THAT DAY IN DALLAS

I knelt at the last window on the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository – just like Oswald – and I waited until a convertible passed into view – just like Oswald – and I extended my left arm and sighted down on the man in the car – just like Oswald – and I knew that, as a marksman with a rifle, I could hit the man in the car – just as Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I was a reporter that day, and I wrote stories about the assassination, the funeral, the killing of Oswald – and throughout the four days, my mind raced from contemplation of the great loss suffered by my generation, which was emboldened by Jack Kennedy, to consideration of the unthinkable – had there been a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

Salve for the wound created by the numbing loss of a man whose campaign I had helped chronicle came one morning after the funeral.  I went back to Arlington , before dawn, and sat there for a few hours, staring at the eternal flame which in those days was surrounded by a white picket fence, thinking of Kennedy and his influence on my generation.  I had written a highschool essay on his campaign against Henry Cabot Lodge, and I still have the letter Kennedy wrote to Harvard, endorsing my admission (I didn’t go.)  I have the photograph and story I wrote in 1958 on his visit to Marist College ; approaching the flat bed truck from which he would speak, he encountered a woman with a small baby girl in her arms; JFK picked up the girl and, impromptu, told his audience of his vision of the America he wanted for that child.  There would be more encounters with Kennedy as a reporter, and even more with Bobby after I first went South to cover the civil rights marches.  With all of that in mind, I wrote a full-page article which tried to encompass both the man and the President, perhaps the best story I ever wrote.  I treasure notes I received afterward from Rose Kennedy and Bobby.

Coming to closure with the conspiracy theory was equally challenging.  I must have read every pro and con piece in the major media, and talked endlessly to authors like Jay Epstein (Inquest).  I went back to Dallas and up to that 6^th floor perch.  Armed with the certain knowledge that history’s major assassins have been loners who gave nothing to the world and sought notoriety by taking from the world, I was convinced Oswald did not need help to set up the shooting, only the ability and access.  When I concluded, from the same position, and probably having as much but not greater skill with a rifle, that I could have made the shot, I knew that Oswald could and did.

Two years ago this same day, I returned to the Texas School Book Depository, thirty-six years after writing my last story, and spent the day reviewing the pictures and documents, and, finally, kneeling down again at that window sill and mentally reliving the crime.  I walked away convinced once again that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Ever hear the song about Jack and Martin and Bobby?  Ever think how different our world might be if those three had lived?  I was privileged to have lived through their times, to meet them, to hear their words, to analyze their message, and to appreciate, however flawed they may have been as mortals, their incredible ability to perceive and understand, their inspiring vision of America , their sheer ability to think.

We are truly a better people because they passed our way.   RFH

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