From Agent James Hosty's contemporaneous notes taken during Mr Oswald's first interrogation (which started 3:15pm, 11/22)-------------
Like most people, I long assumed Mr Oswald talked merely about a rifle which he had seen (and which, it was later established, belonged to Mr Warren Caster), rather than any particular rifle. However, I was knocked for six when I recently came across this FBI interview report for Mr Roy Truly from 11/22-----------
"the rifle"
Did Captain Fritz confront Mr Oswald with the Carcano, and did Mr Oswald claim he had seen Mr Truly with it two days ago?
The problem with that scenario is that Lt Carl Day said he locked the Carcano away in an evidence box in the Identification Bureau at around 2pm, returned to the Depository around 2:45pm, and didn't unlock the evidence box again until around 7pm that evening. It is hard to see how Captain Fritz could have shown Mr Oswald the Carcano during that first interrogation session......
Given that the first Caster rifle mentioned in the Truly interview report above ("a ___________ rifle") was in fact a Mauser, I think it's fair to ask: Was Mr Oswald shown a Mauser rifle during that first interrogation?
Oswald had information that he had seen Truly with the rifle. Truly says that a day or two ago a salesman with whom he does business came into his office and he had two rifles that he had recently purchased, a ______ rifle plus a .22 rifle for his son. He showed these rifles to Truly and he sighted down it, and it's possible that Oswald might have seen him with this gun in his hands. Truly does not own a rifle, and that is the only rifle that he has touched in a long time. Lets parse the note....
Oswald had information that he had seen Truly with
the rifle. The Rifle..... Of course the only rifle in evidence at this point is the CARCANO....And detective Day had just brought the Carcano from the TSBD at about 3:00pm so it was in fact at police headquarters, at 3:15 when Fritz started questioning Lee Oswald. It's SOP for a suspect to be shown the murder weapon and ask if the suspect has ever seen it and observe the suspect's reaction.
"Truly says that a day or two ago a salesman with whom he does business came into his office and he had two rifles that he had recently purchased, a ______ rifle plus a .22 rifle for his son." What jumps right out is, this statement states that there were only TWO men involved, Mr Truly, and some unnamed salesman.
The liars have always maintained that Hosty's scribbled note (
" Truly had rifle and two others") was referring to Truly and two other men being present. But according to this note there was just Roy Truly and the salesman.
As I recall the official version states that one of the men present was Mr Caster, and Caster certainly wasn't a salesman who Truly did business with....So he can't be referring to Mr Caster.
"He showed these rifles to Truly and he sighted down it, and it's possible that Oswald might have seen him with this gun in his hands " Truly admits handling the rifle ....Was that because if his finger prints showed up on the carcano he would have an explanation for his prints being on the rifle???
[i "]that is the only rifle that
he has touched in a long time." [/i] "He has touched "...Interesting choice of words....Was Truly a bit worried that his prints might have been on the rifle???