JFK
Assassination
by
TempleofMysteries.com
Copyright 2012 TempleofMysteries.com
Smashwords Edition
Welcome
to Dallas
Candid
Camera
In
the Frame
The
Little Man with the Big Plan
Lyndon
Be Judas
Three
Tramps
Umbrella
Man
Brainless
Babushka
Lady
Badge
Man
Suicide
Friendly
Fire
Death
of the Divine King
The
Cabal
Dragon
Lady
The
Driver Did It
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INTRODUCTION
THE 40th anniversary of one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century was marked on November 22, 2003 – with the mystery, frustratingly, no closer to being solved. Despite the welter of conspiracy theories that have attached themselves to the assassination in Dallas, Texas, of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, only one fact is now known for certain – that his death was indeed the result of a conspiracy. Pending some startling new revelation surrounding the events of that tragic day in Dallas, or the release of more US intelligence agencies’ records, we can only speculate as to who was behind the conspiracy. Theories range from the highly plausible to the utterly bizarre. This eBook examines the main theories from both these genres. It also examines the circumstances that prove the president’s assassination was a conspiracy – the work of more than one hand. Crucial to proving this is the evidence from a piece of film only 26 seconds in duration – the legendary footage shot by Abraham Zapruder and which has only recently been digitally enhanced.
It was because of dissatisfaction with the abilities of the Dallas police department to carry out a proper investigation into the events surrounding the death of his predecessor and the subsequent execution of prime suspect Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner and Mafia odd-job man, Jack Ruby, that President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the setting up of the Warren Commission. The commission duly reported that the assassination of the president had simply been the work of the deluded former US Marine and Communist sympathiser Lee Harvey Oswald. But in reaching this simplistic conclusion the commission had ignored the testimony of a huge range of witnesses – witnesses not only to the shooting but also to crucial events both before and after the shooting. It would appear the commission chose to ignore testimony that did not fit its already preconceived version of the record of events. The fatally flawed Warren Commission official report begged as many questions as it answered.
Independent investigators had pointed to numerous inconsistencies in this official version of events. It was their dogged persistence that eventually led to another investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The three-year investigation concluded in 1979 that there probably had been a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. No conclusion was reached, however, on who may have been behind the conspiracy. Thirteen years later, in 1992, the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act was passed by Congress – ironically because of public pressure following the release of the Oliver Stone movie, JFK, itself a veritable hotchpotch of conspiracy theories. Despite the subsequent release to researchers of hundreds of pages of documentation relating to the assassination, thousands more – mainly in the form of both CIA and FBI records – remain hidden. It is unclear if these remain secret to cover up complicity, incompetence, or a combination of both.
If there was a conspiracy, who was responsible? Who would have been able to plan, fund and – literally – execute such a complex operation? We can only speculate – but speculate to a reasonable degree of probability. Was it the Mafia? The American intelligence community? The Soviets? Disgruntled US right-wingers? Cubans in the pay of Castro? Cubans who were both anti-Kennedy and anti-Castro? A combination of some, or all, of these groups? We will examine their possible role in our section ‘In The Frame’, after we examine what is known about the events in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963 and the evidence from the Zapruder film and other sources that the Warren Commission chose to ignore.
“JIM Rowley is most efficient. He has never lost a President,” were President John Fitzgerald’s final words before he boarded a helicopter from the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday, November 21, 1963 to begin his tour of Texas. Rowley was head of the Secret Service detail for ‘Lancer’ – as the president was code-named.
He was flying into the eye of a storm. Militant right-wing groups, anti-civil rights campaigners, and Cuban exiles had all vilified Kennedy. Posters had already been distributed throughout Dallas with ‘Wanted for Treason’ accompanying the president’s picture, while numerous warnings had been received that his life could be in danger from extremists. Undaunted, Kennedy insisted the trip would go ahead. The President and his First Lady had to be seen as accessible to the great American public. It was a combination of Kennedy bravado and arrogance that led to the most elementary of security precautions being flouted – the president insisting in riding in an open-top vehicle, with the bulletproof windows rolled down. A sniper’s delight.
Ironically, a document was waiting for the president’s perusal on his return to Washington. All the indications – particularly from his secretary Evelyn Lincoln – are that he planned to give its contents serious consideration by raising it with his Cabinet members. It had been prepared by security expert George P. Morse and urged the setting up of a single Central Security Agency tasked with preventing and identifying subversive activity. The plan was to die with the president.
Thursday was taken up with receptions for the presidential couple in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth. It was early Friday morning when the Kennedy entourage left Fort Worth, bound for Dallas, where Kennedy intended to deliver a luncheon address. At 11.37am, Air Force One touched down at Love Field, Dallas, to be greeted by thousands of cheering Texans. The President and his First Lady looked the perfect couple – King and Queen of a latter-day Camelot. The president in a smart, grey suit. Jacqueline Kennedy immaculate in a pink suit and matching pillbox hat. Less than one hour later, her suit would be stained in her husband’s blood.
