James Tague
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James "Jim" Thomas Tague (born 1937) was a witness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963.
A United States Air Force veteran, he received a minor wound on his right facial cheek during the assassination.
Tague had been driving to downtown Dallas to have lunch with a friend when he came up on traffic that was completely stopped on Main Street within Dealey Plaza because of the presidential motorcade. After stopping his car he got out and was standing for only two to three seconds near the Dealey Plaza south curbstone of Main Street, 520' southwest from the Texas School Book Depository and a few feet east of the eastern edge of the triple overpass railroad bridge when Tague saw the presidential limousine then heard the first shot that Tague remembered hearing.
Like many of the witnesses, Tague remembered hearing his first shot and likened it to a "firecracker." Tague testified that the first shot he remembered hearing occurred just after the Presidential limousine had completed the 120-degree slow turn from Houston Street onto Elm Street and straightened out, coming towards Tague.
Of the source of the gunfire, Tague testified to the Warren Commission that the shots were "coming from my left," "by the, whatever you call the monument." (the pergola monument on the grassy knoll) Reinforcing himself in a 1966 video documentary, Rush to Judgment, about the origin of the gunfire he remembered hearing, Tague stated that some gunfire came from the direction of the infamous grassy knoll.
Right after the shots Tague was approached by a Dallas police detective who immediately noticed that Tague had a small cut and blood on his right facial cheek. (Tague also had a small left facial cheek cut but it had happened several days before the attack.) The detective asked Tague where he had been standing. The two men then examined the area and discovered -on the upper curve of the Main Street south curbstone- a "very fresh scar" impact that, to each of them, looked like a bullet had struck there and taken a chip out of the curbstone concrete. (This curb surrounding the scar chip was not dug out until summer 1964 and is now in the National Archives) The scar chip was 23' 6" east of the east edge of the Triple Underpass railroad bridge, about 20' from where Tague stood during the attack. The detective told Tague it looked like a bullet had been fired from one of the Houston or Elm streets intersection buildings and had struck there. The detective then radioed-in that information to the police dispatcher at the same time that a large group of witnesses and authorities were running towards and searching the grassy knoll and railroad parking lot adjacent to the grassy knoll.
At about 2:30 p.m. local time, after giving a statement to the authorities, Tague was driving back down President Kennedy's path down Elm Street when traffic was stopped by a Dallas policeman. The policeman told Tague that another piece of the President's skull had just been found.
In 1964, six months after the assassination, and only after the curb being struck with a bullet became widely known, Tague was called to testify to the Warren Commission.
He testified that he remembered hearing 3 shots during the assassination and because of his location away from the buildings he heard no echoes. Tague further testified that he was struck on his face by the second or third shot he remembered hearing, and when pressed by the commission, Tague expressed his belief that he was hit with the second shot. (This goes directly against the shots sequence theorized by author Gerald Posner, who believes that the first shot hit the curb. Tague has claimed that Posner has never interviewed him, while Posner responds that he has tapes of himself interviewing Tague for his book and cites his phone bill as evidence of conversations with Tague and others.)
When Tague's curbstone scar was spectrographically examined by Hoover's F.B.I. in 1964 for trace physical elements, the F.B.I. documented in its report that there was lead and antimony present but no copper. This indicates that in the instant the curb was struck, that bullet, or, a fragment of what was left of that original bullet, had no copper casing on it.
Sometime after being spectrographically examined by the F.B.I. in 1964 the F.B.I. slides containing the trace physical elements of a bullet on the curbstone scar chip have disappeared from the evidence, with the F.B.I. being documented to later claim (only after author/researcher/Congressional investigator Harold Weisberg filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit and forced the F.B.I. to claim) that the F.B.I., itself, had destroyed the spectrographic slides to save space within the F.B.I. building.
A 1983 documented study of the curb scar concluded that the curb scar had been covered-up with a foreign material.
In 1997 James Tague visited the U.S. National Archives and personally examined the curbstone scar chip. Tague was also accompanied by a U.S. National Archivist. They both immediately agreed that the scar chip was covered up with a foreign-material patch over the scar chip (no documented record nor documented authorization exists of precisely who/what agency that had the scar chip withn its evidence chain, nor when the scar chip was covered-up). Harold Weisberg had said the same thing about the scar chip covering patch after he first examined the scar chip in the late 1960's.
In 2003 James Tague wrote a book, Truth Withheld (ISBN 0-9718254-7-5), detailing his experiences during and after the assassination.
