The Stop-and-Go Motorcade by Gary Mack

              PENN JONES T H E
CONTINUING
INQUIRY
VOLUME IV, NUMBER 9 APRIL 22, 1980
THE STOP-AND-GO MOTORCADE by Gary Mack
When retired Dallas Police Officer Earle V. Brown told me the motorcade stopped on the
Stemmons Freeway access ramp (see March 1980 TCI), my first thought was verification.
From all written information, including the Warren Commission volumes, there's no direct
indication whatsoever that such an event really happened.
The TCI printing deadline was moved back some 10 days to accommodate all I knew at that
time. Afterward, I called Brown again to ask if he was absolutely certain about what he
saw. He said he'd been thinking about it for the past week and there was no doubt - the
motorcade, with the Kennedy limousine in front, came to a halt for some 30 seconds.
Brawn didn't remember any specifics - there may have been one or two motorcycles, he
couldn't recall anyone getting out of a car, one of the men had what appeared to be a big
automatic rifle. But the two men in the front seat of the limousine were talking and
gesturing, and that's why Brown concluded, right then, they didn't know the location of
the nearest hospital. Secret Service guidelines, of course, required that knowledge.
3 I'd heard that Jesse Curry can be reasonable with critics and remembered that his wife
had called our radio station two years ago to say thanks for treating her husband fairly
on our talk shows. So, seeking verification of Brown's story, I called the former
Dallas Chief of Police.
Since this was to be our first discussion, I decided not to press the man too hard for
answers. He's in the phone book, I dialed the number and Chief Curry himself answered.
If he recognized my name or the radio station, he gave no indication. He did agree to
answer a few questions.
When asked if his car was ever behind Kennedy's, Curry denied it by repeating his
Warren Commission testimony that he led the motorcade to Parkland. When I next told him
some "newly discovered" films and photographs showed he pulled to his left in the Triple
Underpass, slowed down, then speeded up and cut in between JFK and his Secret Service
escort car, Curry still denied being behind Kennedy.
There was no real reason to argue the point, so I asked about the speed of the
motorcade out of Dealey Plaza and on up to Stemmons. Curry said they were accelerating
"pretty good" until the motorcycle officer pulled up and they talked briefly.
He didn't remember the officer's name, even when I mentioned Martin, Chaney and
Jackson. "I leaned out my window and said to him 'Were those shots?' and he said 'Yes
and the President's hurt pretty bad.' And I said 'Well get us to the hospitall' "
I asked where this conversation took place and he said "somewhere just before Stemmons."
%'he big question, how fast were you going, made him pause before answering "Probably
'^tive or six miles an hour." When told of Officer Brown's account, Curry denied they
stopped, but revised his speed estimate to "pretty slow, maybe two to three miles an hour."
Before I could ask him to think about it more carefully, Curry unexpectedly volunteered
"You know, they didn't even know where the hospital wasi" "There have been rumors about