(Testimony of Mrs. Earle Cabell)
Mrs. Cabell.
rumor that the President himself might come. We knew that the President's daughters were here, so they asked us not to wander around that night. We have spent New Year's night for many years with a very close group of friends, so we invited them to our home that night, but we explained to them that early in the evening and under rather heavy security, we went downtown to the Sheraton Hotel into a private suite to greet the Under Secretary of Navy and his wife. We stayed in this group possibly 30 or 40 minutes and then we went back to our home. At that time security had been lessened in our home. There were only two men with us at all times then. It had been much heavier earlier. The men had been in our home so long that they were like members of the family almost. They knew most of our guests because they had accompanied us on the Christmas parties and festivities that we went to. We were never without them.
We did not drive our own cars for 2 months. So most of these guests were known to the security officers that were in our home that night. But I am again hazy on the time. It must have been about 11 o'clock. I walked back into our bedroom for something, and the phone rang back there. I picked it up. This man's voice--it was not a kid, it was not a drunk--said, "Mrs. Cabell?" I said, "Yes." He said, "We are coming to kill that God damn mayor now." And hung up the phone.
Mr. Hubert.
Tell me, do you have a listed number?
Mrs. Cabell.
An unlisted number. That is what startled us.
Mr. Hubert.
It is an unlisted number?
Mrs. Cabell.
Yes; it is an unlisted number, and that is what startled us. I walked out of the bedroom through the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen and caught the eye of one of the security officers and motioned to him. He followed me back into the bedroom, and I closed the door and told him what had happened. He walked straight to the phone and called his superior officer.
Mr. Hubert.
Let me ask you, did this seem to be a local call, or long distance?
Mrs. Cabell.
I have no way of knowing. When I picked up the phone and said "Hello," this man's voice said, "Mrs. Cabell."
Mr. Hubert.
And he said what you have just said, and that is all?
Mrs. Cabell.
He hung up before I did. So Officer Beaty picked up the phone and called his superior. I had said to him, "Please ask what 'to do about our guests." Because there had always been the thinking among the security officers, the possibility of a bomb being thrown at the house.
Mr. Hubert.
Let me ask you, was your unlisted phone number carefully guarded or kept?
Mrs. Cabell.
No, no. It was given to our church. It was given to the press. They all had it. They had to talk to Earle. It was given to some organizations to which we belonged. The thinking on our part was that we wanted to be available to responsible people. It was merely the crank calls that we were trying to avoid after Earle went in office.
Mr. Hubert.
So it was rather widely disseminated, and I suppose recorded by those people?
Mrs. Cabell.
Who it had been given to; that's right. So it was not an impossible number to obtain. It couldn't be in Earle's position.
Mr. Storey.
(after shortly entering the room). Mr. Hubert, I might say I had trouble in finding it ,the one time I wanted to call the mayor.
Mr. Hubert.
Well, Mrs. Cabell, I have nothing more to ask you. If you have anything you would like to say concerning the subjects we have covered, or anything else pertinent to the inquiry, we would be glad to hear from you.
Mrs. Cabell.
I do not know of anything that would be of any help except that from Earle's experience at Tupinamba, that somebody knew when those police cars pulled in and out of that driveway. There was always one facing the street. They were not squad cars. They were cars that the Special Service men drove. They were Galaxies, different color, but they all carried the license that people who knew about things like that could recognize them as being a police car. One evening Chief Curry called and talked to my husband and said things had been so quiet that if you and Mrs. Cabell feel all right about it, I am going to bring the boys in. And my husband said, "Now Chief, that has
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