WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

Dealey Plaza, the site of JFK’s assassination, looks the same as it did 56 years ago. Clockwise from top left: the Texas School Book Depository Building; the grassy knoll; the triple underpass; the spot where Abraham Zapruder filmed the assassination. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

An unwanted half-day Friday

The principal’s distinctive voice unexpectedly came on the intercom system, measured and somber as it was piped through speakers on the classroom wall. His voice was clear but shaken. It was just after lunch, around 1 p.m., in our small Midwestern town.

Mr. Wisehart informed us President Kennedy had been shot. We were being sent home. I was in first grade.

We packed up and left school early on that sunny Friday, November 22, 1963. Unlike a snow day when you were thrilled to avoid school, this felt different. Not gleeful, this was unsettling.

President Kennedy was beloved. He saved us from nuclear war with Russia, which would have ended civilization. He had a vision for a grand future that was inclusive. He stirred the imagination with talk of sending men to the moon. He was young and vibrant with a beautiful, charming wife.

East Grade School, where I was a first-grader, emptied upon news President Kennedy had been shot. (Photo credit Plainfield Public Library)

The walk home with my brother - in an era when kids our age walked to and from school without parental chaperones – was a heavy-footed slog, fearing what awaited when we arrived home. By mid-afternoon the news circled the globe. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th U.S. president, was dead, assassinated in Dallas, Texas at a place called Dealey Plaza.

How could this be? You hoped someone would say a mistake had been made and Kennedy was still alive.

Two days later, it became more surreal when alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who after shooting the president murdered a Dallas patrol officer, was himself shot and killed on national TV. Oswald’s killer was identified as strip club owner Jack Ruby, a shadowy figure known to hang out at the police station.

JFK’s motorcade began at Love Field and ended about an hour later at Parkland Hospital. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Not a peaceful but uneasy feeling

Have you ever watched a movie you’ve seen before and nevertheless become anxious, even though you know the outcome? The scene in “Rear Window” when Raymond Burr’s burly, evil character is about to enter wheelchair-bound James Stewart’s character’s apartment still makes me queasy. I’ve seen the movie over a dozen times but still watch as if there is doubt about what will unfold.

Two weeks ago, for the first time, I traveled to Dallas to experience Dealey Plaza, and other historical sites. To begin my photo documentation of critical locations associated with JFK’s assassination, I hired a town car to drive me around. The plan was to start at Love Field Airport, where Kennedy’s motorcade began.

However, Google’s map showed we would pass the Dallas Trade Mart and Parkland Hospital on the way to Love Field. To save time – and money – I instructed my driver, an affable man from India named Singh, to pull into the Trade Mart, where Kennedy was to give a luncheon speech to Dallas business leaders. A short drive later we arrived at Parkland Hospital.

Upon reaching Love Field, we traced JFK’s motorcade route into downtown. There were nerves as I called out the directions: Lemmon Avenue. Turtle Creek Boulevard. Cedar Springs Road. Main Street.

Butterflies filled my stomach during the long drive down Main Street. Why the anxiety? I already knew how this story ended.

We turned right off Main onto Houston Street. A block away there it stood. The orange bricks of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Exiting the town car in front of the building, anxiety gave way to journalistic instinct. I was there to document history.

There are many famous intersections in America. Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco. Chicago’s Rush and Division streets. Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The corner of Houston and Elm streets in Dallas is…infamous.

Oswald’s sniper’s nest and view of Elm Street. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Preserved for the ages

Dealey Plaza looks virtually the same as it did in 1963. It is not weighed down by sadness but is not light and airy, either. It is there to be absorbed. To soak-in its mysterious, unresolved history.

Dallas officials have rightly preserved Dealey Plaza. Doing so allowed helplessness to morph into acceptance and curiosity. Certainly, questions linger about what happened, and what might have been. But there is salvation for Dallas at Dealey Plaza. Once the most hated city in America, Dallas long ago emerged from the bonds of America’s scorn.

