TESTIMONY OF GARLAND GLENWILL SLACK

The testimony of Garland Glenwill Slack was taken at 8:30 a.m., on April 2, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Wesley J. Liebeler, assistant counsel of the President's Commission.

Mr. Liebeler. Would you stand up for just a moment, Mr. Slack. Will you raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Slack. I do.

Mr. Liebeler. Please be seated, sir.

Mr. Slack, my name is Wesley J. Liebeler. I am a member of the legal staff of the President's Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy.

I have been authorized to take your testimony and the testimony of other witnesses by the Commission pursuant to authority granted to the Commission by Executive Order No. 11130, dated November 29, 1963, and joint resolution of Congress No. 137. I want to give you a copy of the joint resolution and the Executive order and a copy of the rules of procedure adopted by the Commission governing the taking of testimony of witnesses.

Actually, Mr. Slack, you are entitled to 3 days' notice before you would be required to come and testify, and I realize we didn't give you that much notice but you are also entitled to waive the notice, and I assume that you will do so since you are here, and I assume that you are perfectly willing to go ahead, is that correct?

Mr. Slack. Yes.

Mr. Liebeler. I want to ask you today about the possibility that you saw Lee Harvey Oswald at the Sports Drome gun range sometime in the month of November 1963. Before we get into that, however, I would like you to state your full name for the record, if you would?

Mr. Slack. Garland Glenwill Slack.

Mr. Liebeler. Where do you work, sir?

Mr. Slack. I work for myself. Heating contractors and real estate development.

Mr. Liebeler. Where do you live?

Mr. Slack. 3130 DeLee Street.

Mr. Liebeler. How many people do you have working with you?

Mr. Slack. Just my wife and I now. We are on a semiretired basis. We were in the water business and we sold out our water business to the city of Dallas in June, and we are on a semiretired basis.

Mr. Liebeler. In June of 1963?

Mr. Slack. That's right; this last year.

Mr. Liebeler. How old are you, Mr. Slack?

Mr. Slack. Fifty-nine. No; I am 58. I will be 59, the 9th of May.

Mr. Liebeler. Are you married, Mr. Slack?

Mr. Slack. Yes.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you have any children?

Mr. Slack. Two.

Mr. Liebeler. They live here in Dallas?

Mr. Slack. No. Johnny Glenwill is a mechanical engineer. He is working on a Government project in Richmond. Ind., and Marylyn Slack, she is the wife of an Air Force man, Vernon Stone, stationed at Burke Burnett. I have six grandkids. Our profession, we are in the real estate business. We just sell what we own. We own half a million dollars worth of property on the—on Military Parkway, and the heating business, we only do what people can force us to do, our old friends' jobs that we had put in 30 years ago. And we are on an area selling off all our land around us. We subdivide and sell off 10 or 12 lots, and when we get that finished, we subdivide another tract.

Mr. Liebeler. Are you familiar with the Sports Drome gun range, Mr. Slack?

Mr. Slack. Yes; quite familiar with it.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you know the man who owns it or runs it?

Mr. Slack. Yes; and I knew the man before he even took it over, the manager of the rifle range.

Mr. Liebeler. You knew Mr. Davis before he took it over?

Mr. Slack. Yes; he ran a ditching machine and dug water ditches for the water works. I didn't know that until after we got real well acquainted, and I knew I had seen him, but I never could figure out until "Doc" Carter and Charlie Brown, they knew my full name and found out where I worked and who I was, and I said I knew him but where, I didn't know.

Mr. Liebeler. Were you out at the rifle range at any time in November of 1963?

Mr. Slack. Yes; we were there the Saturday before Armistice Day. We marked it on our calendar. That was November the 9th. We were out there late in the evening and there were not very many people there, because we got there in the really closing time. But we didn't even shoot the rifle because they wanted the people to go home. But we went back Sunday for this turkey shoot.

Mr. Liebeler. What was the date?

Mr. Slack. Now that was the 10th.

Mr. Liebeler. You went back to the rifle range the immediately following Sunday, is that right?

Mr. Slack. That is right, the 10th. Oswald was there the 10th. He was there the 17th. The 10th was the turkey shoot. And I contacted him three or four times trying to get him to pay a dollar and get in the turkey shoot. Ten men were paying a dollar a shoot, and he commented he could win the turkey but he didn't have the dollar.

