Tag Archives: JFK

1963, Assassination, History, Jack ruby, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Oswald

Questions Still Linger On…

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As the research into the Kennedy assassination continues into its 26th year for me, it is still easy to find things that are hard to understand. Like most of the assassination, there are things still left to be answered and yet many levels of the government and police agencies have refused to answer. I was recently looking through the Dallas Police files of the assassination and found the statement given by Victoria Adams. In her statement that she gave to Dallas Police detective  James Leavelle, she states that she remembers seeing Jack Ruby outside of the Texas School Book Depository. The statement does not start off as bold as the ending as she mentions that she was with three other employees who were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the presidential motorcade. One of the women that was with her at the time was Elsie Dorman. This is the same Elise Dorman that filmed the motorcade as is came up Houston and turned onto Elm street. The Dorman film would not be seen by the public for more than 40 years. After she hears the first shot, she thinks it is nothing more than a firecracker. Then after the second shot, she see the secret service agent run towards the limousine and she knows something is wrong. As she is running towards the elevator she hears the third and final shot.

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By the time the third shot goes off, they had reached the elevator which is not working. They then use the stairway to get down to the bottom floors. This would be the same set of stairs that the Warren Commission claims that Oswald is using at this exact time to get down to the lunch room where he is found by Officer Baker. The problem is that Vickie Adams and her friends do not hear anyone else on the stairs with them. Once they reached the front of the building they encounter the chaos that has become of Dealey Plaza. She then heads towards the railroad tracks where she is met by a police officer who tells her to go back to where she came from. As she is walking back to the building she notices two men in plain clothes stopping people and asking them questions. One of these men is waving down people and trying to get information from them. One of the men that was asking questions she recognizes on the television a few days later. His name was Jack Ruby. Why would Ruby be at the scene of the crime? Could he have been there to make sure that the job was done and that everyone needed to think that the shots came from the building and not the grassy knoll? This question was not followed up by neither the Dallas Police or the F.B.I and they did not include the testimony of Vickie Adams in there final report. The relationship between Oswald and Ruby seems to be a working relationship and that they both had the job, but they were working on opposite ends of it. It seems the people that Ruby is working for wants everyone to think the shots came from above, and from the window that Oswald was supposed to be at. There are lots of twists and turns in the Kennedy Assassination, and it is hard to think that it could have all been done by one man. These kind of witness statements are the keys to the truth in this investigation.

Sources:

Leavelle, J. R.. [Report concerning interview with Vickie Adams, by J. R. Leavelle], Legal Document, n.d.; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340453/ : accessed November 30, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives , Dallas, Texas.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK, Oswald

Missing Links…

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According to the Warren Commission there is only one thing people need to believe from the Warren Report. That is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the death of the president. I will give a pause for the laughter in that statement. It is mentioned several times throughout the report and it seems like they were trying to convince themselves of it. So why would they want us to believe that a lone nut was able to pull off the crime of the century. For starters they do not want to implicate themselves in the cover up, and the fact that Oswald had indeed worked for the C.I.A. at some point. Lee Harvey Oswald had left the United States on several occasions and had ties to many different types of organizations that would want this President of the United States silenced. The perfect candidate for the architects of this plot fell right into there hands, because of the many actions leading up to the assassination. President Kennedy had created many enemies in his short presidency and these individuals had the motive to want to take out the president. I do believe that Oswald was able to make a couple of shots at the President but he did not make the final kill shot that ended the Presidents life.

In that last statement I just made, it would seem that I would believe what the Warren Commission is trying to put out there. However, Oswald was able to get a gun up to that sixth floor and make the attempt on the President’s life but he missed and he knew it. Just like in the case of General Walker where he took that one shot and missed, he thought that two shots this time would do the trick. At the Sports Dome rifle range outside of Irving, Oswald is seen practicing with his rifle by several witnesses. One of these witnesses is a 12 year old boy who notices that as the man is shooting his gun, he is catching the shell casings at the same time. The boy counts the 1st shot, catch, 2nd shot, catch, 3rd shot, catch. A strange thing for someone to be doing and at the rate he was firing the weapon. The catching of the shells is a key part of this statement because 3 shells were found by the sixth floor window after the assassination. So after all of this practice ( Oswald is seen at the range several times) why would there be shell casings laying on the floor? A setup? Who would put the shells there? Someone other than Oswald put the casings there, because in Oswald’s mind he missed the shot, and he had the casings in his pocket. The police missed this or they choose not to look further into the statements of the witnesses at the rifle range.

By the time Oswald is found in the lunchroom by Officer Baker and Roy Truly he is not out of breath because he left the window at the sixth floor in plenty of time. He is startled at the fact that he is found by the policeman so fast and he hurried to his rooming house to retrieve his gun. It would seem that the plan that was made up for the assassination attempt has gone wrong at some point in Oswald’s mind. The part that Oswald was supposed to play in it seems to be out of control and something is wrong. His actions after the assassination seem to dictate this, and he was prepared to go down with a fight. The quote ” its all over now” was something he said while getting arrested at the Texas Theatre, but we know even 50 years after the assassination, that it is clearly not over.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

Innocence Lost..

