Roy Samson Truly

 

Roy Truly is a major character in this whole investigation. He was the TSBD’s superintendent and hooked up with Marrion Baker (where exactly is an enigma) and went through the building with him. As with Baker’s statements there are a few things wrong here, which cast doubt on Roy Truly’s behaviour which was very collaborative with the D.P.D. and the F.B.I. So collaborative that there is a memo praising his work for the feds and could they not sort out a tour or a thank you note by the director of whom he was a great admirer……………….

Truly was conservative with his views. In William Manchester’s book The Death Of A President the author writes: “Roy S. Truly, superintendent of the Book Depository, disapproved strongly of Kennedy’s policies abroad and believed he was a “race mixer” at home” and later on: “Roy Truly, who didn’t believe the races were meant to mix, later doubted that “half my boys would have gone out to see the parade if it hadn’t been lunchtime.” He explained, “Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me—like most Texans.” Still, a parade was a parade. Fifteen minutes.”

The shot above  and his CBS interview (shown at the bottom of this page) enabled the identification of Roy Truly by gerda Dunckel in the Darnell film where Marrion Baker runs past him, Roy Truly then turns around and makes his way towards the front steps of the TSBD.

The next two stills of the James Darnell film show all this in better detail.

The film does not show Baker going up the steps as the camera swerves back.

 

Also, thanks to a discovery by Linda Giovanna Zambanini, Roy Truly has been found in the Wiegman film. All the women to his right (left in the pic) are all TSBD employees such as Bonnie Richey, Carolyn Arnold and others.

 

The official story goes as follows:

When the shots were fired a Dallas motorcycle patrolman Marrion L Baker was riding in the motorcade at a point several cars behind the President He had turned right from Main Street onto Houston Street and was about 200 feet south of Elm Street when he heard a shot. Baker having recently returned from a week of deer hunting was certain the shot came from a high-powered rifle He looked up and saw pigeons scattering in the air from their perches on the Texas School Book Depository Building He raced his motorcycle to the building dismounted scanned the area to the west and pushed his way through the spectators toward the entrance There he encountered Roy Truly the building superintendent who offered Baker his help They entered the building and ran toward the two elevators in the rear Finding that both elevators were on an upper floor they dashed up the stairs Not more than 2 minutes had elapsed since the shooting, When they reached the second-floor landing on their way up to the top of the building Patrolman Baker thought he caught a glimpse of someone through the small glass window in the door separating the hall area near the stairs from the small vestibule leading into the lunchroom Gun in hand he rushed to the door and saw a man about 20 feet away walking toward the other end of the lunchroom The man was empty handed At Baker’s command the man turned and approached him Truly who had started up the stairs to the third floor ahead of Baker returned to see what had delayed the patrolman Baker asked Truly whether he knew the man in the lunchroom Truly replied that the man worked in the building whereupon Baker turned from the man and proceeded with Truly up the stairs

In Leo Sauvage’s The Oswald Affair the author quotes from an interview he has had with Roy Truly:  When I asked him whether it had taken a long time for him and the motorcycle policeman to reach the lunchroom, he answered (apparently not realizing what I was driving at): “Oh, no! It was as soon as the last shot was fired when I saw the officer come running. As a matter of fact, it was so soon afterwards that I don’t believe he was riding in the motorcade. He must have been off his motorcycle, standing nearby. Anyhow, it was right away after the shots. I knew they were shots, but had no idea they were fired from the building. I thought the officer wanted to get to the roof for a better look and I immediately offered to show him how. We ran to the freight elevators in the back of the building because the front elevators do not go beyond the fourth floor, but the two freight cars had both been left somewhere up in the top floors and we took the stairs, the officer ahead of me. When I reached the second-floor landing, the officer was already at the open door of the lunchroom, some twenty or twenty-five feet away. No, I couldn’t tell you exactly how much time it took, all this, but it wasn’t long…”

Baker being ahead of Truly! This is not the only occasion, Truly mentions this. The same is repeated in The Detroit Free Press of Dec 7th 1963 (see the gallery below). ”The policeman ran up the stairs ahead of me” and also in The New York Journal America  in May 1964 “The policeman was a few steps ahead of me”

*****

The re-enactment the FBI and Secret Service did was fraudulent in many aspects, Leo Sauvage, again, makes mention of this re-enactment in his book The Oswald Affair: “I told them, as I just told you, that it was a very short time,” Roy Truly answered when I asked him whether there had been any special tests to determine the number of seconds he and the motorcycle policeman lost in the lobby with the elevators before starting to climb the stairs. When I pressed the point, he said: “No, nothing else…” And none of the many reporters and photographers who for days kept a close watch on the Texas School Book Depository, writing and taking pictures of the various re-enactments of the assassination staged on Elm Street, even saw a motorcycle policeman running into the building under the eyes of detectives with stopwatches in their hands.

“Carrying his Coke,” said Time magazine, “Oswald ambled into a nearby office. A switchboard operator said, ‘Wasn’t that terrible—the President being shot?’ Oswald mumbled something unintelligible, went out of the office, walked down the steps and slipped through the crowd outside…” Never having heard of any switchboard operator in a nearby office until I read this account, I asked Mr. Truly about her. Yes, he confirmed, that was the story told to the FBI when—on the following week—they finally began questioning everyone who works in the School Depository. But, he added, it wasn’t the switchboard operator who spoke to Oswald. It was another woman working in the same office, and yes, that office is “right next to the lunchroom.” Did either of the two women notice the noise Oswald must have made in the corridor rushing in from the sixth floor? Mr. Truly didn’t know. Nor did he remember whether the FBI had asked them

In William Manchester’s Death Of A President Truly is quoted as: Roy Truly, who didn’t believe the races were meant to mix, later doubted that “half my boys would have gone out to see the parade if it hadn’t been lunchtime.” He explained, “Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me—like most Texans.”