Mr. Liebeler. This was on the 10th, is that right?

Mr. Slack. But had no direct contact no more than asked him like the 10 other fellows I talked to. That was my impression of him.

The next, the 17th, is where he and I had the run in, where he shot my target. I paid two bits and put up a target, and before I got ready to shoot it there would be somebody shoot a hole in it. So Lucille, my wife, she was with me. She was keeping score. We got to noticing who it was, and maybe he would shoot anybody's target, and I raised the devil. I didn't see why I have to pay my two bits and pay for a new target sheet and I'm shooting No. 9, and the rifle range operator came and told him not to shoot my target after that, and that is how I remember the part in his hair and the look on his face.

And I told him, I said, "You are not going to win no turkey shooting rapid fire."

He shot rapid fire about three or four times, and they had a cap full of shells and they were shooting—I mean he was burning up the ammunition. And I talked about that going back to Snug Harbor, because somebody is going to get hurt, because everybody shooting everybody's target.

And there was a bunch of ruffians shooting pistols, and there was lots of people. And I remember when I told him that, he give me a look that I never would forget it. That is the only reason I remember him when they showed him on television. It made me sick and I tried to figure out. It took me a day to figure out where I had seen him.

I said, Lucille, we own the waterworks and we know a lot of men and do a lot of things. We have a fish hatchery and we contacted maybe five or six people we don't know every day, and I didn't sleep at night for 3 nights until I pinned down where we saw him.

And I went to the rifle range and these four or five other people knew he had been there, but they were afraid to say anything about it.

But when I asked the manager, I said, "Oswald was over here," and he said, "Yes, I know he was." And they were afraid it would hurt their business.

And I told Charlie Brown and Doc Carter where I saw the fellow, and I think it was; everyone doubts if they knew anything at all on him, so they met me over there and between the three, they admitted sure.

Mr. Liebeler. Who is this Charlie Brown that you referred to?

Mr. Slack. He is the FBI man. He and Doc Carter, they came out two different times and I talked to them.

Mr. Liebeler. Carter is also an FBI agent?

Mr. Slack. One was Secret Service and one was the FBI.

Mr. Liebeler. You mentioned there were other people out at the range who saw Oswald. Do you remember their names?

Mr. Slack. No, sir; because I was not taking their names. But I do know that they got the boy that worked on his rifle scope on Wednesday. That was in the middle of the week, between the 10th and the 17th. They got his deposition, because the boy, I know, put his scope on his rifle for him.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you know the boy's name?

Mr. Slack. No, sir; I don't know his name. Never tried to find out his name. I never talked about it, because Charlie Brown and Doc Carter asked me not to tell what I knew, and that is all. I had nothing to gain. In other words, they took it up, what they found, I never knew.

Mr. Liebeler. When you mentioned this fellow that put the scope on the rifle, how do you know? Tell us what you know about that?

Mr. Slack. Because I read it in the paper about a week afterwards.

Mr. Liebeler. You have no direct knowledge yourself about the scope?

Mr. Slack. No; there were so many different fellows working on the rifle range, there was possibly three or four boys who did it, and I never really connected which one it would be, because I wasn't doing any investigating anyway. See what I mean?

I felt like that knowing the guy and connecting it together, if I just kept my mouth shut and tried to just remember seeing the fellow, there was a lot of that done. It was done in our own family.

In other words, Vernon Stone was with me and Jimbo, he is 12 years old, the boy, and when it dawned on me where I saw him and I knew that I had my son-in-law take my gun, my custom-made gun out of Oswald's, take it out of his hand and put it in the car, because I was afraid he would steal it, and I told Vernon by long distance on the telephone, and Vernon did too, and well, he already had made up in his mind that he never had seen that fellow. He didn't remember anything, and Jimbo doesn't either. He didn't want to remember.

Mr. Liebeler. What is the incident about the rifle? Did Oswald have your rifle at any time?

Mr. Slack. He handled my rifle and he handled my targets, that was the 17th.

Mr. Liebeler. Did you say anything to Oswald other than——

Mr. Slack. The only time—I didn't specifically say to Oswald. I said to all the boys, to seven or eight shooters, about that rapid firing and about shooting other targets rather than the one they bought and paid for. If they were in chair 7, and there was a number down a 100 yards, No. 7, he was supposed to shoot No. 7.

