Remembering JFK in Dallas by Various Travel Authors on Creators.com

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Remembering JFK in Dallas

By Tom and Joanne O'Toole

We may never really know who shot President John Kennedy. Was it Lee Harvey Oswald? Did he have an accomplice? Was he set up to take the fall? Was Jack Ruby involved? Or was there some unknown sharpshooter on that grassy knoll?

In an effort to learn all we could, we took a tour in Dallas that was aptly named "The JFK Conspiracy Tour."

One thing we discovered is that Dealey Plaza in the city's West End Historic District is much smaller than people imagine. All of the sites connected with Kennedy's assassination are closer together than we expected.

Traumatized Americans who followed live television coverage back on Nov. 22, 1963, and those who later saw film clips envisioned hundreds of people flooding the three-acre park, spilling out into the roadway and being everywhere in front of and around the grassy knoll. In reality, there were fewer than 50 people standing in the compact pocket now referred to as "the killing zone" on that fateful day.

People who are old enough to remember the event have vivid recollections of where they were when they first heard the news. Visitors from that era are keen to be at the crime scene and look at the evidence. Younger visitors and those from other countries come to fit this pivotal event into today's changing world.

While no one is able to solve the mystery, there is a lot of information available, and perceptions often change after spending time in the outdoor area and touring the Sixth Floor Museum at the Texas School Book Depository. The city shunned the murder site for many years, and the building from which Oswald supposedly shot Kennedy was closed even longer. The Sixth Floor Museum didn't open until 1989.

All of the outdoor locations that played a part in the assassination are free and offer open access to visitors. Spots are marked in the middle of Elm Street, which slopes down and away from Oswald's alleged position, to show where Kennedy was in the motorcade when the bullets hit.

According to "accepted" evidence, the first shot hit the center of the roadway and ricocheted away. The second, farther down the road, hit Kennedy, and he can be seen reacting as his limousine emerges from behind a road sign in the Abraham Zapruder film. The third and fatal bullet struck JFK in the head and killed him.

Numerous home movies and many still photographs are on display, showing the presidential motorcade before, during and after the bullets were fired. In fact, 13 cameras in use at the time of the shooting are displayed with corresponding pictures at the museum.

But it is the Zapruder film that captured the assassination for posterity. You can even stand in the same spot from where Zapruder stood with his Bell & Howell movie camera, capturing every moment on color film that was then sold to Time magazine for $150,000.

The aptly named Sixth Floor Museum in the book depository building takes visitors to the site where Oswald allegedly hid, propped his mail-order rifle on cardboard boxes and fired three times in a matter of seconds.

There is an admission charge to go through the metal detectors and up the elevator to the sixth floor, which has become a repository for the collection of items connected with that day.

Once there, visitors (400,000 each year) find displays, recordings, film clips, press announcements, chronicles of the Kennedy family, the legacy of the Kennedy presidency and much more.

The displays are laid out in a sequential manner, using hundreds of photographs, documentary videos, media documentation of the first news of the assassination, audio broadcasts, original interviews, artifacts, graphs, charts and an array of interpretive materials. There are also areas that preserve evidence associated with Kennedy's alleged assassin. The corner where Oswald is said to have waited, aimed and fired his three bullets is glassed off.

In addition, the exhibits include the 1964 Warren Commission report, which maintains that Oswald acted alone, as well as a later one that puts forth a conspiracy theory. The museums creators leave it up to visitors to draw their own conclusions.

We visited on a Saturday, and the museum was packed. Yet the people who swarmed out of the elevators on the sixth floor were orderly and quiet. An air of respect was very much in evidence. Most visitors come away still mystified as to what actually happened. Back outside, vendors hawk books, magazines, photographs and other items that further confuse the issue.

Literature published by the museum says that nearly 80 percent of the American public believes Kennedy's death was the result of a conspiracy, but who really knows. Even after studying all the evidence the museum had to offer, we certainly don't.

IF YOU GO

Dealey Plaza and the building housing the Sixth Floor Museum were dedicated as a National Historic Landmark District on Nov. 22, 1993. Each year more than 2 million visitors come to the site. Two blocks from the plaza is a cenotaph memorial to Kennedy. The county donated the city block, and the memorial was a gift from the people of Dallas County.

The Texas School Book Depository that houses the Sixth Floor Museum is at the northwest corner of Elm and Houston streets. It is the second most visited site in Texas after the Alamo.

The museum and store are open every day except Christmas from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, students and children between the ages of 6 and 18. Children under 6 are free. Audio tours for the permanent exhibit are available in seven languages for an additional charge.

For more information, write the museum at 411 Elm St., Dallas, TX, 75202-3308; call 888-485-4854 or 214-747-6660; or visit www.jfk.org.

For more information about Dealey Plaza and other spots of interest in the city, contact the Dallas Visitors Bureau, 325 N. St. Paul St., Dallas, TX 75201; call 800-792-1029 or 214-571-1000; or visit www.visitdallas.com.

Tom and Joanne O'Toole are freelance travel writers. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.