(Testimony of Winston G. , Accompanied By Fred B. Smith, Lawson)
Mr. Lawson.
But if there are a lot of motorcycles around the President's car, I know for a fact that he can't hear the people that are with him in the car talking back and forth. and there were other considerations I believe why he did not want them completely surrounding his car.
Mr. Stern.
Can you summarize for us briefly the security arrangements at Love Field?
Mr. Dulles.
Could I ask one question about the car before we get to Love Field. There has been testimony here that the back seat, the seat in which the President and Mrs. Kennedy had sat, could be raised or lowered I believe by the President himself, could be raised so he could get a better view of the surrounding people, and then it could be lowered and put in a normal position. Do you know anything about that or how that mechanism worked and who worked it?
Mr. Lawson.
No, sir; I am not familiar with his car except for the fact that I know that you can raise or lower the seat. Now whether that is done by him or in the front seat, we do have people that would be competent to tell you that, however.
Mr. Dulles.
You don't know whether that seat was raised at this particular time?
Mr. Lawson.
No, sir.
Mr. Dulles.
As the car went----
Mr. Lawson.
I don't believe it would have been starting out.
Mr. Dulles.
I was talking about it at the time of the shooting.
Mr. Lawson.
No, sir; I have no idea.
Mr. Stern.
Could you now just very briefly and generally summarize the security arrangements at Love Field and your participation in them. Were they under your control and supervision?
Mr. Lawson.
Yes, sir; they were under my control and supervision. We held our police meeting at the airport last because of problems involved in finding an area big enough for his motorcade to start and the planes to park and so forth. This was not actually resolved until the day before he arrived, and that is why the police meeting was held at that point quite late. But arrangements were made to have the general public contained behind a chain link fence which is there anyway, and any overflow general public to be in a parking lot a little ways further away from the President, if there was not enough room behind this chain link fence. Police were along both of these fences to keep the people in their place.
There were two service roads which came in between these two general public areas. We closed off one and used the other because it was the only service road that most of the wings from the Dallas Air Terminal were able to use, catering trucks going together, airplanes, mechanics and people being ferried, crews being ferried and so forth so we couldn't cut it off directly.
However, these roads were to be shut off when his plane touched down, and kept shut off until after his motorcade departed inward, and then they were to be used again while we were gone and then just before we returned to the airport they were to be shut off again.
Mr. Stern.
What about police on buildings?
Mr. Lawson.
Police were requested on the wing of the air terminal that came out closest to where he would stop, and police were requested to be on the air cargo building to the rear of this crowd area, which is a little higher than the small building, the customs building. Any policeman on the air cargo building would be able to control anybody on the roof at the customs building.
Mr. Stern.
Were these police stationed to watch the crowd, to watch persons who might be on the roofs of these buildings, to watch persons who might be in these buildings? What was their function?
Mr. Lawson.
The police on the building tops were to make sure that no unauthorized people were on the building tops, and to watch generally anything else that they could watch, that they were keeping their building top clear. And there were police along the fences to watch the crowd and to keep the people from coming onto the field who were not supposed to. There were detectives to be assigned throughout the crowd, to mingle with the crowd so that the people in the crowd would not know they were detectives.
Mr. Stern.
Was there any particular check of offices inside the buildings
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