Alan talks to author Bob Goodman early Friday, 11-22-96
On Friday, November 22, 1996, I awoke at 4 a.m. from a confused tangle of conspiracy-tinged dreams --- vaguely defined but dark and sinister characters lurking in some shadowy, paranoid corner of my psyche. I was unable to return to dreamland. After an hour of tossing and turning, I flicked on the boob tube and caught the first hint of the Dallas media's nod to the meaning of the day: a live shot, sans reporter, from Dealey Plaza, where a few earlybird cars rolled down Elm Street in an otherwise deserted area. In voice-over, the anchor read a traffic report and brief weather forecast. From there he segued into a broadcast of the just-released Powers film (see Miscellanea, Errata, Et Cetera).
Due to an amazing snafu at the Dallas Grand Hotel the day before, which saw hundreds (unofficially) of would-be guests unable to check in to that fine establishment, I was several miles from where I wanted to be that morning. So after checking out of the swank hotel I'd wound up at, I called a cab and asked the driver to take me to Dealey Plaza.
I was surprised by the blank look on the cabbie's face, since I assumed Dealey Plaza was one of the most famous, or infamous, landmarks in town. So I restated my destinaton: "Take me to Elm and Houston."
And that, indirectly, is how I wound up on live TV, talking to a reporter from the local Fox affiliate. This fellow was woefully uninformed on the JFK case, even though the assassination is probably the biggest thing to ever happen in that town. But that didn't surprise me. I have a low regard for most TV news, which I have more than a passing acquaintence with, having spent about seven years working in the belly of the beast in a major U.S. TV market. This stint, which I do not admit to proudly, was preceded by several years in public radio. In both cases, my services were so highly valued I was allowed to slink into work in the wee hours between midnight and 4am.
In any case, this Dallas reporter, whose name was Alan, accosted me as I wandered about Dealey Plaza taking still photographs and home video. He had never heard of the JFK Records Collection Act, and I briefly described it to him: it was signed into law by then-President Bush, and established the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an independent panel appointed by President Clinton to identify and make available all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. Its original mandate, I went on, is due to expire in less than a year, and many believe that an extension is urgently needed.
But Alan didn't want to talk about that. He was just there to do a brief live shot for his morning news cut-in. He wanted to know, first, why people still come to Dealey Plaza, and second, what was my theory on the assassination?
"Don't ask me that on camera," I said of his second question, and he said okay. We had a few minutes before going on. I mulled over some things to say, trying to frame answers in the form of sound-bites --- those brief, twenty-to-thirty-second snippets that TV News thrives on.
Finally Alan got his cue. "I'm here in Dealey Plaza on the morning of the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Already, people are here --- some to pay their respects to the late President, and others to pursue that eternal question: What really happened here in 1963?
"With me here is one of the latter," he continued, turning to me. "This gentleman publishes an Internet magazine on the subject. I'd like to ask you: why do people still come to Dealey Plaza?"
"Well, Alan," I began, "I think people still come here because there has never been any closure in this case. Naturally our thoughts turn to the murdered President on the anniversary of his assassination --- and this is the scene of the crime."
"I see. And what's your theory on the assassination?"
"There isn't any single theory that everyone agrees on. It's important to remember that. But, that said, in my view, it was a political assassination carried out by a power elite within the government."
"Fascinating."
"Hundreds of researchers are here for the JFK-Lancer conference today and tomorrow, a few blocks up the street at the Dallas Grand Hotel here in downtown Dallas," I said quickly. "Anyone interested should check it out."
Alan withdrew his microphone and said a few words about the anniversary observance scheduled for later that day. Then he tossed it back to the studio. We did a short videotaped interview, in which I repeated much of what I'd just said in the live thing. As we parted company I urged Alan to check out the Lancer conference. But if he or any other TV people did so, I didn't see them.
The print media gave the assassination anniversary token coverage. Most of it was what I think of as "fill-in-the-blank" journalism. The text could run just about any year; only the specifics, like whether it rained, would need to be changed, for all the substance they had. That cynical observation aside, the balance of this article you're reading now consists of all the references I saw in the Dallas Morning News during my stay in town, from November 21 through November 24.
The following item appeared in the "People" section of the Dallas Morning News, page 2-A, November 22, 1996, beneath an item about NBA star and human curiosity Dennis Rodman:
A President Remembered: On this date in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while fiding in a motorcade in Dallas. Texas Gov. John B. Connally was seriously wounded. A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States.
In that same edition of the Dallas Morning News, on the Op/Ed page, the paper's editorial staff opined:
The visitors still come, 33 years later. They stand on the grassy knoll, craning their necks to look up at the Texas School Book Depository. They snap photos and slowly scan the scene with videocams. Many of the visitors weren't yet born when President John Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
Like barnacles on a boat, as the years pass, opportunists have attached themselves to the event. A conspiracy museum opened near the Kennedy Memorial. One entrepreneur offers rides through downtown in a replica of Mr. Kennedy's limousine. What's next? A couple of bucks to squeeze off some rifle shots from the window of a nearby building? Reverence and restraint aren't inappropriate when dealing with a president's murder.