The presidential motorcade sets off at 11.50am on its 11-mile route through downtown Dallas to the Trade Mart, where the president is due to deliver his luncheon address – on defence policy. The president and his wife are seated in the rear of the metallic blue limousine – Texas governor John Connally and his wife seated in jump seats ahead of them. The motorcade travels down Main Street, taking a right onto Houston Street and then a sharp turn left – past the Texas School Book Depository – onto Elm Street. At approximately 12.30pm, Mrs Connally turns around in her jump seat and says to the President: “You can’t say that Dallas isn’t friendly to you today.” At that instant a shot rings out and Kennedy clutches his throat. Governor Connally is also hit – thought to be from a second bullet. A third shot is fired and Kennedy is rocked backwards, to his left. Mrs Kennedy is seen scrambling across the back of the limousine – ostensibly trying to retrieve parts of her husband’s skull and brain which have been torn apart by the third shot. A Secret Service agent jumps onto the rear of the vehicle and signals to her to get back inside the vehicle. It picks up speed and continues down Elm Street, through the triple railroad underpass and on to Parkland Hospital - where at 1.33pm the president is pronounced dead.
Events now move swiftly. Only minutes after the shooting a description fitting that of Lee Harvey Oswald – now reported missing from his place of work at the Texas Schoolbook Depository is broadcast on the police waveband. At 1.15pm patrolman J.D. Tippit spots a man answering the description – about two miles from the scene of the assassination at Dealey Plaza. The man – whom the Warren Report will determine was Oswald – shoots patrolman Tippit dead and escapes from the scene. At approximately 1.45pm Oswald is detained by police in a movie theatre. He is taken to Dallas police headquarters where he will later be charged with the murders of both Tippit and President Kennedy.
At 11.19am on Saturday, December 23, Oswald is taken from his upper floor cell to the basement of the city prison preparatory to his transfer to the county jail. He will never leave the basement alive. Despite the throng of Dallas police and news media, nightclub owner Jack Ruby manages to breach the security surrounding Oswald, jams a pistol into his ribs and fires one shot. The moment is captured on film. Oswald is taken to Parkland Hospital – but declared dead at approximately 1.07pm. Jack Ruby is arrested.
No confession had been obtained from Oswald, but Dallas police maintain the evidence against him is “airtight”. A rifle had been found only minutes after the president’s assassination next to a ‘sniper’s nest’ on the sixth floor of the school book depository – where Oswald was employed. This evidence – along with a wealth of detail about Oswald’s flirtation with Communism, his support from President Castro of Cuba, and even a photograph of himself sporting a rifle and a revolver – will weigh heavily with the Warren Commission in its final determination that Oswald acted alone. Despite his protestations that he fears for his safety if questioned by the commission in Dallas, Ruby’s request to be moved to Washington is brushed aside. He later dies of cancer. All very neat. Too neat - as an examination of evidence cavalierly brushed aside by the Warren Commission shows.
IT was thanks to the insistence of his staff that Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder found himself recording on film one of the most infamous events of the 20th century. A keen amateur cameraman, he had initially left his 8mm camera at home. Staff insisted he return to fetch it to record the presidential visit to his hometown. From his vantage point on a low concrete wall fronting the so-called ‘grassy knoll’ and facing towards the approaching motorcade, Zapruder would have a virtual ‘view to a kill’. Life magazine subsequently bought the film from Zapruder for $0.25m – but the moving, colour footage was not shown on television until 1975. It was later to play a key role in the subsequent House of Representatives’ Committee on Assassinations investigation. Combining the evidence from the Zapruder film with acoustic evidence that identified the sound and direction of gunshots, the committee concluded in 1979 that President Kennedy had “probably” been killed as the result of a conspiracy.
In 1997 the LMH Company and the MPI Media Group collaborated to create a digital of the original Zapruder footage. The result is a 26-second film that has a version 64% wider than seen before. The detail in this enhanced film is stunning. It opens with a shot of the President and the First Lady smiling and waving at the crowds as their vehicle proceeds down Elm Street after having taken a sharp left from Houston Street, passing the Texas School Book Depository. The presidential limousine vanishes from sight for a brief moment as a street sign obscures it. The president’s hands are then seen coming up to clutch his throat. Governor Connally – seated in a jump seat in front of the president – turns round to look into the back seat. As he turns back his body goes rigid – indicating that he, too, has been hit. Then comes the most dramatic moment of the footage. The president’s head literally explodes in a mess of brain matter and blood – as he is jolted backwards, to his left. Mrs Kennedy is seen frantically scrambling from the rear seat onto the rear of the limousine – ostensibly attempting to retrieve parts of her husband’s skull. A Secret Service agent leaps onto the rear bumper of the vehicle and motions to the First Lady to get back into her seat. The vehicle accelerates and is last seen heading towards the railroad overpass at the bottom of Elm Street.