in 1986, apparently having never been questioned by anyone.
    However, his supervisor, Sandy Speaker, said his entire work crew was there and they all corroborated Millican's story. In an interview with
this author, Speaker said:

    I was the superintendent of construction for the Republic Bank project at
the time. Millican and also Howard Brennan were working for me. We
were fabricating plumbing piping for the Republic Bank Building under
construction at the west end of Pacific Street [north of the Texas School
Book Depository]. Millican and the whole crew had knocked off for
lunch and were by the Depository building to watch the parade. I hadn't
gotten there when [the motorcade] passed. I was less than a half-block
away and heard the shots. I heard at least five shots and they came from
different locations. I was a combat Marine with the First Marine Division in World War 11, hand-to-hand combat, missions behind enemy
lines, and I know what I am talking about. I've said for years there were
more than three shots fired.
    John A. Chism, along with his wife and three-year-old son, were near
Millican, standing directly in front of the Stemmons Freeway sign. They
said the first shots were fired just as the President got in front of them.
They saw Kennedy slump to the left and into his wife's arms. Mrs. Chism
told Dallas authorities that day: "And then there was a second shot that I
heard, after the President's wife had pulled him down in the seat. It came
from what I thought was behind us [the Grassy Knoll] and I looked but I
couldn't see anything."
    Chism also looked behind him at the sound of the shots, then, as he
again looked forward and saw "the motorcade beginning to speed up."
    Jean Newman was a twenty-one-year-old manufacturing company employee who came to view the motorcade in Dealey Plaza. She told sheriff's
deputies she was standing between the Stemmons Freeway sign and the