During my productive two-day visit Dallas was enchanting. People were helpful and kind. Downtown is beautiful and cosmopolitan with stirring architecture.

While at Dealey Plaza, I snapped the requisite photos: The book depository. The green X in the street marking the shot that struck both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. The white X further down the street where Kennedy was hit by the fatal bullet. The grassy knoll. The triple underpass. The location from which Abraham Zapruder captured his film. The infamous corner.

The 6th Floor Museum tour – also requisite - was well worth it. The focal point was the sniper’s nest, where Oswald hid among a pile of boxes, while most of his co-workers went downstairs to see JFK’s motorcade.

The sniper’s nest evoked a different reaction than when I visited Ford’s Theater and literally stood in John Wilkes Booth’s footsteps, just outside the president’s box. Standing a few feet from where Lincoln sat, you felt how personal it was for Booth, driven by pure, mad hatred, when he shot Lincoln at point-blank range.

From the window at the sniper’s nest, looking down at the green and white X’s marked on the street, I did not feel the assassin’s rage. It felt eerily workmanlike. Oswald had an ideological beef with Kennedy and the way to settle it was to shoot the president.

History-altering fate awaited America’s glamorous First Couple when they visited Dallas, Texas. (Photo credit Dallas Times Herald)

What really happened?

Appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, aka the Warren Commission, was given the unenviable task of solving Kennedy’s assassination.

In September, 1964, the Warren Commission’s report declared no conspiracy, despite the presence of viable potential conspirators (the KGB, Castro, U.S. Intelligence, New Orleans characters, anti-Castro Cubans, the U.S. Far Right, and the Mafia). The Warren Commission reported Oswald’s third shot fatally wounded Kennedy. Their conclusion was augmented by three shells found in the sniper’s nest.

However, critical questions dog the Warren Commission to this day. Why was crucial eyewitness testimony compromised or outright ignored? Why was Kennedy’s autopsy so secretive?

Multiple eyewitnesses at street-level, with a clear view of Kennedy’s limousine, testified the fatal shot was fired at street level. These witnesses smelled gun powder. Wind direction would have made it impossible for them to smell gun powder emitting from the farther away book depository building.

Subsequently, using the science of ballistics coupled with unbiased curiosity, sharpshooter, gunsmith and ballistics expert Howard Donahue proved the fatal head shot bullet could not have come from Oswald’s rifle.

The likely source of the most controversial shot in history - marked by the white X on the street - may surprise you. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Where there’s smoke…

The documentary “JFK: The Smoking Gun,” featuring detective Colin McLaren, supports Donahue’s ballistic evidence with state-of-the-art forensics. Neither Donahue or McLaren purport conspiracy, one way or the other. They do eliminate the possibility the fatal shot came from Oswald. As such, in a catastrophic accident, Kennedy was almost surely killed by friendly fire.  

How? Oswald’s first shot missed, striking the pavement. Secret Service Special Agent George Hickey, riding in the follow-up car directly behind JFK, grabbed a semi-automatic rifle and began turning to his right, toward the book depository. After JFK was struck by Oswald’s second shot, confusion ensued. When the Secret Service car braked suddenly to avoid hitting the wounded president’s momentarily stopped limo, Hickey lost his balance, falling forward, then backwards.

Donahue posits that for a split-second Hickey’s AR-15 was inadvertently pointed at JFK, accidentally discharged, and killed the president.

Both Donahue and McLaren prove Oswald’s second shot hit Kennedy’s neck, exited and passed through Gov. Connally’s upper back, chest and wrist before finally resting in his thigh. As it was designed to do, the full metal jacket bullet pierced its way through the two men. Connally’s position in the lower jump seat, in front of and slightly to Kennedy’s left, renders the Warren Commission’s “magic bullet” theory factual reality.