Mr. Liebeler. Other than that, you didn't say anything to him?

Mr. Slack. That is all I said.

Mr. Liebeler. Did you have a chance to see the rifle that he had?

Mr. Slack. I absolutely saw the rifle.

Mr. Liebeler. What kind of rifle was it?

Mr. Slack. It was an Italian type rifle, but it never showed in the newspapers, a picture of that rifle.

In other words, if the first picture that came out of the officer holding the rifle, that was on the floor of the Book Depository, if that was the gun, I had never seen that gun before, and I know rifles and I know scopes.

Mr. Liebeler. What was the difference between it and the rifle you saw?

Mr. Slack. The one he had was a small three-quarters, about seven hundred fifty thousandths diameter tube, a small tube no bigger than your thumb, with the windage gage. They were practicing. It was a cheap scope. Well, $5.66 scope. But it was sporterized. You cut the wood off of them. Short barrel.

Mr. Liebeler. In other words, this rifle that Oswald had was a sporterized rifle? It had been rebuilt?

Mr. Slack. Just as advertised. I have seen besides the Oswald, I have friends that have those rifles. I wouldn't shoot a toad frog with one of them, because I know that they are just junk.

In other words, you take that rifle as it was manufactured, and you cut the barrel off 8 inches, and you take all the wood off the top of the barrel and cut this off here, and varnish it, and have it blued, and it makes a pretty little gun. It was one that he had wrapped up and handed over the fence, but they had two other guns that type. They had no scopes on them.

Mr. Liebeler. Was there somebody else?

Mr. Slack. That Sunday there sure was. The tall boy had the biggest feet of any kid I ever saw, and about the time he would go to shoot, he would kick with his feet, and I said if my feet was that big I would bump somebody too.

He was the boy that drove him to that rifle range the 17th. They found the boy. He had no connection with him except he had driven him there.

Mr. Liebeler. How do you know they found him?

Mr. Slack. I read it in the paper. I don't know what his name was. Don't know where they found him, but they found him, and he had no connection with him, no more than I had. He just probably begged a ride and he took him to the rifle range, but they had three guns.

Lucille remembers the boy handing the guns over the fence, and they were throwing the guns in the back of the old model car and taking off like they did.

And I recognized that because a gun, a good gun, you are not supposed—they just threw those old guns in that car, or they took two of them. Of course, one was wrapped up in a blanket, a dirty looking old grey blanket that had a red trim, I remember. I remember that, because we found an old blanket at our house and I told Lucille I was trying to think, I knew it was something common, this good gun, it was wrapped up and tied up.

The sporterized Italian gun was tied up and he handed it over the fence nicely. And he had a grey and red maroon, looked slick as satin, and I remember it well, what a gun case—you see everything at a shooting place—some bring a rifle in a tote sack and—for a gun case.

The other thing I remember about that blanket he had wrapped around his gun, it was tied up with a rag string that was torn about an inch and a half wide out of a filling station type wipe cloth, a ribbon, pink, and he had torn it up and—to use as a rag string.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you remember what kind of car these fellows drove?

Mr. Slack. No; I couldn't remember it, and Lucille couldn't except it was an older model car.

Mr. Liebeler. Was it a sedan?

Mr. Slack. A four-door sedan, and it was a dark color, and he left there like a crazy bunch of hoodlums. And Lucille would remember that because she made a remark to me. You know how boys take off and make the dust fly.

Well we had—in other words, without having some reason, you wouldn't notice what kind of car it was.

Mr. Liebeler. I want to show you a picture of a rifle. Two pictures that have previously been marked as Exhibits 3 and 4, on the deposition of Mr. Greener, and ask you if that looks like the rifle they had at the rifle range?

Mr. Slack. I don't remember a carrying strap on it, this rifle here. Of course, that is something you use to carry the gun, if you take it. That could be it, that is right, with the sling off. When I saw the gun the sling was not on it.

I don't think it had the wood up above the barrel, because when it is sporterized, as I remember, the whole barrel is painted blue.

Mr. Liebeler. So there was not as much wood to the front of the rifle on the one you saw at the range, is that right?

Mr. Slack. That's right.

Mr. Liebeler. What about the scope? Was it the same kind of scope?

