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DALLAS (Reuter) - Hundreds of people, many of them touting dark conspiracy theories, gathered to honor former President John F. Kennedy Friday, 33 years after he was cut down by an assassin's bullet.
In what has become an annual ritual, about 500 people stood in downtown Dallas on the infamous Grassy Knoll --- from where many people believe Kennedy's true, unidentified killer fired the fatal shot --- and observed a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. EDT), the time of the assassination.
Wreaths of flowers were placed at the site along with a huge photograph of the charismatic Kennedy and his glamorous wife Jacqueline. Above the photo of the smiling couple, taken on the day of the assassination, a sign read: "We do remember."
Kennedy was murdered on Nov. 22, 1963, as he was driven in an open-top limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The official Warren Commission, chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed Kennedy with rifle fire from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.
But the commission report has been widely criticized and many historians, including some who believe Oswald was the lone killer, say key questions about the assassination remain unanswered.
Most of those attending Friday's ceremony said they backed one or other of the conspiracy theories that vary widely on the issue of who ordered Kennedy's death but agree on one thing: either Oswald was innocent, or he did not act alone.
"I've been following this for years and there's one thing I'm sure of. The shots which killed Kennedy did not come from up there. I know that," said Ian Griggs, a member of a British research group called "Dealey Plaza U.K.," pointing at the window where Oswald allegedly fired from.
Two days after the assassination Jack Ruby, a Dallas night club owner, killed Oswald as he was about to be transferred from jail to the Dallas sheriff's office.
Every November, dozens of researchers and historians --- along with a few paranoid individuals pushing bizarre theories --- meet in Dallas to discuss and debate the evidence from the fateful day in 1963. Most use the occasions to promote their own theories.
On Friday, one team was to hold a five-hour seminar aimed at demonstrating that the crucial "Zapruder film" --- an 8mm color film of the assassination taken by Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder --- was chopped and manipulated by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"They used extremely sophisticated photo technology to change the tape and control our perception of what happened that day," said one researcher, George Evica.
But others attended Friday's ceremony more to remember Kennedy than to push any particular theory of who killed him, or why.
"We come to be reminded of what he was trying to do, and to remind ourselves of the principles that guided him," said Richard Toliver, a political activist who said he was 25 years old and in the Air Force when Kennedy was murdered.
Toliver said he remembered Kennedy as a compassionate leader with a can-do spirit and a sense of fair play. "We remember his virtues rather than his failings."
Rebecca Williams, a 28-year-old Californian, was in Dallas visiting a friend this weekend and said she decided to come down to Dealey Plaza to get a better idea of what happened 33 years ago.
"I wasn't alive when he died but my mother always used to talk to me about him. She died a couple of years ago. I don't know, I guess I wanted to understand it a little more. He seemed like a good man," she said.
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