Man at the Window

Lee Harvey Oswald began working at the Texas School Book Depository about six weeks before he became the most infamous man in the world. He was an “order filler”. He worked on the first and sixth floors. He would gather books from an order sheet and deliver them to the first floor shipping room. It could be described as simple, repetitive work. Oswald lived in a rooming house in Dallas. His wife and two young daughters, the youngest only a month old at the time, rented rooms in a house in Irving, Texas about fifteen miles from the Depository. Oswald didn’t own a car and would get a ride every Friday out to see his family and get a ride back to work Monday morning from co-worker Buell Frazier. Frazier lived with his sister a half a block from where Oswald’s family lived. The routine changed on November 21, 1963. Oswald asked Frazier for a ride out to Irving on Thursday night. Frazier was surprised and asked why. Oswald said, “I’m going home to get some curtain rods to put in an apartment.” That was a lie.

Oswald spent the evening with his wife Marina and the children at the house owned by Ruth Paine. Between 8pm and 9pm Oswald spent time alone in the garage where his family stored belongings including curtain rods and a rifle wrapped in an old green and brown blanket. It was an Italian military rifle with a scope that Oswald had bought through the mail the previous March using a phony name. That was a lie.

He left the Paine house at 7:30 on the morning of  November 22nd and walked to Frazier’s sister house to get his ride to work. Linnie Mae Randle, Frazier’s sister, said she saw Oswald walk toward the car port carrying a “heavy brown bag”. She saw him put it in the back seat of her brother’s car. As they were getting in the car to leave, Frazier looked in the backseat and asked, “What’s the package, Lee?” Oswald said curtain rods. Frazier also noticed Oswald didn’t have his lunch with him. He always brought his lunch. Oswald said he was going to buy his lunch that day. That was a lie.

Frazier said Oswald never said very much on the short ride to the Depository. They parked about two blocks away. Oswald took the package out of the backseat and started to walk ahead of Frazier. They usually walked together. Frazier said Oswald was about fifty feet ahead of him when he entered the building. Frazier saw Oswald one more time. After the shooting, Frazier was standing with other co-workers on the front steps of the Depository when Oswald passed him walking out of the building. Oswald walked into the crowd and Frazier lost him.

Oswald worked on the sixth floor that morning. A new floor was being laid and books where being moved from one side of the floor to the other. At 11:45am, the crew working on the sixth floor used the two elevators to go down to the first floor for lunch. Oswald stayed behind. Co-worker Charles Givens realized he left his cigarettes in his jacket pocket on the sixth floor and went back up to get them. He saw Oswald standing with a clipboard appearing to be working. Givens asked, “Boy, are you going downstairs? It’s lunch time.” Oswald replied, “No, sir. When you get down stairs close the gate to the elevator.” Givens left and left Oswald alone on the sixth floor.

At 12:30pm Central Time, as the presidential motorcade turned left onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Governor John Connelly’s wife Nellie, they were both riding in the car with the president and Mrs. Kennedy said, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.” Kennedy replied, “That is very obvious.”

Howard Brennan a 45 year old steam fitter was sitting on a retaining wall across the street from the Depository one hundred-twenty feet below the sixth floor window waiting for the motorcade to pass. About seven minutes before the motorcade arrived, he saw a man go back and forth to the window several times. He heard the first shot and looked up. The man at the window was pointing his $21.45 mail order rifle out that corner window pulling the trigger and everything changed.