McLaren: “Ten witnesses smelled gun smoke at street level at the time of the shooting”. The wind was 16 mph from the south west. The wind was blowing at 15 mph towards the TSBD. Patrolman Brown was standing above the motorcade on the overpass when he smelled gun smoke, wind was coming from behind him. Senator Yarbrough, riding in the car behind the Secret Service car, Ralph W. Yarbrough, was a war veteran and was very familiar with the smell of gun smoke. By days end, Deckers men pulled in several dozen witnesses. Hugh Betner saw one Secret Service agent pull out a gun, he was standing watching the motorcade.
Betzner doesn't say when relative to the last shot that he saw the rifle.
Senator Yarbrough also saw a rifle.
Yarborough, in his affidavit, said he saw the rifle after the fatal shot:
"After the shooting, one of the secret service men sitting down in the car in
front of us pulled out an automatic rifle or weapon and looked backward."
Dallas Mayor see’s one Secret Service agent standup with a sub-machine gun.
His testimony seems to place the rifle sighting after Clint Hill ran to the limousine:
"The Secret Service men ran to that car. From out of nowhere appeared
one Secret Service man with a submachine gun."
Secret Service agent Winston Lawson testified he saw a fellow agent holding a rifle, an automatic weapon and the first thing that went through his head is that he had fired it.
"I noticed Agent Hickey standing up in the follow-up car with the automatic
weapon and first thought he had fired at someone."
(Statement Dec. 1, 1963)
"Then the second and third shots, reports, I noticed the President's car back
there, but I also noticed right after the reports an agent standing up with an
automatic weapon in his hand, and the first thing that flashed through my mind,
this was the only weapon I had seen, was that he had fired because this was
the only weapon I had seen up to that time."
(WC Testimony)
Lawson did not see the Colt AR-15 "“in agent Hickey’s had at the time of the of the third shot."
Agent Hickey was holding the AR 15. Agent Winston rides in the front of JFK in the lead car. He noticed Agent Hickey standing up in the follow up car, “I first thought that he had fired it”.
In his statement, Lawson places his Hickey sighting after the shooting:
"As the lead car was passing under this bridge I heard the first loud, sharp report
and in more rapid succession two more sounds like gunfire. I could see persons
to the left of the motorcade vehicles running away. I noticed Agent Hickey standing
up in the follow-up car with the automatic weapon and first thought he had fired at
someone. Both the President's car and our lead car rapidly accelerated almost
simultaneously."
"Howard Donahue went through the Warren Report and found eleven witnesses that put the AR15 in Agent Hickeys hand at the time of the third shot. Of the eleven witnesses, seven are Secret Service agents". No mention of Mennengers book, I don't know. I have McLarens book on order, I will see what it says.
"Nine witnesses--including Hickey himself--had put the gun in Hickey's hands
just after the last shot. More important, two of the witnesses had put the
gun in Hickey's hands the instant the shot was fired. And one had seen the
agent stand up and fall over about the time the shot hit home."
--
Mortal Error, p.105 (St. Martin's Press, 1992)
The "two witnesses" referred to in the book clipping are Sam Holland and supposedly Glen Bennett. Donahue's parsing of Holland's account is the basis for Hickey having been seen to "stand up and fall over about the time the shot hit home." I think Donahue is a lot more honest than McLaren.
