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.
The final point I want to discuss concerns the many Dealey Plaza spectators and members of Dallas law enforcement who ran to the grassy knoll area after the shooting. It is accepted wisdom in the conspiracy community that they did so because they all thought the fatal shot had “come from the top of the grassy knoll.”19 But while this may have been the reason why some ran there, it certainly wasn’t the reason why others, perhaps most, did. I say this because those who maintain people ran to the knoll because they thought the shot or shots came from there almost always add that the people did so to “pursue the assassin.”20 But if one stops to think about it, where else but the parking lot area behind the top of the knoll could people possibly run if they wanted to “pursue the assassin”? No one has ever claimed that any of the shots came from the south side of Elm Street, most likely because everyone knows that the south side of Elm is literally out in the open and wouldn’t provide the assassin any cover from detection. For the very same reason, no assassin would run to the south side of Elm, where there would be nothing to shield him from view. So that only leaves the north side of Elm (no one ran down Elm or up Elm in pursuit of any possible assassin). And on the north side of Elm, though many people ran toward the Book Depository Building, it wasn’t to “pursue the assassin,” but simply because they thought the shots came from the building. How would the spectators pursue the assassin inside the building? Moreover, any assassin in the building would have to leave it in order to escape. That only leaves one other possible area where a Dealey Plaza spectator might think, at least on the spur of the moment, an assassin would conceivably fire from—the grassy knoll and pergola area, with its walls and heavy foliage. And if a spectator made that assumption, he would know that the parking lot area behind the knoll and pergola would be the only area the escaping assassin could run through. Hence, the natural and intuitive place for many of the police and spectators to run toward to pursue or see a fleeing assassin would be the railroad yard area behind the knoll and pergola.
Is there any evidence, apart from logic, to support the above? Yes. Among others, Dallas deputy sheriff Luke Mooney said, “We…ran over into Dealey Plaza, crossed Elm, jumped over the wall of the embankment on what’s now called the grassy knoll and headed toward the railroad yards. At that time, it seemed to have been the most logical place to begin looking unless you had actually known from where the shots originated, which I didn’t.”21 Dallas police officer David V. Harkness said, “I…started searching behind the railroad yards, not because I thought shots had come from there, but because we were looking for…somebody running, trying to get away.”22 And Dallas U.S. postal inspector Harry D. Holmes, who was watching the motorcade with his binoculars from one of the windows in his office in the Terminal Annex Building at the southwest corner of Main and Houston streets, said that after the shooting, he kept using his binoculars “to see if anybody left the area, especially the parking area and the railroad tracks where a guy would likely try to escape.”23
One Dealey Plaza witness, Charles Brehm, goes a step further, believing there was no valid reason for people to run up the knoll. “They were running up to the top of that hill, it seemed to me, in almost sheep-like fashion following somebody running up those steps. There was a policeman who ran up those steps also. Apparently people thought that he was chasing something, which he certainly wasn’t. There were no shots from that area, but some of the people followed him anyway.”24 Another Dealey Plaza witness, Bill Newman, essentially supports Brehm’s conclusion. He says, “I don’t know why they were running up that way. Maybe the Secret Service men, or whoever, initiated it, but I just think it was more or less a crowd reaction. I doubt if the people saw or heard anything up there.”25
The above is not to suggest that there were very few witnesses who believed one or more shots came from the grassy knoll. Quite a few did. For instance, it couldn’t have taken Dallas police motorcyclist Clyde A. Haygood too much time after he heard the shots to get from where he was at Main and Houston to halfway down Elm Street, where the president was shot, yet when he got there, some people were already “pointing back up to the railroad yard,” which is where he searched.26 But if Mooney, Harkness, Holmes, Brehm, and Newman are correct, and knowing how our subconscious minds influence our conscious words and deeds, one wonders how many Dealey Plaza witnesses who testified or gave statements that they thought the shots came from the grassy knoll said this not because they thought so at the time of the shots, but because they clearly remember running up to that area after the shooting, and that reality, over time, convinced them they heard shots coming from there.
With respect to shots allegedly coming from the grassy knoll, where, specifically, on the knoll do the conspiracy theorists claim the triggerman was? The consensus among theorists, including the HSCA, is that he was st
anding behind the stockade fence at a point about eight feet to the west of the southeastern corner of the fence (see photo section).27 The HSCA determined the location through the mathematical computations of its acoustic experts. A celebrated Polaroid photo taken by Dealey Plaza spectator Mary Moorman at the time of the shot to the president’s head includes this spot as well as other locations in the knoll area that conspiracy theorists have claimed was the location of the second gunman. Many conspiracy theorists are convinced they see the human figures of assassins in several places amidst the heavy foliage on the knoll shown in the Moorman photo.28
The photographic evidence panel of the HSCA examined the Moorman photo and said, “It was not possible to determine the nature of the images [in the photo] with the naked eye…Enhancement attempts in the region of the retaining wall produced no significant increase in detail and no evidence of any human form. Because the stockade fence region of the photograph was of even poorer quality than the retaining wall area, no enhancement attempts were recommended.”29 The HSCA went on to say, somewhat sheepishly, that if the photo “did not contain images that might be construed to be a figure behind the fence, it would be a troubling lack of corroboration for the acoustical analysis” (subsequently discredited), which alleged a fourth bullet was fired from this general area of the grassy knoll.30
Reclaiming History Page 156
