Warbirds and Airshows- Historic Site Book Depository 2009

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Historic Sites
School Book Depository, Dallas, TX - March 14, 2009
There is a museum in this building which tells or tries to tell what actually happened on November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was shot out in front of this building. I say try because the displays in my mind left more questions than answers from the information provided. Conspiracy theories have run rampant since that fateful day and the Warren Commission Report did not seem to provide all of the answers. The Kennedy Family has found fault with report and their conspiracy theory has the Mafia being the originators of the hit. But it could have been White protestants, southern segregationists, right or left wing militants, Big Business, Big Labor, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. While I have not yet read the Report there are some things that just do not add up from what I learned at the museum and realized walking around the site.

Right here the motorcade turned north on to North Houston from westbound Main Street before turning left onto Elm Street. So this how it looked to President Kennedy as he came around the corner. Actually the motorcade was not supposed to turn here but continue on to the west on Main Street making it more difficult for Lee Harvey Oswald (Assuming he was the only shooter.) which to track and hit his target. Maybe. With the motorcade heading west on Main he could have opened fire earlier because by making the turn here he had should have ("Should have" are operative words here.) had Secret Service people looking right at him so he would have had to have kept a low profile and wait.

This was taken from corner across the street and where the motorcade would have turned left and back westbound. On the sixth floor in corner on the east end a window is half way open. By taking this route the target is brought right in front of the shooter and then due to the fact that it does not parallel the building but moves away at an angle gave the shooter on the sixth floor a shot(s) from behind. Also the museum mentions that originally there was to be a car filled with police behind the President's car and the Secret Service car. These policemen would provide extra security and would be armed with high powered rifles and submachine guns similar to what was done at the Kennedy Houston visit earlier in the day. But someone decided not to do that in Dallas which I assume or maybe read was the Secret Service. The car with the armed policeman best I can tell would be in the turn right in front of the open 6th story window and could have quickly brought the shooter under fire. But they were called off I believe by the Secret Service. Seeing how Oswald if he was the shooter missed his first shot he would not have gotten off the second two as he would have been under fire.

This photo was taken along Elm Street where the street is marked indicating where President Kennedy was hit. We may or may not need to discount the trees in that they may have restricted the shooter from firing sooner which all depends on how tall they were in 1963. There has much been written on Lee Harvey Oswald's prowess or maybe lack of prowess as a US Marine rifleman. But having also been trained by the military and done my share of target shooting at various times since I have a hard time believing that Oswald could hit two moving targets out of three shots with a bolt action rifle where he had to eject the empty cartridge, re-acquire the target (The Oswald rifle had a scope on it which would have hindered re-acquiring the target due to its limited field of vision.), set up the sight picture and then squeeze the trigger. Only in the movies or TV is this going to happen and borders on the fanciful or absurd. According to the Warren Report Oswald squeezed off 3 shots in 6 seconds. He missed with the first which would have been his best opportunity as he was not having to go through all of the steps I mentioned above in chambering in another round, etc.

This brings us back to the Secret Service. The first shot supposedly made by Oswald was a miss and hit the pavement by the President's car. The museum in one of its displays mentions the fact that when the President's Secret Service driver hears gunshots or a round whizzing by the vehicle that he to accelerate out of the danger area and get the "hell out of Dodge". But the museum notes that he did not, which just brings forth a whole series of questions. First off, when a bullet goes flying by your head it makes a distinctive zipping sound and gets your attention along with the retort of the rifle itself. So something is not right here. What happened to the driver later? What was his excuse for not doing his job? Was he demoted? Fired? Reprimanded? Or maybe later after everything died down promoted? The museum does not say.

Something was rotten in Denmark in Hamlet's day and also again in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Where was I when John Kennedy was killed? Walter French Junior High School in ninth grade in Lansing, MI. We sat in Miss Hemmer's first semester biology class and listened to it on her little transistor radio. I still remember the radio commentator announcing President Kennedy's death and could walk back into that classroom today and show you where I was sitting at the time. (The building is still there but no longer used as a school.)

The only other person that I can remember that was in the classroom besides Miss Hemmer was Pam Dail.