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JFK

I come from a generation that was not able to see or hear John F. Kennedy in real life. We only have seen him through the television and in black and white. Just think if we had the chance to see this man or even hear him speak in person. The world we live in now does not let us get close to a President like it was in those days and we will never have a chance unless we donate a significant amount of money to the campaign of that candidate.

Back then this man was real and he wanted the people to be able to see him, let alone hear his voice. Although at the time of his death, his approval rating was not the greatest, it is widely believed that he would have been elected to a second term because he connected to so many people. He was young, smart and had the looks of a movie star. We have looked for a President like him ever since, and every Democratic Presidential candidate since has had to embrace the Kennedy legacy and know that this is what we are looking for. Someone that had vision into the future and had the best interest of the country at all times.

A day like November 22nd, 1963 is one of those days that impacted everyone, much like Pearl Harbor to the generation before and 9/11 to my generation. The world stopped on this day 50 years ago and it seems that we have never been able to move on ever since. The mistrust in government which started on this day has only gotten worse over the years. We still know that there is more to the assassination then what the government has put in the Warren Report and we have not forgiven them for not giving us the answers.

All it takes is to look at the pictures of the motorcade in Dallas to know that this President was loved and admired by many people. Even in a state like Texas which the President’s advisors thought would be difficult,had in fact turned out much larger crowds than expected. Images of people smiling and waving at the president show their excitement. We haven’t had that trust and excitement of a President looking towards the future since, and it is something we all want. Let’s us all teach our children to remember days like November 22nd, 1963, December 7th, 1941 and September 11th, 2001 not just on the big anniversary’s that occur every 5 or 10 years but every year that these days come by. Let us tell them how it impacted the history of this country. It is up to us to keep the memory alive of these events. We will never know what the world would be like if Kennedy lived, but we know that it would have been a better place had he did.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

Looking For Answers

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Dallas 2013 054

So this past weekend I was able to finally make it to Dallas, Texas. As I was walking around Dealey Plaza it was incredible to realize just how close everyone was to the assassination. When looking at pictures it is hard to visualize it, but when you are there you are taken back in time. The plaza looks just as it did 50 years ago, except that some of the trees have gotten larger. I was able to walk around and inspect the area to see the different angles that the spectators were able to see that day.

I did what any typical tourist would do, I walked the grassy knoll, went behind the picket fence and stood on top of the triple underpass. All of these could have been good vantage points for any potential assassin, but the probability that it happened in one of these locations with the people in the area are unlikely. The main spot that I wanted to visit was the snipers nest on the sixth floor. Going into the building makes you think about the aftermath of the shooting and the route Oswald took inside of the building. Although the building has been modernized, there are still elements of what it looked like in 1963.

Dallas 2013 068

Some of the things that were interesting when I was on the sixth floor, was the fact that I could hear the footsteps of the people in the floor above me. The wood floors make it easy to hear what is going on, and it just so happened that people were moving things around on the seventh floor. This is interesting because on Nov. 22 1963 three workers were on the 5th floor of the depository eating there lunch. They claim to have heard things being moved and the shell casings from the gun hitting the floor. The testimony of Bonnie Ray Williams states that he heard the shots come from the building and that he ran to the other side of the floor thinking they came from there. By being in the building and hearing the things above makes it certain that they could have heard these things. The problem is that there was two other men with Bonnie Ray and the number of shots that they heard differ.

The trip to Dallas was something I will never forget, and I know that I will be back at some point. Going into the museum and doing research inside of the Reading Room, makes me want to go back even more. There are so many unanswered questions regarding the death of the President and Dallas is the main source of the many of the answers.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

“Curtain Rods” pt. 2

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As we look more into just who Buell Wesley Frazier was and his involvement in the assassination, it is important to look at some of the facts. These facts include the many different statements that Mr. Frazier has made throughout the years. The story he gave Dallas police on the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963 says that Lee Oswald was waiting outside of Mr. Frazier’s house. In a more recent interview he claims that he went and picked Oswald up from the boarding house Oswald was staying in.

Over the years stories change, and this is natural based on not just our fading memory but also what others have lead us to believe what happened. In a April 2013 with Mr. Frazier claims that the Warren Commission kept trying to get him to change his story. But after 49 years since the Warren Commission issued their conclusion, it seems that Mr. Frazier is still changing his story. What we can’t figure out is the whereabouts of Mr. Frazier during the time before and during the assassination. We do know from his statements that he was on the front steps of the depository and that he went back and ate his lunch right after the shots were fired. He may have been the only one that wanted to eat a lunch after seeing the President get his head blown off.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

“Curtain Rods”

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This week I begin my quest into what I believe is something that has been getting overlooked for many years. Just who is Buell Wesley Frazier? To many researchers he is the man who brought Lee Harvey Oswald to work the day of the assassination, and claimed that Oswald had brought curtain rods to work that day. This story of the curtain rods fueled the Warren Commissions theory of just how the rifle was brought into the Texas School Book Depository. But what we don’t know is the relationship between Oswald and Frazier. It was not until recent that Mr. Frazier has appeared and speaking about that day, but his story has changed somewhat. We have seen his story featured in movies like “JFK” and most recent “The Kennedy’s, but yet the story between him and Oswald is something that has not been answered. This week and in the coming weeks I am going to divulge into what I think happened and find out who actually brought the curtain rods into the depository.