The frangible bullets used by the Secret Service rupture on impact. The Zapruder film clearly shows this. The fatal bullet exploded, having a devastating impact on Kennedy’s head.

Furthermore, based on entry and exit wounds, the trajectory of the fatal head shot could not have come from the angle of the book depository’s sixth floor.

Speeding to the hospital behind JFK’s limo, Secret Service Special Agent George Hickey brandishes the AR-15 that likely fired the fatal bullet. (Photo credit Unnamed Motorist)

Ballistics matter

Kennedy’s autopsy revealed the entry wound bullet hole caused by the fatal head shot was 6.0 millimeters, too small to accommodate the bullets in Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which measured 6.5 millimeters. The 5.56-millimeter bullets used in the Secret Service’s weapon fit within a 6.0-millimeter wound.

Ballistically speaking, the exploding frangible 5.56-millimeter bullets used in the Secret Service’s AR-15 do not fit the chamber of Oswald’s rifle, which accommodated full metal jacket bullets.

What about the third shell in the sniper’s nest? According to experts, shooters often load an empty shell into a rifle to prevent moisture and grit from getting in the chamber. Before firing the weapon, the empty shell is discharged. Oswald did this prior to twice shooting his rifle, hence investigators found three shells in the sniper’s nest.

Most credible – ballistically and forensically proven – is that a friendly-fire bullet from a Secret Service AR-15 killed JFK.

The embarrassment of acknowledging JFK died from a tragic accident would have been too much for the Warren Commission to admit. The country would have been outraged. And what would the reputation of America be, trusted to lead the world, its dynamic president accidentally killed by the Secret Service responsible for protecting him?

At Bethesda Naval Hospital, the Secret Service crowded the chaotic autopsy room. Agents interfered in the process, warning of dire consequences for anyone (including the photographer) who disobeyed Secret Service orders. X-rays were destroyed. Kennedy’s brain, full of bullet fragments consistent with the AR-15, was commandeered by the Secret Service, never to be seen again.

None of which changes the overwhelming shock on Friday, November 22, 1963 and the grief-stricken days that followed.

When he was not being interrogated, Oswald was held in this cell during the nearly 48 hours he was at police headquarters. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Stumbling onto history

Saturday morning before leaving Dallas, I returned to the former city municipal building, which now houses UNT Dallas College of Law. I already had photos of the vehicle ramp used by the ambulance that carried Oswald, after Jack Ruby shot him in the building’s basement. I decided to go back and make certain I got it right.

While wandering around outside the building, an assistant professor approached and asked if I was lost. I explained why I was in Dallas and displayed my media credential. She immediately offered to take me to the closed-to-the-public 4th floor where Oswald was held for 48 hours.

In what turned out to be a 25-minute adrenaline rush, I received a private tour that included Oswald’s and Jack Ruby’s jail cells, the office where Oswald was interrogated, and the wall where Oswald and Ruby had their mugshots taken. We then walked the corridor where media press scrums took place when Oswald was paraded back and forth for two days.

Questions loom. Did Oswald receive proper legal representation? Was he mistreated? Could he pull this off alone? Was Ruby’s proclamation he “did it for Jackie” rubbish intended to distract? Why did the FBI, with knowledge of Oswald’s suspicious activities, fail to inform the Secret Service of Oswald’s whereabouts in Dallas?

Concluding the impromptu tour, we viewed elevator doors Oswald and Detective James Leavelle used when they descended to the building’s basement, where an armored truck waited to transfer Oswald to the county jail. Also waiting in the basement that day, Jack Ruby would momentarily fire the shot that silenced Oswald, unleashing more than a half-century search for the truth. 

Fifty-six years later, I experienced history at the world’s most significant unsolved crime scene. And gained a measure of closure.

(View an exclusive, curated JFK/Dallas photo gallery by clicking “Events” on the theweeklyopine.com Home Page and scrolling down to “Where Time Stands Still.”)

© 2019 Douglas Freeland / The Weekly Opine