What were Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry's exact words about Lee Harvey Oswald's capture on November 22, 1963?
Executive summary
Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry did not leave a single, famous verbatim quote from November 22, 1963 that says “Oswald confessed” or similar; available sources show Curry issued statements across Nov. 22–24 emphasizing custody, evidence and later doubts — for example, a press note stating “Dallas Police said Saturday that they had an air‑tight case against Lee Harvey Oswald…” [1] and a later quoted line, “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did,” attributed to Curry in post‑event interviews and writings [2] [3]. Public records (Warren Commission testimony) document Curry’s roles and formal testimony but do not record a single concise, definitive on‑the‑spot phrase that answers the query as asked [4] [5].
1. What the contemporaneous record shows: public statements and press interactions
On November 22 and the immediate days after, Curry was the visible official handling Oswald’s custody and the press at Dallas Police headquarters; the National Archives’ Warren Commission material details the Police and Courts Building layout and notes Curry’s offices at the third‑floor end of the corridor where Oswald was held and where reporters gathered [4]. Auction and news‑archive items from the period record Dallas Police releases saying the department believed it had an “air‑tight case” against Oswald, citing photographs and paraffin tests; those releases are presented as issued by Dallas Police and attributed to Curry as head of the department [1].
2. Where the commonly cited quotes come from: later interviews and books
The more skeptical, often‑quoted lines from Curry — including “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did” and “No one has ever been able to put him (Oswald) in the Texas School Book Depository with a rifle in his hand” — appear in later interviews and retrospectives, including Curry’s own writings and interviews around his post‑retirement book and in newspaper interviews cited by secondary collections [2] [3] [6]. Wikipedia’s article similarly reproduces Curry’s expressed doubts about the Warren Commission’s lone‑assassin finding and the single‑bullet theory, attributing the remark “I’m not sure about it. No one has ever been able to put him (Oswald) in the Texas School…” to Curry [7].
3. What is in the official Warren Commission testimony
Curry testified to the Warren Commission in April 1964; the archived volume of his testimony is preserved and covers his role in arrest, detention and the events in the Police and Courts Building [5]. The Warren Commission’s Chapter V also examines Oswald’s detention, interrogation and transfer and reviews security and press issues surrounding the case, but that material documents actions and processes rather than a neat, single phrase uttered by Curry on Nov. 22 [4].
4. Contradictions, context and how historians use Curry’s remarks
Researchers and commentators use Curry’s later skeptical remarks as evidence that even Dallas’s chief harbored doubts about whether Oswald alone fired the fatal shots; critics of the Warren Commission cite Curry’s lines as undermining official certainty, while defenders of the Commission argue Curry’s on‑the‑ground duties and evolving views do not disprove the forensic and testimonial case the Commission assembled [3] [7]. The Mary Ferrell/essay material highlights Curry’s post‑retirement quote “We don’t have any proof…” as central to critiques of the single‑bullet and lone‑shooter conclusions [3].
5. What the sources do not provide
Available sources in your packet do not provide a verbatim, on‑the‑spot quote from Curry made exactly on November 22 that definitively answers “what were his exact words about Oswald’s capture that day.” The contemporaneous press releases and later recollections exist, but the materials offered here show variations and retrospective attributions rather than a single contemporaneous transcripted soundbite from Nov. 22 [1] [4] [5].
6. How to interpret conflicting attributions
When a figure like Curry speaks repeatedly to reporters, then later to historians and in a book, short quotations can be distorted, repeated or taken out of context. The auction/press release language (“air‑tight case”) was contemporaneous and public [1]; the more skeptical lines appear in later interviews and Curry’s own writings [2] [3] [6]. Both types of statements came from the same man at different times; treating them together explains why scholarship cites Curry both as a spokesman for the arrest and as someone who later voiced reservation about the forensic certainty [7] [3].
If you want, I can extract the exact passages of Curry’s Warren Commission testimony (April 22, 1964) from the archive PDF [5] and the November 24 press wording that announced “Oswald expired at 1:07PM” (reported by The Sixth Floor Museum) to show verbatim contemporary phrasing [8].