Reclaiming History (201 page)

So in addition to there not being one speck of evidence to support the patsy theory, it doesn’t even make sense. Further, as discussed earlier, it appears from the context of Oswald’s declaration that he wasn’t even suggesting he was a fall guy for the true conspirators behind the assassination.

It should be noted that if Oswald weren’t a knowing or even unwitting member of an alleged group that conspired to murder Kennedy, but simply, as some conspiracy theorists claim, someone they chose to frame for the murder, then the frame-up or patsy argument becomes even more far-fetched, if that’s possible. How would the framers possibly know where Oswald was going to be at the time of the shooting? And therefore, and again, how would the framers know that Oswald wouldn’t be somewhere at the time of the assassination where witnesses could vouch for his innocence? For instance, he may have called in sick that day, and not even be at the Book Depository Building, or he may have been out on Elm Street watching the motorcade. When you frame someone, it’s always done in a manner where the framers know, in advance, that the party being framed will be unable to prove his innocence or have a very difficult time doing so. Here, the framers would have every reason to believe that Oswald, even if he were at work,
would
be out on the street with other Book Depository employees, who would be witnesses to his innocence. Nearly all Book Depository employees
were
outside the building watching the motorcade, and the framers, who would have to play the percentages, would have to anticipate that Oswald would be too. So this scenario of framing Oswald makes no sense either.

The bottom line is that evidence of Oswald’s innocence in the Kennedy assassination is about as rare as hundred-dollar bills on the floor of a flophouse.

No term has been associated with the assassination of President Kennedy as much as
grassy knoll
, which refers to a patch of sloped lawn on the north side of Elm Street leading up to a wooden picket fence
*
on top of the knoll, with a concrete retaining wall and pergola to the fence’s northeast.

The origin of the term
grassy knoll
as applied in the Kennedy assassination to this patch of land has not been conclusively determined. Among assassinologists, it is not even certain what area of the sloping lawn constitutes the knoll. Gary Mack, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum, says that the grassy knoll is “considered to be from Zapruder’s pedestal [on the concrete wall] west,” thereby excluding most of the pergola area, an area that many researchers believe is a part of the grassy knoll. Mack’s position is fortified by the fact that the gradual slope of the lawn starts to become more of a hill or knoll from the Zapruder platform west.

As the reader can see from the map in the photo section of this book, the grassy knoll was located to the president’s right front at the time he was hit by the two bullets. The knoll’s fame is understandable. Since the majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy in the assassination, and the conspiracy theorists have controlled and dominated the dialogue in the debate for well over four decades, the theorists’ belief that the deadly shots emanated from the grassy knoll has been burned into the consciousness of nearly all Americans. The term has become so much a part of the American lexicon and culture that it is routinely used metaphorically (e.g., “He has a grassy knoll mentality,” referring to a highly suspicious person who believes there’s a conspiracy behind every major tragedy) and as an element of humor (e.g., “Everyone and their grandmother was on the grassy knoll that day” and “I saw Nixon that day. He was on the grassy knoll talking to G. Gordon Liddy”). For years, a Manchester, Vermont, conspiracy theorist even published the
Grassy Knoll Gazette
. There’s no question that the grassy knoll, which the evidence shows was not the source of any of the shots, is far better known than the Texas School Book Depository Building, which was.

Just as the validity of Christianity rises or falls on the Resurrection (i.e., if Christ did not rise up from his grave, then he was not divine and the son of God, and Christianity no longer has the very foundation for its existence), the validity of conspiracy theories rises and falls on the grassy knoll. Since virtually all conspiracy theorists believe that either all the shots came from the grassy knoll or, even if Oswald did shoot at the president from the Texas School Book Depository Building, at least one or more shots were also fired from the knoll, if it can be demonstrated that no shots came from that area, the very heart of conspiracy allegations and lore ceases to beat.

Before presenting the various reasons why it couldn’t be clearer that no shots were fired from the grassy knoll, I want to discuss four points, all of which deal with the origin of fire in Dealey Plaza. The first one is the contention of many conspiracy theorists that shots were fired from
both
the front (grassy knoll) and the rear (Book Depository Building and/or Dal-Tex Building) in a so-called triangulation of fire. I believe it to be a verity that the various groups the conspiracy theorists have alleged were behind the assassination would never in a thousand years have risked murdering the president of the United States. Obviously, the conspiracy theorists do not agree with me on this point. But there is another verity even all of these theorists would have to agree with me on—namely, that if one of these groups did attempt to murder the president, they certainly would not want to advertise the existence of a conspiracy, thereby increasing the risk immeasurably that law enforcement would eventually find them and they would know they’d be facing almost certain death by legal execution.