Mr. Slack. I can say no. Pictures do something to you, but that scope seems like it is a 1-inch, that scope, according to the size of the gun and proportions of sizes. This is the same gun upside down, the other side.

Mr. Liebeler. Well, you are pretty clear this isn't the rifle because of the wood that protrudes?

Mr. Slack. This rifle had the barrel cut off. I know this rifle right here. This is proportionately, Mr. Liebeler——

Mr. Liebeler. Pardon?

Mr. Slack. No; the sight is, the open sight is out on it since it has been cut off.

Mr. Liebeler. The one that you saw at the rifle range had been cut off, is that correct?

Mr. Slack. It had been cut off, and I will swear it had been reblued, and it did not have the front ramp sight of that rifle.

Mr. Liebeler. So that the rifle you saw at the rifle range is not the same rifle as the picture I have just shown you, is that right?

Mr. Slack. Now they had two other rifles that would fit that. They were not sporterized.

Mr. Liebeler. But they didn't have scopes on them?

Mr. Slack. They didn't have scopes on them.

Mr. Liebeler. But you remember that the rifle you saw at the range did have the barrel cut off and didn't have the sight on the front so it couldn't have been this rifle?

Mr. Slack. I would say that. I would say that is not it, because the sporterized rifle, the shiny new one, I don't think it had the metal binding on it. The top wood, so this holds the top wood. Now, that is the type of rifle, see what I mean. But I really notice things about rifles like a jewelry man or a lady would about the setting of a ring. I wouldn't know—but I know rifles.

Mr. Liebeler. But this was the same general type of rifle as the one you saw that had been sporterized and had the wood cut off?

Mr. Slack. This is a magazine. You recognize one of them a mile off.

Mr. Liebeler. Let me show you some pictures of a man or some men that have been previously marked Commission Exhibits 451 and 453 through 456. I want to ask you if this looks like either one of the men that you saw at the rifle range on the 17th of November?

Mr. Slack. The jacket was the first thing I remembered. When they described the jacket in the paper before I even looked at the fellow, because the man pulled a jacket off and put it on top of a load of sand you used it for a pad to shoot from——

Mr. Liebeler. Is that the guy you saw? Does anyone in those pictures look like him?

Mr. Slack. Those heavy eyebrows and that part in the hair, but apparently he had more hair. Maybe he got a haircut afterwards.

Mr. Liebeler. Who had more hair, the fellow?

Mr. Slack. The picture. The man I saw in this picture right here.

Mr. Liebeler. The man you saw had more hair?

Mr. Slack. Yes; he sure did.

Mr. Liebeler. Do you think that any of these pictures are a picture of the man that you saw at the rifle range that day?

Mr. Slack. The difference in position he was in and everything, that looked like him, but he wasn't that sleepy-eyed. He was a cocky guy.

Mr. Liebeler. Referring to Exhibit 453?

Mr. Slack. When he looked at me. I don't see how in the world he could ever get a pleasant look on his face like this picture here. Probably he could, but——

Mr. Liebeler. You think that the picture 456 looks a little more pleasant than the fellow you remember seeing at the rifle range, is that right?

Mr. Slack. He sure does.

Mr. Liebeler. Let me show you another picture, Mr. Slack, that has been previously marked as Pizzo's 453-C, and ask you if that looks like the fellow you saw at the rifle range?

Mr. Slack. That is him. I would know that baby face and that chin, and he had a—I remember people, but no names.

Mr. Liebeler. What about the hair?

Mr. Slack. That is the man I saw at the rifle range.

Mr. Liebeler. You are sure about that?

Mr. Slack. I know it is. In other words, just like if I saw you tomorrow. Because his eyes were deep like a man that was, that wears highly magnified glasses and then doesn't have his glasses on. And he had that deep—that is the man we saw out there. That is the man. And I would remember him 20 years from now, just over that one incident.

Mr. Liebeler. Have you seen that guy's picture in the paper?

Mr. Slack. But he don't have a good—he didn't have a very good likeness of him, like the paper pictures. That was him as I saw him at the rifle range, and as I saw him I second before. No, one-tenth of a second before he was shot. That is the time.

Mr. Liebeler. You mean on television?

Mr. Slack. On television. And I saw when they were transferring him even before that. And I told Lucille, I told my wife, wait a minute, I've got to see the side of his face.

