Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain a child. Cicero. This was a quote by speaker David Denton at the JFK Assassination Conference this weekend. He said agents were removed from the security detail before the motorcade. “Maybe they had to go to lunch?”
A presentation was made by Paul Bleau who reviewed 16
textbooks and did email exchanges with authors. He said they skew Lee Harvey
Oswald as the lone assassin. The only investigation referred to in any of them
was the Warren Commission. One teacher did a lesson with a
mock scene with 11 teams acting out various scenarios.
On Nov. 22, 1963, Ed Hoffman stood on the shoulder of the
Stemmons Expressway in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated. The deaf witness
claimed he saw a man with a rifle moments after the shots were fired. He later
described how a man wearing a dark suit and tie, with an overcoat, ran west
along the wooden fence with a rifle and tossed it to a second man who was
dressed like a railroad worker. The second man then disassembled the rifle and
put it in a soft brown bag. Hoffman immediately tried to alert the Secret
Service agents about what he had seen. However, unable to understand what he
was trying to say, he was threatened with a machine gun (believed to have been
George Hickey). He then attempted to tell his story to a Dallas policeman
(believed to be Earle Brown). Unable to understand him, Brown waved him away.
Hoffman then visited the local Federal Bureau of Investigation office. No officers
were there and so he left written details with the receptionist. (The FBI never
responded to this note.) Hoffman told his father, Frederick Hoffman, about what
he saw. His father, concerned that his son could be in danger, urged him not to
tell anyone about what he had seen. Hoffman did tell his story to his uncle,
Robert Hoffman, a Dallas police officer. However, the police officer decided
not to take the story to the Dallas Police Department. In June 1967, Hoffman
took his story to the FBI. When agents
checked out his story they discovered his father did not want it
investigated. Hoffman did keep quiet
until 1975 when he wrote to Edward Kennedy about his story. Kennedy replied:
"My family has been aware of various theories concerning the death of President
Kennedy, just as it has been aware of many speculative accounts which have
arisen from the death of Robert Kennedy. I am sure that it is understood that
the continual speculation is painful for members of my family. We have always
accepted the findings of the Warren Commission report and have no reason to
question the quality and the effort of those who investigated the fatal
shooting of Robert Kennedy." On March 25, 1977, Hoffman contacted the FBI
again. This time Hoffman took with him Richard H. Freeman, one of the
supervisors at Texas Instruments where he worked. Freeman understood sign
language and was able to help explain in more detail what Hoffman saw. Again
the FBI showed little interest in pursuing the story.
S. M. (Skinny) Sam Holland on Nov. 22, watched the motorcade
from the overpass in Dealey Plaza. He said that when Kennedy was shot he saw a
puff of gunsmoke under the branches of a tree on the grassy knoll. Holland
later gave evidence to the Warren Commission, who reported: "According to
S. M. Holland, there were four shots which sounded as though they came from the
trees on the north side of Elm Street where he saw a puff of smoke.
Motorcycle cop Bobby Hargis was riding to Kennedy's left and
behind him, was struck by brain matter/skull when the President's head
exploded. That must mean that the shot came from in front of Kennedy and to his
right. This claim goes back to Josiah Thompson's book “Six Seconds in
Dallas.” This debris [from the
President's head] hit Hargis with such force that he told reporters the next
day, "I thought at first I might have been hit." It seemed like the
motion of the President's head or his body and the splatter had hit me, it
seemed like both the locations needed investigating, and that's why I investigated
them. But you couldn't tell, there was -- it looked like a million windows on
the Book Depository. You couldn't tell exactly if there was anyone in there
with a gun.
Given Hargis' position to Kennedy's left and behind him, he
should have been able to see the back of Kennedy's head blow out, if that
indeed had happened. Yet he explicitly says that he saw a "splash come out
on the other side." He, in other words, is describing a wound to the right
side of Kennedy's head. So it's deeply ironic that conspiracy authors have used
him as a "back of the head" witness. Hargis remained consistent in
his story. He was on the force only a week when he was given the assignment to
flank JFK's limo -- left side, ten feet behind. A few minutes later, while at
the TSBD, a co-worker leaned forward and flicked something off Hargis' upper
lip.
On Nov. 22, Abraham Zapruder filmed the motorcade. Zapuder's
film was sold to Life Magazine. In charge of the purchase was C. D. Jackson, a
close friend of Henry Luce, the owner of the magazine. According to Carl
Bernstein, Jackson was "Henry Luce's personal emissary to the CIA."
On the 29th Life Magazine, published a series of 31 photographs documenting the
entire shooting sequence from the Zapruder film. It was only later discovered
that the critical frames that depicted the rearward motion of Kennedy's head
had been printed to indicate a forward motion. James Wagenvoord, the editorial
business manager and assistant to Life Magazines executive editor, realized
that a mistake had been made: "I asked about it when the stills were first
printed, (they didn't read right) and then duped for distribution to the
European and British papers/magazines. The only response I go was an icy stare
from Dick Pollard, Life's director of photography. So being an ambitious
employee, I had them distributed." In its Dec. 6 edition, Paul Mandel
wrote an article about the assassination in Life Magazine. "The doctor
said one bullet passed from back to front on the right side of the President’s
head. But the other, the doctor reported, entered the President’s throat from
the front and then lodged in his body. Since by this time the limousine was 50
yards past Oswald and the President’s back was turned almost directly to the
sniper, it has been hard to understand how the bullet could enter the front of
his throat. Hence the recurring guess that there was a second sniper somewhere
else.”
The Texas State Archives once displayed the bullet-riddled
clothes worn by Gov. John Connally on the day he was wounded. The white cotton shirt,
with faded bloodstains clearly visible, and a black business suit were the
centerpiece of a display. “There are bullet holes both in the back and the
front of the suit jacket. There is one bullet hole in the wearer’s right cuff,
and there is another in the left leg, on the front. Connally donated the shirt,
suit and the striped tie he was wearing to the state archives while he was
still hospitalized.
As was said, you don’t put all your marbles in one guy. As
in if it was Oswald. But it wasn’t!
Tidbit: Marina Oswald’s mail was watched for seven years.
