His film went missing six years later. I don’t think he would have been surprised. He was convinced that his film had been tampered with. He believed that the shots that killed the president came from the stockade fence. He felt that the government kept far too many secrets, but was too afraid to ask if his beliefs were true. He feared our government. Should our government expect us to never question what they do in order to have happy lives? When did the government stop working for us? Is ignorance truly bliss?
Knowing these things about my grandfather bothered me for years. I adored him. I was with him that day in Dallas. I have read letters from government officials and researchers and authors that were sent to him. I watched my mother type letters to the FBI, the Keystone Company, Walter Cronkite, and United Press International. I was with him during his last national televised appearance with CBS. When I think back about my adolescent years and how I laughed at his fear of people wanting to kill him, I chastise myself. He wasn’t being paranoid. He had valid reasons to be afraid, but I was too young and immature to understand them. People who weren’t from Dallas still don’t understand the fear that gripped many witnesses then and now.
Why weren’t his viewpoints given the same respect by the government and media as others were? Why wasn’t he asked to testify before the Warren Commission? Why did the FBI keep his camera for over five months and finally send it back to him in pieces? Why was his film taken by the FBI, kept for several days, and then sent back to him? Why is his camera original still missing?
Why?
It is my hope that this story of his life and experience with John F. Kennedy’s assassination will shed some light onto these questions and the human condition. Through research, interviews, and my own experience in trying to locate the film, I have a much better understanding of our society and human nature. So many people all over the world are still trying to find the same missing puzzle pieces. Some fabricate unsubstantiated scenarios, hoping no one realizes that their theories are no more than fantastical hoaxes created for immediate fame, fortune, and Hollywood. More often than not, these are the theories that garner the most media attention and hurt the JFK research truth-seekers. The educated JFK researcher realizes the photographic evidence never quite fits their scenarios.
The mainstream media is still trying to convince us that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and refuses to investigate conspiracy evidence for fear of losing their biggest financial backers: the government. Others still believe that the government doesn’t withhold information from its citizens. These are the people who do not realize the media spoon feeds us a pablum of propaganda we can digest, like the Warren Commission. Still others wish these questions of guilt or conspiracy would all go away because the memory and knowledge they have of key information assuages the guilt they have kept for over fifty years.
Even after Orville Nix‘s death, the inadequacies that haunted him in his life still do the same to his memory, yet the loss of his original film isn’t noted. As the Sixth Floor Museum states on their website when describing the “Nix Collection”
“Nix unfortunately used Type A film, specifically designed for indoor use, but without the needed filter. As a result, his film appears darker and grainier than others made in Dealey Plaza that day.” 6
Time will tell. As the great writer Francis Bacon said, “Truth is the daughter of time…”7 In Orville Nix‘s case, I hope truth is the granddaughter of time. He deserved so much better than the life he led after taking this historic film. This book is for my grandfather, who we lovingly called “Paw-Paw” and for every American who gets caught up in anything the government deems unfit for public consumption. It is time for United States citizens to ask questions of our government. It is time to stop allowing double standards in our justice system. It is time to recognize that more often than not, the media allows its readers and viewers to know only what the powers that be want them to know. It is time to demand the truth.
This is a call for action.
CHAPTER
TWO
CURSED LUCK
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”
John. F. Kennedy8
The cloudy drive from Riverlakes Country Club was a reflective yet happy one on November 21, 1963 for Orville Nix. Dallas looked cleaner than it normally did and Orville reveled at the transformation. The Fleming and Sons paper processing plant that usually permeated the air with an acrid smell of chemicals seemed to have filtered the normally pungent aroma that engulfed the neighborhoods of Cedar Crest to Trinity Heights in Oak Cliff. The president would be in town the next day and the whole city was gussied up to welcome John F. Kennedy and his beautiful wife Jackie. Even the rain had helped clean the city and air as if God were an invited guest, or maybe just the hired help.
Yessiree, Orville thought, this was going to be the beginning of a lucky weekend.
Orville had taken a rare two days off from his regular night shift, and since there was no reason to sleep, he had spent the day at the Country Club. Not only had he won his round of golf in the intermittent rain, he had also won the poker games he played with his friend Forrest Sorrels, who worked for the Secret Service, and a couple of guys who lived in Kessler Park, the place everyone called ‘Pill Hill’ because the homeowners were mainly physicians. It was always satisfying to win, especially knowing he wouldn’t have to ask his wife for lunch money for the next week. But triumphing over these guys made him feel even better.
Beating accomplished men made him feel smart. It also meant luck was with him and like his daddy always said, “Men with luck don’t have to have brains.”
“Brains,” he said out loud as he walked to the parking lot and got into his car. It was time to pick up his wife Ella.
