Oswald was questioned for about 12 hours over two days, mostly in Captain Will Fritz’s office, with FBI and Secret Service agents taking part. There was no stenographer and no tape recorder. The Warren Commission’s account of what he said is assembled from reports written afterward by the people in the room. [1]
According to those reports, he denied shooting Kennedy or Tippit and denied owning a rifle. Shown the backyard photographs of himself holding a rifle and a pistol, he sneered, according to Fritz, that they were fakes: the police had photographed him the day before and superimposed the guns. An FBI photo expert later testified the pictures were not composites. See the backyard photos file. [4]
He was not represented by a lawyer. On Saturday he tried several times to telephone John Abt, a New York lawyer, without success, and asked Ruth Paine to try for him. That afternoon H. Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association, visited his cell and offered to find him a lawyer; Oswald declined, saying he wanted Abt first. [2]
In a hallway packed with more than 100 reporters he answered shouted questions on camera. “Did you shoot the president?” “No, they are taking me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I’m just a patsy!” [3]
A paraffin test that night was positive for nitrates on his hands and negative on his right cheek. Experts told the Commission the test was unreliable, and the Commission placed no weight on it either way. [4]
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