And because the alleged conspirators obviously didn’t want anyone to know there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s murder, they would never have gunmen of theirs firing from different directions, since they would have to know that witnesses and evidence would establish two separate gunmen and, hence, a conspiracy. Having more than one gunman would itself be a highly risky venture since the more gunmen (many conspiracy theorists believe there were multiple assassins firing at the president), the greater the likelihood that one would be apprehended and eventually point the finger at whoever was behind his act. But if the alleged conspirators did decide to employ more than one gunman, they’d obviously have them firing from the same direction (e.g., if from the rear, from the Book Depository Building and/or the Dal-Tex Building), not from nearly opposite directions, which would conclusively betray and disclose the existence of a conspiracy. Indeed, to conceal the existence of a conspiracy, conspirators would have their multiple gunmen firing not only from the same direction, but also from the very same kind of weapon using the same type of bullets. Yet conspiracy theorists throughout the years have had their imagined gunmen firing at the president from all manner of weapons(e.g., New Orleans DA Jim Garrison: the Carcano and a .45 caliber revolver used by an assassin emerging from a manhole on Elm Street) and bullets (e.g., Dr. Cyril Wecht: the Carcano’s Western Cartridge bullets, as well as frangible bullets).

The second point is the confusion among Dealey Plaza witnesses as to the origin of the shots on the day of the assassination as demonstrated by their testimony, statements, and affidavits.
*
In a 1967 study of the witnesses, Warren Commission critic Josiah Thompson found that out of 64 who gave an opinion to the authorities around the time of the assassination, 33 said the shots came from the grassy knoll, 25 from the Texas School Book Depository Building, 2 from the east side of Houston Street, and 4 from two directions.
¹
In a 1978 study by the HSCA, of 178 witness statements, 46 witnesses said the shots came from the Texas School Book Depository Building, 21 from the grassy knoll, 29 from “other” directions, and 78 were unable to tell.
²
The London Weekend Television staff, in 1986, examined the testimony and statements of 88 witnesses who expressed an opinion as to the origin of fire. Forty thought the shots came from the area of the grassy knoll, 41 from the Texas School Book Depository, and 7 from other directions. Anti-conspiracy author Jim Moore found that “eyewitnesses standing nearer the Book Depository
generally
thought that the shots came from within or close to the building, while those standing nearer the knoll or the underpass were convinced that the shots had been fired near their position.”
³

There are several reasons for the disagreement between witnesses as to the origin of fire, among which are the hysteria and mass confusion that reigned in the plaza among virtually everyone at the time of the shots. Even under ideal conditions, witnesses can be expected to give conflicting accounts of a sudden event taking place before them. But in the circumstances existing in Dealey Plaza, it’s remarkable that there was any coherence at all as to what they thought they saw and heard. “There was a lot of confusion and everyone was running around,” presidential motorcade spectator Mary Elizabeth Woodward said.
⁴

Moreover, Dealey Plaza resounds with echoes, the multistory buildings on the north, south, and east sides making it a virtual echo chamber. Dr. David Green, then chairman of the National Research Council Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics and Biomechanics, was present in Dealey Plaza in August of 1978 when the HSCA conducted its acoustic tests by firing shots in the plaza, and reported that “there are strong reverberations and echoes present in the plaza.”
⁵
Many witnesses, in their testimony before the Warren Commission, spoke about the echoes. A few examples: When Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was asked, “Where did the noises or shots sound to you like they came from?” he answered, “It was hard to tell because—uh—they had an echo, you know…There was the—uh—the shot and then the echo from it. So, it was hard to tell.”
⁶
Lee Bowers, who worked in the railroad yards next to Dealey Plaza, testified it was difficult to tell where the source of any loud sound was coming from “because there is a reverberation that takes place” in the plaza.
⁷
Dallas police officer Joe E. Murphy, who was on the Stemmons Freeway overpass, said that as he heard the shots, “there were so many echoes.”
⁸

Remarkably, the HSCA, when visiting Dealey Plaza, found twenty-two structures “that would have produced echoes,”
⁹
and gave an example of the confusion they caused. “One hears,” the committee wrote, “a very strong reflection [echo] from the Post Office Annex that arrives about 1 sec[ond] after the shot, regardless of whether the rifle is fired from the TSBD [Texas School Book Depository] or the [grassy] knoll. Because of the long delay, a listener located on the knoll would recognize this as an echo but might place the source somewhere in back of him, anywhere from the TSBD to the railway overpass. From near the TSBD, a listener would hear a strong echo from the general vicinity of the railway overpass.”
¹⁰

