JFK From a Fifth Grader

At first, I thought it might be fun to write a book on the JFK Assassination like the popular “…for Dummies,” or “…for the Complete Idiot” format that one sees for just about everything else these days.  But I found out that somebody has already written a “for Dummies” and sent it to a publisher.  But it also turns out that the author of the aforesaid book has fallen for the official, U.S. Government account: that Lee Harvey Oswald acted completely on his own, without being involved with any conspiracy.  So, I leave the “for Dummies” rubric for him and all of the other “Complete Idiots” gullible – and cowardly enough – to remain happily in their lands of make–believe and “heavy denial.”

Because I was in the 5th grade at the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and even then noticed strange inconsistencies in the way related events were handled and reported, it seems reasonable to go back and re–envision myself as a 5th–grader after having researched the matter for at least twenty years and, in the process, compared it to similar events in history, beginning with the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E. and the deaths of the Gracchus brothers 89 and 79 years earlier in 133 and 123 B.C.E.

1. Dad, who had lived through the Depression and is certain to have known of the assassinations of Huey Long and Anton Cermak in his youth and said that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew in advance of Japan’s plan to attack Pearl Harbor said things that indicated a conspiracy.  And, being a Republican, he was not at all fond of Kennedy.
2. To this 5th–grader, the significance of Kennedy’s death was greatly magnified by seeing Dad breaking down and weeping – for the first time ever – not because of Kennedy’s death, but because of the PT–109 documentary about Kennedy’s experience being similar to his own, being shot at by Japanese Zero fighter planes while he was defenseless in the Pacific Ocean, rescuing men from the water.
3. The Russians and Europeans without exception commented that the killing of a head of state and the nearly immediate rubout of the “suspect” or “patsy” was exactly the pattern used for such “regime changes” in their home countries for many centuries.
4. Film on TV of Oswald calmly saying “I’m only a ‘patsy.’ ”  This 5th–grader did not know of the existence of a words such as “patsy”, but the overall  articulateness Oswald displayed in the few words that have been recorded indicate strongly that he was of at least average intelligence and not given to using such a discretely identifiable term without knowing its meaning or significance.  Salvatore “Bill” Bonanno, son of notorious New York organized crime figure Joe Bonanno, who had lived out his life in Tucson, Arizona and died of unnatural causes for a gangster, old–age, was asked by a reporter for the local newspaper Tucson Citizen what he knew of Oswald’s involvement in Kennedy’s murder and answered “He was just what he said he was: a ‘patsy.’ ”
5. Jack Ruby’s hokey motive for killing Oswald made absolutely no sense, even to this 11–year–old in 1963.  Now, the fact that it took almost fifty years for the truth that it was his lawyer telling him what to say, as told by Gail Raven, one of his girlfriends, to finally come out, leaves us with no excuse whatever.
6. Ruby saying things like “Everything pertaining to what’s happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts, of what occurred, my motives. The people had, that had so much to gain and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I’m in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world.”
   and
   “Well, you won’t see me again. I tell you that a whole new form of government is going to take over the country, and I know I won’t live to see you another time.”
7. The ‘mobile crime scene’, the 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limousine which should have been preserved intact and not ‘corrupted’ before being examined for all possible evidence was immediately driven to Ford Motor Company’s plant in Dearborn, Michigan and repaired to perfect, original condition, and its bullet–riddled windshield and chrome molding replaced and stashed at the National Archives where no one is allowed access.  Any 5th grader who has read any murder mysteries knows that no one is allowed to even touch a crime scene until detectives have finished their work.                (I may be dating myself by thinking 5th graders might still be inclined to read anything, even a    mystery.)
8. Kennedy had a throat wound which, just like evidence of the bullet holes in the limousine, was corrupted by doctors trying to perform an emergency tracheotomy to allow Kennedy to breathe.  But doctors who saw it before the tracheotomy knew an entry wound when they saw one, which means there definitely was someone shooting from the front, not just from behind.  Any 5th–grader can see that.
9. And, though the blood and gore of the Zapruder film is not something any decent parent would want their 5th–grader to watch, if one did, they would see the impact throw Kennedy’s head violently backward, would obviously showing that it had come from somewhere in front, anywhere but from behind, and with the victim being thrust not just backward but to the left – at an angle almost perfectly opposite the location of the grassy knoll.