The Sixth Floor Museum has helped satisfy visitors' desire to understand the assassination without diving into the tackiness. Any day of the week, the Sixth Floor is crowded like no other museum in Dallas. It combines photos, artifacts and videotapes to describe Mr. Kennedy's era, administration and final trip.
All the confusion and grief of the assassination becomes real again at the Sixth Floor. Garbled news reports after the shooting. A Dallas luncheon crowd waiting for an honored guest who never arrived. Lady Bird Johnson looking stunned, utterly stunned, as she stood beside her soon-to-be-president husband. Reporters jostling at the Dallas police station. Jackie Kennedy's face framed by a black veil.
"I still miss John F. Kennedy as I did 33 years ago when he was assassinated," a Maryland tourist wrote in the Sixth Floor's visitor book.
The Sixth Floor has helped Dallas live with the tragedy, and given millions of people a place to learn and mourn.
Would that there were some other place for visitors to absorb the rest of the history of this city, a museum that complements the Sixth Floor but studies a different subject, the story of how strong people made a city grow in the heart of the plains. Preservationists have long hoped that the nearby Old Red Courthouse would become a museum of local history. Dallas County commissioners createda board to help develop a history museum, but the organization effort has dragged on and on. Old Red remains shuttered.
Right now, President Kennedy's assassination remains the only thing most people know about Dallas history. This city needs a museum that explains Dallas is more than a set-piece for tragedy.
Adjacent to the preceding editorial was a letter to the editor from a woman in Maryland. The letter was placed in its own box. Its positioning right next to the "Dallas Diary" editorial struck us as a tad ironic.
Re: Your Nov. 17 article, "Top U.S. official says CIA trying to oust him." This is typical of the action taken against "whistle blowers" by corrupt and unscrupulous supervisors, or by incompetent or uninformed heads of departments. The CIA has long been [so] accustomed to committing such vile nad hideous acts that many of the operatives are insensitive to the difference between right and wrong.
I lived near a former CIA operative who resigned due to the assignments of crime and harm that were expected of him. The stories he told of the atrocities committed in the name of thwarting communism and overthrowing leaders of countries which would not do their bidding were blood curdling.
President Harry Truman tried years after his term as president to discontinue the CIA because it no longer performed the duties he had organized it to do and had become a cruel and heartless organization. It is no wonder that there does occasionally come along an employee whose "character" and scruples will not allow him/her to tolerate those acts. An outside investigator should be appointed to check out the CIA claims against this man, Richard Nuccio, who has been accused of bringing the CIA wrongdoings to light.
Better still, do as President Truman recommended. Abolish that disgraceful arm of government. It puts America to shame in many countries.
While we do not need to be isolationists, we do need to use persuasion and negotiations to get our way with other countries instead of sending in hoodlums of the CIA to do the dirty work.
Cynthia Snider,
Beltsville, Md.
This photograph and text appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Saturday, 11-23-96:
Family members mark the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemegary on Friday. From left are Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Ethel Kennedy, Vicky Kennedy, Sen. Edward Kennedy,and R. Sargent Shriver.
Matt Walsh circled Nov. 22 on his calendar months ago.
The Richardson cafeteria manager took the day off and made plans for one more pilgrimage to the grassy knoll, the triple underpass, The Sixth Floor and the motorcade route.
"This is how I honor the late president," Mr. Walsh said, standing near the grassy knoll in downtown Dallas. "I came to pay homage to the president and hope that someday we'll find ou;the full truth of the assassination."
Mr. Walsh, 26, was among thousands of people who visited Dealey Plaza on Friday to mark the 33rd anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Many visitors, such as Mr. Walsh, weren't alive on that tragic day when the president was gunned down as his motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository.
Everything they know about Nov. 22, 1963, comes from history books, their parents' accounts, Oliver Stone or memorials such as The Sixth Floor museum.
But they said they are fascinated by the JFK mystique and the mystery surrounding his assassination.
That fascination has brought back many of the visitors year after year. Others were there for the first time Friday and vowed to return.
"I grew up with the ideas he had, such as going into space," said Michael Hendrix, 27, as he ended a tour of The Sixth Floor. "I thought it was kind of sad that one person can affect the whol world in such a negative way as [Lee Harvey] Oswald did."
Mr. Hendrix, of Ada, Okla., drove to Dallas with his girlfriend, Tracie Burchfield, to pay tribute to Mr. Kennedy.
He said the visit to The Sixth Floor was chilling, especially when he looked out a window.
"It made me feel like I was there when it happened," Mr. Hendrix said. "As I saw other cars going by, I could imagine the motorcade. I feel a lot closer to it."
