Reclaiming History (203 page)

Also, no rifle was found behind the picket fence or nearby. For that matter, other than Oswald’s Carcano rifle found inside the Book Depository Building, no other rifle or weapon was found anywhere in Dealey Plaza following the assassination.
*
In addition, as indicated, no expended cartridge cases ejected from any rifle were found on the ground anywhere near the area. As Walter Cronkite, in the 1967 CBS special on the assassination, put it so cogently, to accept the grassy knoll theory we’d have to believe that an assassin “materialized out of thin air [behind the fence], fired a shot, and then vanished again into thin air, leaving behind no trace of himself, his rifle, his bullet, or any other sign of [his] existence
*
…If the demands for certainty that are made upon the [Warren] Commission were applied to its critics, the theory of a second assassin [on the grassy knoll] would vanish before it was spoken.”
⁴⁰

We know that among other evidence, a gunman was seen in the sixth-floor window, Oswald’s finger and palm prints were found on boxes and a large bag in the sniper’s nest, and his rifle, as well as expended cartridge casings from the rifle, were found on the sixth floor. So we have the incredible irony that the grassy knoll assassin is so completely incompetent that he can’t even hit the presidential limousine (see later text), yet he impeccably vaporizes into thin air without leaving any evidence whatsoever that he was there, whereas Oswald, in the sixth-floor window, is competent enough to hit Kennedy twice but litters his shooting site with all kinds of evidence of his presence.

Or as former Dallas sheriff Jim Bowles persuasively observed, “Isn’t it strange that an assassin firing from a concealed position up on the sixth floor and inside a building was observed by several people, but the supposed second assassin, comparatively out in the open and in front of the action in the line of sight of many bystanders and photographers, was not seen before, during or after by a single living soul?”
⁴¹
In other words, there is
no
eyewitness evidence and no physical evidence of any kind whatsoever that any gunman fired at the president from the grassy knoll, and because of this reality, there’s really not too much more to say.

But for the record, there are a host of other reasons why the grassy knoll theory is completely barren of evidence as well as common sense.

2. As discussed in depth earlier, every one of the pathologists who examined the president’s wounds and/or photographs and X-rays of the wounds, even Dr. Cyril Wecht, concluded that there was no entrance wound to the front or right front of the president’s body, thereby eliminating not only the grassy knoll as the source of the bullets but also any other position to the president’s front. I mean, if the president were shot from the right front, as the conspiracy theorists allege, why weren’t there any entrance wounds to the front or right front of his body? As Dr. Pierre Finck, one of the autopsy surgeons, put it in less-than-impressive prose, “Although there had been rumors that shots came from the front, I did not see any evidence on the dead body of President Kennedy of wounds of entry in the front portions of the cadaver.”
⁴²

3. We know from all the medical evidence that the throat wound to the president was an exit wound, although the conspiracy theorists allege that it was an entrance wound caused by a bullet fired from the right front. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that it was an entrance wound. Then where was the exit wound for that bullet? As can be seen from the sketch in the photo section of this book, if the throat wound was caused by a bullet fired from the grassy knoll, since the knoll was to the president’s right front, the bullet would be traveling from his right to his left. Hence, the exit wound would have to have been to the
left
upper back of the president. But there was no bullet hole, entrance or exit, to the left upper back or to any other place on the left side of his body.

What I am saying, of course, presupposes that the bullet passed through soft tissue in the president’s body and was not deflected, which all the medical evidence, discussed earlier, shows to be the case.
⁴³
Even the conspiracy theorists have never disputed that the bullet causing the throat wound passed through soft tissue on a straight line through the president’s body.
*
They only disagree on the direction the bullet was traveling. The only wound to the president’s back, as we know, was an
entrance
wound to his upper
right
back, and the conspiracy theorists cannot use this wound as an exit wound since a bullet fired from the grassy knoll to the president’s right front and passing through soft tissue could never end up on the right side of the president’s body, only his left side. For the bullet to exit where we know the entrance wound is, the president’s upper right back, the gunman would have to have been located across the street from the knoll to the president’s
left
front, standing in full view of everyone without even a picket fence to hide behind.

