A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination (109 page)

The commission determined that Oswald fired his rifle from an assassin’s perch at a sixth-floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository overlooking Dealey Plaza; stacks of book cartons would have hidden what he was doing.

By attaching a camera to Oswald’s rifle, the FBI attempted to re-create the assassin’s view from the window at the moment a bullet was fired at the president’s head.

The evidence. Oswald’s Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

The evidence. Two artists’ reconstructions of the fatal head wound.

The evidence. The president’s bloodied shirt.

The evidence. The bullet that, the commission’s staff was convinced, hit both Kennedy and Connally.

The evidence. An artist’s reconstruction, based on autopsy photos, of the president’s head wound, the skull open to the right.

Chief Justice Earl Warren and Gerald Ford visited Dallas on June 7, 1964, to inspect Dealey Plaza and take the testimony of Jack Ruby. They are shown leaving the Texas School Book Depository, followed by general counsel J. Lee Rankin and staff lawyer Joseph Ball.

In September, Senator Richard Russell (
center
) organized his own visit to Dallas to see Dealey Plaza and interview Marina Oswald. He was joined in front of the Texas School Book Depository by fellow commission members (
far left
) Hale Boggs and (
far right, in hat
) John Sherman Cooper.

The commission’s staff lawyers staged several reenactments in Dealey Plaza. David Belin is shown at the fifth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, during an experiment to determine what would have been seen and heard there as rifle shots were fired from the sixth-floor window above.

Arlen Specter explains the single-bullet theory, with government agents positioned in a limousine at the spots where President Kennedy and Governor Connally had been seated.

Although CIA and FBI officials ruled out Cuban involvement, the American ambassador to Mexico and others were convinced the assassination was connected to the government of Fidel Castro, shown after capturing a Marlin in the Caribbean.

In a photo taken September 7, 1963, Castro is shown making a point to Associated Press correspondent Dan Harker (with arms crossed) during an encounter in Havana. Harker reported in a resulting article that Castro threatened to retaliate against American officials who had targeted Cuban leaders for violence.