(This portion of the central entrance is all that is left of the building in which we heard the news: Barnum Junior High School, in Grabbingham, Michigan.)
“I was in Dallas yesterday to manage a contract shut-down and spent the day in Dealey plaza. I will send you some videos and photos if that is ok with you.”
So wrote a pal, a retired FBI Special Agent and a good guy. We share a certain grim fascination with the central mystery of our time, the murder of a sitting President.
I will not go down the rabbit hole of who and why. That is the subject for others who have long ago moved from grim fascination to total commitment of life and treasure in an effort to prove one theory or another.
I am absolutely convinced the truth is out there some place- one of the stories with something deep and impossible planted within is probably the real deal, a legend spiked with a lie that actually is quite accurate. Holding some part of it up as “the truth” now will just get you in trouble, or labeled as a “conspiracy theorist,” which apparently is the new code word for irresponsible loon.
Mr. Cass Sunstein served as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs throughout most of Mr. Obama’s first term. He is the guy who re-coined the phrase in a 2008 academic paper. It was an interesting theory: he advocated government infiltration of conspiracy theorist groups by joining “chat rooms, online social networks and real space groups.”
(Mr. Cass Sunstein. Photo AP).
Our home-town Washington Post quoted the paper as saying “…those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law.”
I do not know what the truth might be, nor will I guess here. I certainly do not wish to get crosswise with Mr. Sunstein or other officials who might take umbrage with questions about the Warren Commission.
Here is what I think. A look at what is purported to be an accurate restoration of the event itself, the film taken by Mr. Abraham Zapruder, appears to show Mr. Kennedy hit twice in rapid succession, once from the rear and then by another blow from the right front.
Shots from two directions mean….well, you know.
I have no confidence in anything else. Nothing. And to a larger degree, I am not sure I have any confidence in any public utterance for the last fifty years. For those events in which I had an actual role, passive or speaking, I have some assurance that I actually understand what happened.
But beyond that? Nothing.
The world changed in last period of the school day. All the events had already occurred in Dallas. Whatever and whoever had done what they did was resolved. The motorcade has sped on to the hospital, the President was attended to as best the Parkland physicians could, and Mr. Johnson was already occupying the Presidential Cabin on Air Force One when the principal came up on the loudspeaker to announce that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas.
I was in Mr. Collins Industrial Arts Class. A kid named Sandy spoke up, blurting out the word: “Yes!”
Mr. Collins erupted in wrath at the outburst. He uncoiled his lanky six-foot-something frame and the hairs on his crew-cut head stuck out straight and military: “Son, the President of the United States has been shot. Do you not understand that?”
The class- all boys in those days- turned silent as the grave. If you could have told me that I would still be wondering about it as I approach old age, I would never have believed you.
If my pal’s images from Dealey Plaza reveal anything new, I am going to keep my mouth shut.
Fifty years ago tomorrow.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303