4. If the fatal shot to the president’s head was fired, as the conspiracy theorists allege, from the grassy knoll—that is, from the president’s right
front
—it would be traveling toward the president’s left
rear
. Yet the two large bullet fragments found inside the presidential limousine were found on or near the front seat of the limousine—that is, in
front
of the president, not behind him as one would expect if the bullet were fired from the front of the president. Indeed, even the three small lead fragments found in the limousine were found on the rug beneath the left jump seat, which again would be in
front
of the president, not behind him. As author John Canal writes, “I’ve heard of ‘frangible’ and ‘explosive’ bullets, but not ‘bouncing’ bullets.”
⁴⁴
In other words, did the bullet hit the president from the front, as the grassy knoll devotees maintain, and bounce backward after impact instead of continuing to proceed forward toward the president’s rear? Not too likely. Additionally, even if it was slightly deflected by bone in the president’s skull, a bullet traveling at 2,000 feet per second and entering the right front of the president’s head would have inevitably passed through to the left side of the president’s brain, yet we know from the autopsy report and X-rays that the left hemisphere of the president’s brain was “intact.”
⁴⁵

5. The triggerman, who the conspiracy theorists want us to believe fired from the grassy knoll, would have to have had a proven record as an expert shot, or the mob, CIA, KGB, et cetera, obviously would never have employed him to get the job done. But if this were so, how come this high-powered triggerman, this top professional assassin, turned out to be so bad a shot that not only couldn’t he hit any part of the president’s body at a close range (“the shot from the grassy knoll missed President Kennedy,” the HSCA reported),
⁴⁶
he couldn’t even hit the very large presidential limousine
? No bullet struck any part of the car. To emphasize the absurdity of it all, I should point out that Kennedy would have been only fifty-seven and thirty-five yards from the grassy knoll gunman at the time of the head shot, and less than sixty (around fifty-eight) yards at the time of the first shot that struck him (see scaled map in photo section of book),
⁴⁷
both relatively close shots. And if either shot had been fired at the president from the grassy knoll and missed both him and the car, what happened to the bullet? Not only do we know it did not go on to hit anyone
†
in the crowd on the south side of Elm, but also after many years have gone by, no one has ever found a bullet anywhere on the south side of Elm Street.

6. Each of the aforementioned reasons provides solid, concrete evidence that proves to the satisfaction of any unbiased observer that no shots were fired at the president from the grassy knoll. But even if we were to throw all this evidence out the window, there are several points of simple common sense that tell us that someone shooting at the president would do so
when
we know the assassin did, and
from
the Book Depository Building as opposed to the grassy knoll. Yet conspiracy theorists as well as independent impartial observers have stated a great many times that one point militating against the conclusion that Oswald shot the president is that if he were at the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building (as the evidence shows he was), “the perfect shot [for him] would have been when the limousine was on Houston Street, heading north toward the Book Depository.”
⁴⁸
But nothing could be further from the truth. In the first place, if Oswald had taken such a shot as the limousine was proceeding northbound, most of the president’s body would have been shielded by Governor Connally’s body even though Connally was not seated
directly
in front of the president, and so the gunman would not have had a clear, unobstructed view of the president. But there’s a more important reason why such a shot would have made no sense at all. Whoever killed the president—forget about Oswald for the moment—was a sniper. How do we know he was a sniper? That’s simple. He didn’t want to get caught.
*
In fact, the headline in the
New York Times
the day following the president’s murder read, “Kennedy Is Killed by Sniper as He Rides in Car in Dallas.” The
Los Angeles Times
headline said, “Sniper’s Bullet Kills President in Dallas.” Now, if you’re a sniper who doesn’t want to get caught, why in the world would you fire any shots at the president from a position directly in front of him and with all eyes looking in your direction? Obviously, you wouldn’t.
†
What you would do is exactly what we know Oswald did—wait until the presidential limousine had turned onto Elm Street and then, with most eyes to the front, shoot the president from behind with an unobstructed view.