Mr. Liebeler. Could you recognize the side of his face?

Mr. Slack. But not positive enough until I got to see him at the time he was shot. You see, you read the papers and you get to where you imagine things and you find yourself imagining that you saw somebody, and I never had anything that made me as sick for 3 days. Absolutely made me sick of stretching my brain of trying to figure out what contact we had had with the guy.

Mr. Liebeler. Here is another picture. Take a look at that and see if you can recognize anybody in that picture?

Mr. Slack. The fifth fellow from the left, because I saw the side of his face quite a bit at the rifle range. He has rather a long nose and long chin and a high forehead. In other words, that was the thing about the man that I would remember.

Mr. Liebeler. Here is another picture. It is the same picture that I just showed you except that it has a green line over the fellow that you have indicated, does it not?

Mr. Slack. Well, it is like this picture. Those are the front, no, he doesn't have a part. He didn't have that hair. I would remember his hair. And he had the hair that grew down his neck, all the way down into his jacket.

Mr. Liebeler. You say this fellow here in the picture, the fifth fellow from the left is not the person?

Mr. Slack. That is the fellow. As I remember, this is the fellow that is under the green mark. But seemed like he had more hair. You see, I shot in one chair. I looked at the side of that fellow quite a bit.

Mr. Liebeler. You think the fellow you saw at the rifle range had more hair than the fellow with the green mark?

Mr. Slack. Yes; of course, the wind blew and he was bareheaded. I guess he had a haircut in this picture here. He had quite a bit of hair on his back and on his neck like me. I need a haircut. But I remember, because on the television the hair was also down on his neck. Even more so than he shows in the picture there. Probably taken at different times and under different conditions. Just like this picture here, he is a pleasant looking fellow.

Mr. Liebeler. This fellow looks more pleasant than the guy you saw?

Mr. Slack. Yes; of course, at times, a fellow can be sorry on the world and still there would be a little fun come into him sometime. And he had big ears. His ears stood out, what I mean.

Mr. Liebeler. The picture that you are looking at is 453-B, Pizzo's exhibit, that we have been referring to. I don't think I have any more questions, Mr. Slack. I want to thank you very much for coming in and cooperating with us the way you have. I know we gave you very little time and we appreciate it very much.

Mr. Slack. We had already forgotten everything about it, and we figured it was, well, it was just some unpleasant memory, and it couldn't have shocked me. Now this newspaper, Gruber, was a press, a Washington pressman, was he some of your bunch?

Mr. Liebeler. What was his name?

Mr. Slack. Gruber.

Mr. Liebeler. What about him?

Mr. Slack. He is the fellow that came to see me about 3 weeks ago. He called me three or four times and give me a lot of trouble, and I give him to understand that I didn't want to talk with him, because the newspaper had, I thought, made too big a show out of it.

And they used my name and used my address. They didn't put my picture, with the assassination, or the picture, but I expected it any time to come out, but I have a good friend with the Times Herald, Mr. Albert Jackson, and I called Albert and I told him not to send his men because I was not talking to the newspaper. My phone was tapped and they came out the next day and everything that I told Albert, the newspaperman, and I told him that, because I didn't want it to get in the paper. He never put it in their paper. My own friend never got anything, but the news, they got it all.

Mr. Liebeler. What made you think your telephone was tapped?

Mr. Slack. I think it was because they had things in the paper.

Mr. Liebeler. Who do you think tapped it, the newspaper people?

Mr. Slack. The FBI and the Secret Service, they didn't tap it. They don't do things like that.

Mr. Liebeler. The Secret Service doesn't?

Mr. Slack. No.

Mr. Liebeler. What about the FBI?

Mr. Slack. They said they did not, and I blamed it on the newspaper. And they came and made a television picture of me and gave me an interview. And I wanted to know what identification they had and who they were with, and they fooled around and made about a 3-minute conversation and they never did show it, but it never was shown anyplace. Just newshounds. And they put up a big front that it was the Warren Commission.

Mr. Liebeler. Who were they?

Mr. Slack. The television guys from Fort Worth, and they were in such a big hurry to leave, they just took my picture and took off. They had 15 minutes to get to Fort Worth, and I never heard any more of it at all.

Mr. Liebeler. I don't think they had anything to do with the Warren Commission.