Roy Truly’s statement to the FBI on November 22nd, 1963:

“He [Truly] then noticed a Dallas City Police officer wearing a motorcycle helmet and·boots running toward the entrance of the depository building and he accompanied the officer into the front of the building. They saw no one there and be accompanied the officer immediately up the stairs to the second floor of the building, where the officer noticed a door and stepped through the door, gun in hand, and observed OSWALD in a snack bar there, apparently alone. This snack bar no windows or doors, facing the outside of the building, but is located almost in the center of the building. The officer pointed to OSWALD and asked if OSWALD was an employee of the company and he, TRULY, assured the officer that OSWALD was an employee. He and then proceeded onto the roof of the building.”

Roy Truly’s statement to the FBI on November 23rd, 1963:

“They stopped at the freight elevators and, observing that these elevators were not on the first floor they ran up the stairway after he showed the officer where the stairway was. As they reached the second floor landing, the officer opened a door to a small lunch room next to the business office on that floor, and stuck his gun in the door. LEE OSWALD was in the lunch room. The officer asked him if he was an employee, to which OSWALD replied that he was. TRULY and the officer gave this no further consideration, inasmuch as OSWALD was an employee, and they ran up to the fifth floor”

Truly’s interview with Leo Sauvage:

“…we took the stairs, the Officer ahead of me.  When I reached the second floor landing, the officer was already at the door of the lunchroom some twenty or twenty five feet away.  No, I couldn’t tell you how much time it took, all this, but it wasn’t long…”

Roy Truly’s Warren Commission testimony:

Mr. BELIN. Okay. And where was this officer at that time?
Mr. TRULY. This officer was right behind me and coming up the stairway. By the time I reached the second floor, the officer was a little further behind me than he was on the first floor, I assume – I know.
Mr. BELIN. Was he a few feet behind you then?

Mr. TRULY. He was a few feet. It is hard for me to tell. I ran right on around to my left, started to continue on up the stairway to the third floor, and on up. 
…
Mr. TRULY. I suppose I was up two or three steps before I realized the officer wasn’t following me. 
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mr. TRULY. I came back to the second floor landing.…

Then the actual encounter and all 3 parties’ positions: Roy Truly was inside the so called vestibule and nearly inside the lunchroom is at WC III, p. 225:

TRULY (talking about the vestibule door): I think I opened it. I opened the door back and leaned in this way.
BELIN: What did you see?
TRULY: I saw the officer almost directly in the doorway facing Lee Harvey Oswald.
BELIN: And where was Lee Harvey Oswald at the time you saw him?
TRULY: He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside- he was just inside the lunchroom door.
BELIN: All right.
TRULY: 2 or 3 feet, possibly.

…

BELIN: … How far was the officer’s gun from Lee Harvey Oswald when he asked the question?
TRULY: It would be hard for me to say, but it seemed to me like it was almost touching him..

I could see most of him, because I was looking in the room at an angle, and they were this way… I noticed nothing in either hand…

BELIN: Did you see any expression on his face? Or weren’t you paying attention?
TRULY: He didn’t seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have been if somebody confronted me. But i cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face.

With regards to the documentation below:

• On his handwritten statement Mrs R. Reid’s name is mentioned on the bottom of the very last page. Mrs. R. Reid ‘helped’ nailing Oswald being present on the 2nd floor wearing a t-shirt no less, whereas Baker said that Oswald was wearing long sleeves, but that aside. Yet Geneva Hines’ statement and testimony contradicts Reid’s testimony since she saw Reid come in as part of a larger group after the assassination
• In the FBI report from Nov 22nd 1963 Truly is being quoted as: ”accompanied the officer into the front of the building. They saw no one there…” ”he accompanied the officer immediately up the stairs to the second floor of the building”. This gets amended the next day in an FBI report by Kenneth Jackson where Baker and Truly now no longer “immediately” go up the stairs but instead stop for a while to see if there are any elevators available.
• In the FBI statement from Nov. 23rd 1963 the following contradiction is noted in comparison with Marrion Baker’s Warren Commission testimony:In the statement it says: “LEE OSWALD was in the lunch room.The officer asked him if he was an employee,to which Oswald replied that he was. Truly and the officer gave this no further consideration….”As compared to:Representative BOGGS -Right. What did you say to him?Mr. BAKER – I didn’t get anything out of him. Mr. Truly had come up to my side here, and I turned to Mr. Truly and I says, “Do you know this man, does he work here?” And he said yes, and I turned immediately and went on out up the stairs.
• Ochus Campbell is quoted by Kent Biffle in the Nov 23rd edition of the Dallas Morning News that Roy Truly and Marrion Baker ran into Oswald:  “In a storage room on the first floor. The officer, gun drawn, spotted Oswald”
• In the Secret Service report from Jan 8th 1964, it states that according to Roy Truly no one contacted him regarding security measures prior the visit of the President to Dallas.
• Truly confirms Doorman to be Billy Lovelady.
• In the FBI memo from March 27th 1964 Truly’s praises are sung and could The Bureau not accommodate him with a reward in some way. No other person involved in this tragedy was praised as such for their due diligence.
• There is a dicta-belt recording with deleted WC testimony at NARA. We have been trying to get a copy, but it now needs to be duplicated on to a digital format, then transcribed, then screened and decided whether it can be ‘released in full’.

Click the thumb for the window to pop up and then click the top right button to go full screen size of the doc.

 

Roy Truly died in 1985.