As I name Dallas Deputy Eugene Boone as a suspect in the JFK assassination, I want to emphasize that I have no animosity toward him. I am expressing an opinion based on what I see, without emotion. I'm following in the tradition of Dallas resident, Ricky White, who named his own father, Dallas officer Roscoe White, in the JFK assassination. That is, there is no animosity involved.
Eugene Boone has recently passed on (October 31, 2017). He was personally interviewed by Stephen Fagin of the the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas during November, 2014, and I perceived him as a kind man, an intelligent man, a dutiful citizen and a family man. He was a person one might meet at Church and like very well. He clearly thought of himself as a patriot.
However -- I perceive some pride on the part of the Radical Right in the JFK assassination. It was a smooth operation, so its leaders had some pride to stand on. Also, I see an element of pride in Texas politics. The Eastern seaboard was conquered as the seat of American power, and LBJ, a man of the South, won the Presidency. The South has maintained a larger share in US Politics from that point forward. Another way to see it -- Texas oil made a sea change in American politics, and the JFK assassination was the marker of that change.
So, the murder of JFK in Dallas was not seen the same way in Dallas as it was in most of the USA. (I have read that the Deep South largely celebrated when JFK was assassinated; but that is another story.) Anyway -- as I focus on Dallas Deputy Eugene Boone, I will cite his Warren Commission (WC) testimony of 1964, his appearance in the mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald sponsored by the BBC in 1985, as well as his interview for the Sixth Floor Museum in 2014.
I will begin with a brief summary of his statements.
1. Boone was 26 years old in 1963, and had been a Dallas Deputy for 18 months. On November 22, he was on break -- watching the parade with the crowds and with other staff from the Dallas Sheriff's Department.
2. Upon hearing the shots at JFK, Boone says that most people thought bullets came from the triple underpass. Boone and several Dallas Deputies, including Luke Mooney, Buddy Walthers, Seymour Weitzman and Roger Craig -- ran as fast as they could to the picket fence of the Grassy Knoll, and leaped over it to examine the parking lot.
3. They saw nothing behind the picket fence except other Dallas officers already there. Scores of bystanders from the crowd joined them there. Milling further about, they went up to the railroad tracks to seek clues. Boone says that he asked railroad lookout man Lee Bowers, if he "saw anything." Bowers said no, according to Boone.
4. When questioned by the WC, however, Lee Bowers said he saw plenty. Deputy Boone offers no explanation why Lee Bowers allegedly "changed his story." To be generous, I will stipulate a misunderstanding. Perhaps when Boone asked Bowers if he had seen anything, Bowers took this to mean, "Did you see anything near the railroad tracks?" In that case, the answer was, No. Bowers told the WC that he saw plenty near the picket fence, which was about 200 feet from his 14-foot observation tower near the railroad tracks.
5. Eugene Boone, however, did not attempt any explanation. He just moved on.
6. Finding nothing in the parking lot or railroad yard behind the picket fence of the Grassy Knoll, Deputy Boone decided to go to the Texas School Book Depository (TSDB) building. He recalls only that somebody told him to go -- but he doesn't recall who.
7. It was logical, however, because Luke Mooney, Buddy Walthers, Seymour Weitzman, Roger Craig as well as many other Dallas Deputies and Policemen, migrated from the picket fence to the 6th floor of the TSBD. Somebody led the way, and the others followed.
8. Deputy Boone recalls few personal details. His next major memory was his discovery of the Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) rifle, stuffed between two rows of boxes on the 6th floor. This would be his legacy claim to fame in US history.
9. In Boone's recollection, those on the 6th floor at that time included, Captain Fritz, his entourage, and also JC Day and RL Studebaker of the DPD ID Bureau, taking fingerprints and photographs. Also, he said, the 6th floor was filled with journalists and their cameras.
10. Boone said he distinctly remembered looking at his watch when he found LHO's rifle -- the time was 1:22 PM. (This corresponds with the testimony of JC Day, who said that he and Studebaker arrived at the TSBD 6th floor at 1:12 PM).
11. Boone confirms WC Exhibits (photos) CE 514, 515, 516 and 517 to show the location of LHO's rifle, as well as a floor plan, CE 483.
