I’m rolling into Dallas. Having written JFK vs CIA I’m finally visiting the scene of the crime. Seeing the Texas School Book Depository looming large in the distance is thrilling. Too bad the murder of a president is the source of this excitement. There is a parking lot above Elm Street overlooking Dealey Plaza and I park my car. I take the tour of the 6th Floor Museum glancing at the “Sniper’s Nest” but what interests me more is where the rifle was found. Walking the length of the floor I realize that was quite a walk for the person who actually fired from the sniper’s nest. Anxious to do the real tour I walked out of the building and into Dealey Plaza. There is the tower that Lee Bowers was a top when the shooting occurred. As the railroad switchman he had a commanding view of the Plaza. I could see the vehicles he spoke of with out of state license plates slowly moving in front of the tower shortly before the president’s motorcade arrived. One vehicle had a Goldwater bumper sticker and Mr. Bowers saw a driver speaking into a radio microphone. He also spoke of two men on top of the grassy knoll twenty minutes before the shooting watching as it made its way down Main Street. Asked by the Warren Commission if the two men were at the same location when the shots were fired he answered, no. The younger man in the plaid shirt was in the bushes and the older man in the suit was standing alone next to the bushes. He implied the man in the bushes was firing at the president. Lee Bowers died a couple of years after his testimony in a one car traffic accident. My own speculation is the man in the suit may be Jack Ruby. A man named James Files claims to be the shooter and when asked what he was wearing that day he said, “a plaid shirt.” Interesting.
Of course I went behind the fence atop the grassy knoll. My assumption was this is where the fatal shot came from. I was incorrect. Looking from the fence to where the president’s vehicle was when JFK was hit with the head shot, the angle is all wrong. A shot coming from the fence at that time would have hit the president in the side of the head knocking him left directly into Jackie. This is not what occurs. I have a copy of the Zapruder film. Running the film in slow motion the president facing forward is hit in the head with the head snapping back followed by his body lifted out of the seat and driven backwards. The momentum backwards doesn’t stop until he collides with the back seat. He then bounces off the back seat landing on the floor of the vehicle. The last shot clearly came from the front and not the right side. I made a mental note to come back at midnight and stand on this spot when traffic was intermittent and determine where the shot had to come from. The answer pointed to the overpass but how could spectators miss men firing from their position?
I left the fence area and crossed Elm Street to a park area that was to the left of the president as he was approaching the overpass. I want to see Jean Hill’s view as the president was being shot. Jean Hill, a school teacher, was in Dealey Plaza waving at the president as he approached her location. Wearing a red coat she is noticeable in film of the assassination. Standing to the left of the president’s vehicle just as he was struck by the fatal bullet, Miss Hill told the Warren Commission the shot came from across the street. She crossed the street and ran up the hill in pursuit of the shooter. At a fence on top of the hill next to the overpass, she was halted by a tall, thin man in a suit who identified himself as a secret service agent. There were no secret service agents on foot in Dealey Plaza. She also identified Jack Ruby moving rapidly along the ridge line at the top of the hill.
As I was visualizing what Jean Hill saw that day a man tapped me on the shoulder. He asked if I would help with some photos and measurements he was taking. His name is James Fetzer and I knew him by reputation as an outstanding assassination researcher. We started talking. He has a theory the fatal shot came from the left front near the overpass. At least we both understood the shot didn’t come from the fence to Kennedy’s right. After positioning me and taking several photos James needed to buy more film. I accompanied him to a nearby store. As we were walking I mentioned I sure would like to visit Jack Ruby’s Club. As I said this he pointed out we were walking passed where Jack’s club used to be. Eerie. Walking passed the Adolphus Hotel James mentioned this was the communications center for the assassination. This concurred with my own thinking. James bought his film and on the way back down to Dealey Plaza I asked if he knew about the Clint Murchinson pre assassination celebration party. He did. Madeline Brown, LBJ’s mistress who was at the party, told him in detail the facts of the party and who attended. James added J. Edgar Hoover also flew in for the event. I asked him his evidence. He told me. I’ll let you ask James about his source as as I don’t want to be responsible for any more deaths.
Leaving James to Dealey Plaza I had another location to scout. Ruth Paine’s house was in Irving, a suburb of Dallas. Lee Oswald’s wife and children were staying at the Paine residence while Lee rented a room in another home in Dallas. Parking across the street I could almost visualize Lee playing with his children on the front lawn as described by Ruth Paine the evening before the assassination. I was sorely tempted to knock on the door and ask to walk around the house and garage. I didn’t. I’m on this side of crazy which keeps me functioning in everyday life but another inch or two…
I drove a couple of blocks over to a gas station. Sitting there I realized this was where Lee sold his rifle shortly before the assassination. Robert Taylor, a mechanic at the station, had bought Lee’s rifle and this was the reason CIA had to use the back up “mail order” rifle to frame Lee. His own rifle was missing on the big day. I sat in my car soaking up the history. The real history. Slowly I moved on to my next location.
I left for the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and parked in front of the house where Lee rented a room. Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, told the Warren Commission at 1.00 p.m. Lee burst through the front door. Shortly after a police car parked in front of the home and honked a couple of times. The patrol car pulled away and then Lee exited the house. Was that officer Tippit outside waiting for Lee? Why? In any event officer Tippit had fifteen minutes to live. It was Tippit’s murder that brought the search for the president’s assassin to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.
