President John F Kennedy

Mike Leco — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:11:00 GMT

I was in Dallas this week and I finally had a chance to visit Dealy Plaza. This is the place where president John F. Kennedy was assasinated.

The young charismatic president of the USA was shot while visiting Dallas Texas in 1963. He died in the Parkland Hospital a few miles from Dealy Plaza. His alleged assasin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested a few days later in a Dallas movie theater, and was subsequently shot and killed by Jack Ruby while in police custody at the Dallas police Station. Kennedy's death shocked the whole world. The circumstances surrounding President Kennedy's murder and the subsequent murder of Oswald created a cloud of mystery and suspicion that fostered many conspiracy theories.

For the past forty years, there have been numerous investigations, hearings and reconstructions attempting to explain the exact circumstances of the shooting. Many theories have been proposed that implicate other gunmen or accomplices in various conspiracies to assasinate the president. Books, movies and television programs have presented the evidence and analyzed it in many ways to prove or disprove the various theories.

I remember the circumstances of the shooting. I have seen many of the movies and television shows analyzing that incident. I have read about and heard the various theories. I know that President Kennedy was riding in an open car in a motorcade through Dealy Plaza in Dallas when three shots rang out. Lee Harvey Oswald, was positioned in the sixth floor window of the Dallas School Board Book Repository Building overlooking Dealy Plaza. He fired the shots that hit president Kennedy in the neck and shoulder.

Afterwards, conspiracy theorists speculated that Oswald alone could not have possibly accomplished this assasination. They spoke of a mysterious second gunman positioned on the grassy knoll to the right front of the motorcade. Numerous investigations and research could find no evidence to support those theories. Nevertheless, I have seen images and reconstructions of this assasination portrayed over and over again.

It was facinating to go to Dealy Plaza and see the exact spot where President Kennedy was shot. I could see the Book Repository Building and its sixth floor window overlooking the street. I could walk up the grassy knoll where the mysterious second gunman was supposedly positioned. I was even able to enter the Book Repository Building and visit the Sixth Floor Museum, now preserved as a historic site. The museum provided recorded audio tours of its exhibits featuring the presidency and the assasination of John F. Kennedy. The most emotionally moving experience, for me, was just standing at that sixth floor window looking down on Dealy Plaza just as Lee Harvey Oswald must have viewed it though the telescopic sight of his rifle on November 22, 1963.

If you are old enough to remember John F. Kennedy and to remember the day he was assasinated, you should visit Dealy Plaza in Dallas. It will bring back many old memories.

Life in the USA : Lee Harvey Oswald

President John F Kennedy