12. In his WC testimony of 1964, Deputy Boone said that Captain Fritz originally (and mistakenly) called the rifle a Mauser. However, in his 2014 interview, Boone said that he himself had originally (and mistakenly) called the rifle a Mauser.
This is the heart of the testimony by Deputy Boone. It is very little to go on. In my reading, there is more implied in the silence of Deputy Boone, than in his sparse words. Nearly everything that Deputy Boone told us about his activities from 12:00 PM through 1:22 PM on 11/22/1963 we could have obtained from other WC witnesses.
Why would this person, so close to the events of the momentous JFK Assassination -- have so little to say about it? Why does he perform like a "good old boy" of few words? Clearly, Boone was not a dull man. He was bright enough, having worked for the Dallas Times Herald in the advertising department since he graduated high school, for eight years, before he joined the Dallas County Sheriff's Office at 25.
It is his relative silence that obliges me to "fill in the blanks" about what could have happened. Here is my reading of Boone's role in the JFK Assassination.
(A) Deputy Boone, on November 22, was on break, watching the parade with the crowds and with other staff from the Dallas County Sheriff's Department. He was well aware that a plot to kill JFK was underway -- and that his boss, legendary Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker, was his Departmental leader in the plot. He knew which Dallas Deputies were part of the plot, and which were not. He was also aware that Dallas City Police Captain Will Fritz was the leader of the JFK plotters in the Police Department.
(B) Deputy Boone was a willing part of the plot. He believed the Radical Right propaganda, that JFK was a Communist. So, the JFK plot was a patriotic duty, in his opinion, and in the opinion of all the plotters among the Dallas Deputies and Police. None of them were paid for this. They all acted strictly on patriotism.
(C) Hearing the shots at JFK was the signal. The Deputies all took those shots as their signal to run, on foot, from the Dallas County Jail to the Grassy Knoll picket fence. They raced there as fast as they could.
(D) Deputy Boone and the other Dallas Deputies knew very well that there were no Communists shooting from Dealey Plaza. They had no fear of running into a battle with active shooters.
(E) Deputy Boone, like all the Deputies, knew very well that when they arrived at the County Parking Lot behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence, that they would find only Dallas Deputies, Detectives and Police behind the fence -- and that the actual shooters were well-camouflaged in their Dallas uniforms. Virtually nobody in Dallas (or in America) would suspect the Dallas Police and Deputies.
(F) Wasting time in the parking lot and the railroad yard behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence, allowed other JFK Plotters to set up the so-called "sniper's nest". All told, about 40 minutes went by before Deputy Boone went up to the 6th floor of the TSBD.
(G) In the meantime, Boone would speak briefly with railroad lookout, Lee Bowers. Whatever they discussed is unknown, because Boone reported that Bowers saw nothing there, while Bowers officially reported that he saw plenty. The suspicion naturally arises that Deputy Boone was under orders to contradict the testimony of Lee Bowers, who had testified about a conspiracy.
(H) By the time that Deputy Boone arrived at the TSBD on the 6th floor with all the other JFK plotters, everything was in place for him to find LHO's rifle which had been planted there by Dallas officers. Boone went there because he had prior instructions to go there. He only had to be guided near the spot.
(I) The "Mauser vs. Carcano" controversy is a mere distraction. It means nothing. Boone had been pre-selected as the man who would "find" the JFK Assassination rifle. That was his only role. He did it willingly, and he knew very well that the rifle had been planted there by the plotters. I believe that Deputy Boone was aware that the Dallas Police Department had obtained LHO's rifle by trickery.
(J) Gerry Patrick Hemming in 1971 told A.J. Weberman that he contacted LHO with an offer of double the value of his rifle if he would sell it to a mutual acquaintance at the TSBD on Friday morning. I believe that happened. LHO had trusted his fellow conspirators in their anti-Castro plot. LHO knew little or nothing about an anti-JFK plot.
(K) I believe that Deputy Eugene Boone knew the names of the plotters in the Dallas Sheriff's Department where he worked -- and some of those in the DPD. We have no current evidence that Deputy Boone was part of a John Birch Society chapter in Dallas, or that he was aware of Ex-General Edwin Walker as the ultimate head of the JFK plot in Dallas.
I believe nobody can explain Deputy Boone's relative silence about the many detailed hours of 11/22/1963 without some theory such as mine here.
Best regards,
--Paul Trejo