7. For the very same reason that a sniper at the sixth-floor window wouldn’t shoot the president while he was proceeding northbound on Houston, no sniper in possession of his faculties would decide to position himself on the grassy knoll to the president’s right front, since he would know he would easily be within the range of vision of all eyes (and potential cameras) looking to the front. So the notion of some group like organized crime, the CIA, or the military-industrial complex positioning their gunman on the grassy knoll is irrational beyond belief.

8. As is well known, Oswald was up on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building. The relevance of this is that the overwhelming majority of people down in Dealey Plaza were only looking—as would be expected—at people and objects at the ground level. They would not be looking up to the top floors of buildings. And because of this, one could expect a sniper to be where Oswald was, high above, not where he would be more likely to be observed, at ground level.

If you were a conspirator and you were planning the assassination of the president of the United States, since you obviously would not want the existence of your conspiracy to become known, would you place a second gunman (or a sole gunman, for that matter) on the ground level (the grassy knoll) where there is a good chance that either he or his rifle would be captured on film or photographs by at least one and maybe more of the many people you know are going to be filming and photographing the event in Dealey Plaza? Since people with a camera, like a regular eyewitness, could be expected to be photographing and filming things almost exclusively at ground level, the obvious answer is no. You’d place him high above, where the likelihood of a photograph or film capturing him would be dramatically reduced.

9. Can anyone criticize my logic for saying that the CIA or organized crime, et cetera, would not want to place a hit man in a place where local law enforcement parked their cars, and hence, could be expected to be coming in and out of the area at any time? Speaking of the parking lot owned by the Union Terminal Railroad behind the picket fence, Warren Commission counsel asked S. M. Holland, signal supervisor for the railroad, “This is an area in which cars are regularly parked?” Holland: “Yes.” Counsel: “A parking area for the School Book Depository?” Holland: “No. It is a parking area for the sheriff’s department and people over [at] the courthouse [Dallas County Criminal Courts Building on Houston Street].” Counsel: “I see.” Holland: “Sheriff’s department parks in there. District attorneys’ cars park in there.”
⁴⁹

To make the parking lot area behind the picket fence even more improbable than it already is as the site for a presidential assassin, Lee Bowers, who operated the switches regulating the movement of trains from his Union Terminal tower overlooking the parking lot, said that this area between his tower and the fence “had been covered by police for some 2 hours” before the motorcade came through on Elm. “Since approximately 10 o’clock in the morning traffic had been cut off into the area so that anyone moving around could actually be observed.”
⁵⁰

10. Moreover, are we really to believe that conspirators planning the biggest murder in American history would place their hit man on the grassy knoll knowing full well that people watching the motorcade might be sitting or standing very close to, or perhaps even at, the place where the hit man was to fire his deadly shots? And if that were to occur, what would their instructions to him be? “Quickly find some other place to shoot Kennedy—maybe from on top of the railroad overpass”?

11. There is another reason (not that any additional ones are necessary) why a conspiratorial group would not want to place a hit man on the grassy knoll: shooting at the president from the knoll would be a more difficult shot than from the Book Depository Building. I’ve been up to the sixth-floor window and I can tell you that if you imagine holding a rifle in your hand at the window as you look down Elm Street, the barrel of the gun is on a straight line with the presidential limousine proceeding down Elm. Moreover, the limousine was only traveling around eleven miles per hour, and Elm Street at this point has a declination of about 4 degrees, virtually eliminating the necessity of elevating the muzzle of the rifle as the limousine proceeded farther away from the sixth-floor window. What I am saying is that the president, as my firearms specialist testified at the London trial, was for all intents and purposes a “stationary target” from the vantage point of the sniper’s nest. But as can be seen from the sketch in the photo section of this book, from the grassy knoll not only would Governor Connally’s body be more than partially shielding the president’s body at the time of the first shot, but the gunman would be firing at a moving target (one moving, in constant motion, from left to right in front of his rifle), the presidential limousine traveling at an angle from the gunman’s barrel. For the second shot, the head shot, as you can see from the sketch, the limousine is traveling at an increased angle from the gunman’s barrel, making it an even more difficult shot than one from the sniper’s nest window. Of course, if you are an expert rifleman hired by the mob or CIA, a shot from the grassy knoll was still very doable, but for a job of this enormous importance, why not select
the
optimum location?