Abraham Zapruder testified before the Warren Commission that he “assumed” the shots had come “from back of me” because he saw police running to the area after the shots. But when he was specifically asked, “Did you form any opinion about the direction from which the shots came by the sound?” he responded, “No, there was too much reverberation. There was an echo which gave me a sound all over. In other words that square is kind of—it had a sound all over.”
¹¹

Gary Mack, who leans toward the conspiracy theory, told me that when the HSCA acoustics people came to Dealey Plaza in August of 1978 and fired, he recalls, around fifty to sixty shots from the sixth-floor window at the Book Depository Building and from the grassy knoll, he first went to the top of the Dal-Tex Building. “From up there, there weren’t as many echoes, and I had a better sense of where the shots were coming from. But when I moved down to the street level, even though I knew where the shots were coming from, I, on my own, was confused. You could hear the shots bouncing around off the buildings and monument structures in the plaza, and I can understand from the echoes why people were confused or uncertain about where the shots were coming from. And when you add all the additional sounds that were present on November 22, 1963—all the people in Dealey Plaza, all the cars and motorcycles, and the immediate chaos following the shooting—it’s understandable why no one knew for sure where the shots were fired from.”
¹²

Even in the absence of echoes, as firearms experts Major General Julian Hatcher (former director of the technical staff of the National Rifle Association) and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Jury (former chief of the Firearms Identification Laboratory of the New Jersey State Police) point out in their authoritative textbook
Firearms Investigation, Identification, and Evidence
, “It is extremely difficult to tell the direction [from which a shot was fired] by the sound of discharge of a firearm.”
*
The authors go on to say that “little credence…should be put in what anyone says about a shot or even the number of shots. These things coming upon him suddenly are generally extremely inaccurately recorded in his memory.”
¹³

The third point I want to discuss deals with the number of shots fired in Dealey Plaza. There is concrete, physical evidence (the three empty cartridge cases on the floor of the sniper’s nest) that three shots were fired from the Book Depository Building. Was a fourth shot (believed by conspiracy theorists to have been fired from the grassy knoll) fired in Dealey Plaza? In the summary of witness observations by author Josiah Thompson referred to earlier, Thompson looked at the statements of 172 witnesses and found that 136 (79 percent) thought they heard three shots and only 6 (3.5 percent) heard four shots.
¹⁴
*
According to the HSCA study of 178 eyewitness statements, 132 witnesses (74.2 percent) heard three shots and, again, only 6 (3.3 percent) heard four shots.
¹⁵
†
London Weekend Television examined the statements of 189 witnesses and, in a report to defense attorney Gerry Spence and me, said that 144 (76 percent) heard three shots and only 8(4.2 percent) heard four shots.
¹⁶

If, indeed, a fourth shot was fired that day, why did only 6 witnesses hear four shots according to two studies and only 8 witnesses according to another, whereas the vast majority of witnesses (136 in one study, 132 in another, and 144 in a third) heard only three shots? With ratios like 136, 132, and 144 to 6, 6, and 8, respectively, if you had to wager your home on who is right, whose opinion would you endorse? Can there really be any question?

One complementary addendum to the above is that although echoes in Dealey Plaza may have confused many as to the origin of fire, if a second gunman was firing at the presidential limousine that day from the grassy knoll, why is it that only 4 of Thompson’s 172 witnesses, 4 of the HSCA’s 178, and 5 of London Weekend Television’s 189 thought they heard bullets being fired from
two
directions?
¹⁷
Even given all the confusion and reported echoes in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination, it would seem that a second shot fired from a completely different location would be distinctive enough to cause more than four or five witnesses to report hearing more than one origin of fire.
¹⁸
I mean, if Oswald was firing from the Book Depository Building and the conspiracy theorists’ assassin was firing from the grassy knoll, how can it be that 168 of Thompson’s witnesses, 174 of the HSCA’s, and 184 of London Weekend Television’s heard bullets coming only from
one
direction? Again, if you had to wager your home, whom would you believe, the 168, 174, and 184, or the strikingly low 4, 4, and 5? The above direct evidence by way of the witnesses’ sense of hearing (as difficult as it was with the echoes) is very powerful support for the proposition that only three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, all from one location, the Book Depository Building.