He said it was his second visit to the assassination site. His parents took him on a tour about 20 years ago, he said.
Patrick Silke, 31, traveled from Birmingham, England, for his second visit in six years. Mr. Silke said he was been intrigued with the assassination since he was a youngster.
"I'm interested in the mystery surrounding the assassination," said Mr. Silke, who visited the memorial with a dozen members of Ealey Plaza U.K., a group of British researchers. "It's the greatest mystery in American history."
Mr. Silke, an environment pollution researcher, said about one-third of his group's 80 members were not born when MR. Kennedy was killed.
He credits director Stone's movie JFK for spurring interest in the assassination. "After the JFK film came out [in 1991], you had a lot of young people talking about it," he said.
Les Heifner of Garland said his interest in the assassination predates the film. Mr. Heifner, 17, said he was 8 when he first visited the shooting site.
Last year, Mr. Heifner and a friend, Bill Dodson, 18, formed Young Researchers on Political Assassinations to look into the shooting.
"There are a lot of documents that are going to be released ... [in the next century], and a lot of the mainstream researchers aren't going to be around later on," said MR. Heifner, who has visited the memorial on Nov. 22 for the last nine years.
"We don't take a stand," he said. "We are trying to get as close to the truth as we possibly can."
Claudia Capetillo, 13, said she was interested in the truth, too.
She and other seventh-graders from Alex W. Spence Middle School in Dallas laid a wreath at Dealey Plaza in honor of the slain president.
"It's very sad. He was a great president," said Claudia, who visited the site for the first time Friday. "Before today, Dealey Plaza to me was jsut a little place downtown.
"Now, it's going to be a special place."
Note: Fair Play finds it more than a little strange that, in spite of a succession of speakers who addressed the crowd in Dealey Plaza, all from a conspiracy perspective, not even one was mentioned. Indeed, this article failed to even note that there was a formal observance of the assassination! See the article "Dealey Plaza at Noon, 11-22-96," in this issue. And, get with it, Dallas Morning News!
The world will probably forever remember Nov. 22, 1963, as the date when President John F. Kennedy was killed.
The assassination has been the subject of countless books, movies, TV shows and conspiracy theories. But often overlooked is the death of Lee Harvey Oswald's other victim that day, Dallas patrol Officer J.D. Tippit.
Officer Tippit, 39, was killed about 1:15 p.m., 45 minutes after the president was shot, as he attempted to arrest Mr. Oswald.
The officer's widow, Marie, is a member of the Gasway family of Greenville [Texas], which has a long history of service in local law enforcement. Her father, C.W. Gasway, was a captain with the Greenville Police Department at the time of the shooting. Two brothers, Dwight and N.L. Gasway, also were officers with the department.
Officer Tippit's widow has remarried and maintains residences in Dallas and near Tyler. She does not grant interviews concerning her husband's death, family members said.
Officer Tippit, an 11-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was twice cited for bravery in the line of duty. He was involved in several heated confrontations before his encounter with Mr. Oswald, Dwight Gasway said.
In one instance, a suspect in a family violence case rammed an ice pick into Officer Tippit's knee when he intervened.
"After that, he'd always have to massage his leg to get it to going," Mr. Gasway said.
Another time, an inebriated suspect pulled a gun on Officer Tippit and his fellow officers, who were then forced to shoot and kill the individual.
"He always told me that if it wasn't your time to go, you'd find a way to get out, you'd make it," Mr. Gasway said.
On the day of the assassination, the Gasway family joined the rest of the country in stunned sadness for the fallen president.
"Then the next thing we heard is that J.D. had been killed," Mr. Gasway said. "It was really a shock to find out all of that had happened at one time."
Many reached out to a police officer's widow.
Officer Tippit had worked part-time jobs on weekends to supplement his $490-a-month income from the Police Department and to provide for his wife and their three children. On the day he died, he stopped by the house briefly to eat lunch before going out on patrol.
At the time, Marie Tippit was quoted as saying her husband had not been called in but thought it was necessary to be available for duty because such a large force was stationed downtown for Mr. Kennedy's visit.
She received donations from all over the United States. Media outlets, fellow police officers and the general public showered her with thousands of dollars.
The donations came from some surprising sources. The biggest single check was sent by Abraham Zapruder, the Dallas garment manufacturer who happened to film the assassination. He contributed the $25,000 payment he had recieved from Time-Life Books for his rights to the film.
A group of prison inmates from Huntsville gave $200, and within a few days, more than $50,000 had been raised.
"The money was set up in a trust fund," Mr. Gasway said. "It was amazing. Everything imaginable was offered, from a racehorse colt on down. Marie and Mrs. Kennedy had talked a time or two because they had both lost the same thing, the husband that they loved."
Mr. Gasway said family members have put what happened on that day 33 years ago behind them. He hopes his sister also has been able to heal her wounds.
"It's one of those things where you just have to get over it and move on," Mr. Gasway said.
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