10. Sam Giancana, the head of Chicago’s organized crime syndicate known as “The Outfit” said “We do it this way every time.  You’d think people would catch on!” referring to the standard method of setting up a patsy with a gun in plain sight, then having a professional marksman shoot the target from a concealed location or “sniper’s nest” – and let the patsy take the blame.  When Giancana was murdered in 1978, one day before he was to testify before Congress on the Kennedy assassination, he was shot multiple times in a ring around his mouth as a statement that he was being killed because he had begun to talk too much in his old age.  So, as any 5th–grader would see, he must have been telling the truth.  I, as a 5th–grader myself, was already acutely aware of how sensitive and uncomfortable people can be about hearing the truth.
11. And, wouldn’t’ a 5th–grader be as suspicious of the timing of Giancana’s own murder as a bald–headed, middle–aged fat guy, which is what I am now?  Something about the innocence of children enables them to notice such things, and ask embarrassing questions.  Right, all you 5th Graders?
12. Same goes for Johnny Roselli, known for decades as a prominent organized crime figure who stated in broad daylight that “Ruby is one of our boys!”  Then, his body is found in an oil drum in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.  Come on!
13. Oswald was in the custody of the Dallas Police Department for a full two days and is sure to have talked endlessly while subjected to hours of interrogation, and nobody took notes – are you kidding?  No Dictabelt, no tape recordings, no stenographer?  Are Dallas Police so incompetent that they could fail to record the words of a critical player in the greatest crime of the 20th century?  Or were they ‘in cahoots?’
14. Jack Ruby, a well–known member of organized crime is actually photographed in the same room in which Oswald is being interrogated.  Even a ‘developmentally–disabled’ or ‘special needs’ 5th–grader would ask “Hey, what’s that mobster doing inside the police station with all those cops?”
15. The driver, Bill Greer, slows the car down and doesn’t even duck or appear disturbed when gunshots are fired.  Then, after Kennedy has been hit in both the back and in the neck, he turns around just in time to see Kennedy’s head explode.  Only then does he turn back around, hunker down and finally stomp on the gas.  Any 5th–grader watching the Zapruder film would see this and wonder why he didn’t take evasive action and accelerate at the sound of the first shot.  He could have saved the President’s life – and been a hero!
16. About one year later, the Warren Commission Report is released with much fanfare, in a 26–volume set of books together with one condensed volume saying that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that Jack Ruby killed Oswald “to save Jackie the pain of having to suffer through the trial” of her husband’s killer.  It is also announced that all documentation and research materials upon which the Report was based were being locked away and not to be released for fifty years.  By this time I am in the 6th grade, and this sounds every bit as bogus as the rest of it.
17. And, if a room full of senators, representatives, a Supreme Court Justice and an ex–CIA director could work for one year at great taxpayer expense and produce an impressive–looking report without so much as questioning the motive Jack Ruby gave for shooting Oswald, then the logical conclusion for this 5th–grader would have had to be that the Report and the men who produced it were only committing another assassination – this time – an assassination of the truth.
18. And then, not even five years later, after he says that the Presidency is the only position from which to finally get the truth about his brother’s murder, Robert F. Kennedy is murdered after clinching the Democratic nomination by winning the California primary in 1968.  Again, supposedly by another patsy, a flunky named Sirhan Sirhan who worked at the mobster–controlled Santa Anita racetrack.  And, then, what?!?  John F. Kennedy, Jr. is killed when his plane “mysteriously” crashes off Martha’s Vineyard in perfect flying weather, after making known his intention to expose his Dad’s killers.  Any 5th grader would notice a pattern here.
19. And now 54 years later, 5th grade is just about the age that this event would appear in a schoolbook history lesson, and children of that age should be every bit as suspicious of these same anomalies, ask the same questions and be completely unsatisfied with the fact that this crime still has not been solved after so many decades.  And wonder what other crimes or events are being committed by somebody who is powerful enough to kill a American President and get away with it after more than half a century.

And if a 5th–grader is ever going to question anything, it will certainly be “Why doesn’t everybody know who actually did this – after fifty–four years?

OK, all you 5th–graders, it’s your case.  Us grownups still can’t figure it out, or don’t have the guts to face the truth.

And for everyone else, there is that new book coming out called JFK for Dummies.

It’s for you.

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