Earlene Roberts would be dead in a couple of years herself. Likewise William Whalley, the cab driver who drove Oswald to his rooming house. Likewise Lee Bowers, the railroad man who saw two suspects atop the grassy knoll. Be careful what you tell the Warren Commission. Someone is listening.
Around midnight I returned to Dealey Plaza. Standing in the middle of Elm Street on the spot where Kennedy was slain, I simulated JFK’s backward head snap and pointed in the direction from where the shot must have come. Everything added up to the overpass. Yet how does a shot come from the overpass without anyone seeing it? I’ll return when it’s daylight and go over the suspect area thoroughly.
I walked up the grassy knoll to the parking lot above Elm Street and someone called to me. He had been watching me the whole time as I did my charade. How embarrassing. But he seemed to know why and understood. He was one of us. We talked for awhile and he invited me to his car as it was plenty cold out. We sat warming up to the heater and talked of the assassination. I told him my book was just published and my theory of CIA assassination with Richard Helms the Architect. He asked me why they did it and I crammed a seminar into his brain. He had no particular theory but thought Johnson was involved. He was the owner of the gun that Jack Ruby used to shoot Oswald and told me it was on loan at the Conspiracy Museum a few blocks away. Each anniversary he made a pilgrimage to Dallas to remember. We spoke for a couple of hours and he invited me to stay until dawn as was his thing but I needed some sleep before the day began as it was November 22. And I had more things to accomplish before I left Dallas.
November 22. I’m standing on the overpass. Walking its length I can’t visualize anyone firing from it without being seen. I look over at the box cars sitting on the train tracks behind me. Possible – but impractical. You would have to shoot over people’s heads. I don’t think so. I began to leave the overpass headed toward the parking lot above the grassy knoll. I froze. A fence that begins just to the right of where Abraham Zapruder was filming extends the length of the top of the hill and connects to the overpass. The last few feet of the wooden fence is up against the cement overpass. I look toward the street. The angle is about right for the last shot. I look down. I’m standing on a large drain directly behind the fence. It’s about three to four feet in length but its depth is four feet. If someone was to lift the screen up and another person step down into the drain they would lose four feet in height. I knelt on one knee and looked through a missing plank in the fence. Yeah, that’s better. Someone standing in the drain pointing a rifle out the bottom of the fence and not the top would be aiming approximately the same level that the President was sitting in his elevated seat. Take your shot, hand the rifle to a confederate who breaks it down and walks to a nearby car locking it in the trunk, two other men helping you out of the drain, another man putting the lid back into place, all very feasible. Looking up to the overpass would anyone see me? No! It was a blind spot. The curvature of the overpass bends downward at this point. I can’t see anyone on the overpass from here which means no one on the overpass can see me. In addition, having Dallas police officers keeping citizens on the overpass proper no one would have seen shots fired from this location. This is how they did it.
The crowds are starting to gather below in the Plaza. Television crews interviewing people. I cross the street to the park opposite the grassy knoll as various people are being interviewed and giving their take on the murder. I noticed a woman standing alone. Suddenly everyone noticed her at once and started whispering, “That’s Jean Hill.” She is standing in the spot she stood so many years ago and is wearing a red coat. I wonder if it’s the coat she was wearing that day. The camera crew interviewed her briefly and afterward I had my chance. I told her I read her Warren Commission testimony but could she clarify for me where she saw Jack Ruby running after the shots. She pointed to a ridge line atop the grassy knoll and elaborated on the sighting. I told her Tom Tilson, a Dallas police officer, also saw Jack running backing her story and he testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. She said she was glad somebody backed her up because nobody did at the time. She asked me who the two men were standing together about fifteen feet away. I told her, “That’s Josiah Thompson, the author of ‘Six Seconds in Dallas’ and Gaeton Fonzi of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.” She said she would like to meet them. I approached the gentlemen and said, “Jean Hill would like to meet you.” The smug expression on their faces turned to that of children seeing Santa Claus and they quickly followed me over. I made the introductions and the three of them started joking and conversing like old friends. Amazing.
12.30 p.m. was approaching and I crossed over to the grassy knoll area to participate in the moment of silence that is a tradition. The time came and all fell silent. A powerful silence of patriots remembering and regretting this great act of treason. A man began speaking into a microphone. Mark Lane, author, lawyer and assassination researcher began his words. His book, “Rush to Judgment,” sent me on my quest for truth and justice. While my clothes washed at a laundromat in Santa Monica, California, I sat in my car and opened a used copy of his classic book. I didn’t leave the car and laundromat until I finished the entire book. I was hooked. Mark Lane spoke of heroes, not just JFK but ordinary citizens like Lee Bowers murdered by CIA for speaking the truth. Eloquently, he called the citizens to take back their country.
Now reading high school history text books, because of political correctness and multiculturalism, the JFK assassination is relegated to two paragraphs. I know different. I know the truth. Today CIA and the economic elite are imbedded with the military and financial institutions even more than when they took the life of a President. Who will cry for us when the American dream is over? I’m not giving up. They have to get me the same way they got Kennedy. I’m waiting.