The smoke from his Lucky Strike cigarette seemed to make the shape of a brain and then dissipate into a million little pieces—just like his dream. He wondered what his daddy would have said about the dreams he kept having. As he turned onto Lancaster Avenue, the scent of magnolias fragranced the air as he dismissed the thought. He didn’t want to think of anything bad that might spoil this lucky streak. Like many athletes, Orville firmly believed in keeping the “streak” intact by not changing anything that was right.
*****
… AND LIKE HIS DADDY
ALWAYS SAID,
“MEN WITH LUCK DON’T
HAVE TO HAVE BRAINS.”
Funny thing was, at the Country Club he frequented, he never knew if the men he played with were doctors or businessmen. All he knew was that he, an air conditioning repairman for the General Services Administration, was beating these men at golf and poker. Men who had university degrees, fancy cars, and big houses. As he raised the bet on his two pair, aces over fours, he wondered if they could tell that he had only a fourth grade education. He and Forrest were only there for an hour.
“So Forrest,” the heavy man with the blue tie said, “Gonna be a busy day for you tomorrow, isn’t it? What with that liberal president being in town. Think it will be another Adlai Stevenson type event?”9 He chortled as he spoke.
“Naaah, not at all,” Forrest replied as he looked down at his cards again. “This parade should run smooth as that tie you’re wearing.”
Orville knew his friend Forrest well, and knew he hardly ever talked about work. He liked that about Forrest. He also knew that Dallas was embarrassed by the Adlai Stevenson “incident” where some silly woman named Cora Lacy Frederickson, an insurance executive’s wife, had hit U.N. Ambassador Stevenson with a placard she was carrying and then later blamed it on a Negro hitting her hand.10 The Dallas Morning News would later concur with her by reporting it was an accident, but Forrest had told him she was ‘touched.’ It was odd to Orville how so many people could walk the earth without using the brains the good Lord gave them.
Orville had a feeling that on his next raise, the business man wearing the blue silk tie would fold. When the bids went around the table and stopped at him, he raised the bet by a dolla
r. It was a quarter ante game. Not only did ‘Smooth Blue Tie’ fold, so did the man wearing the shirt with the alligator on it. Orville won! As he opened his wallet to deposit the ten and twenty dollar bills he won from them, he watched their faces. He carried a brown hand-tooled leather billfold with his name branded on it. This was as close to being a “Texas Cowboy” Orville ever became. He didn’t like Stetson hats. He didn’t have a penchant for cows except to eat, and he didn’t own a pair of cowboy boots. All he had was his western billfold. Some would say it looked like something a little kid would own. Orville didn’t care. He loved it. His daddy had given it to him.
Forrest winked at him. He noticed Mr. Alligator Shirt smirking. Was it because he lost or was it because of the wallet? A wave of insecurity rippled through him and then dissolved. What did they know anyway? It sure wasn’t cards. And it didn’t sound like it was politics.
They also didn’t know that his wife Ella had to work on the serving line at the vegetable station of Wyatt’s Cafeteria11 to help pay the bills for the rental house they lived in on Denley Drive in Trinity Heights. She had worked there for over twenty years, the steam from the Brussels sprouts, green beans, and mushrooms absorbing into her face like a trendy organic spa treatment. These men didn’t know that he had saved for almost a year to buy the custom-made suit he was wearing from Turner Brothers, the fancy mens clothier in downtown Dallas. He loved that suit almost as much as his billfold; it was a modern Frank Sinatra-like suit that changed colors in the light. These men didn’t know how badly he wished he could live the lives they were living. What they did know was that he had a son, Orville Nix Jr., a pretty young daughter-in-law named Elaine, and three beautiful grandkids, all with blonde hair. They knew this because he bragged about his family anytime he got the chance.
Forrest commented one time, “I’ve seen those kids so much, I feel like they could be mine.”
His oldest granddaughter, Gayle, was too smart for her age, as he had said many times. He told his son Orville Jr. to keep a close watch on her; too much knowledge would lead to trouble in her life. People who knew too much were destined to lead lives of fear and loneliness. Gayle could read business letters when she was four. She could write letters for him when she was five. She wasn’t scared of anything or anyone, and he couldn’t be prouder. He loved to show the men at Riverlakes Country Club pictures of his grandkids between card games. There was Gayle, three years older than her little sister Cindy, and then there was his grandson David, who he had lovingly nicknamed ‘Bubba’, born eleven months after Cindy. People often asked if they were twins because Cindy was so petite and David was so active, and they were similar in size. The children in the pictures he showed the wealthy men were of three blonde children with bright smiling faces and fancy clothes. He prayed they would have lives like these men and their families from Kessler Park. Why shouldn’t they? He asked himself as he walked to the parking lot.
“Orville!” Forrest yelled, “Orville, don’t forget where I told you to stand if you want a really good view tomorrow.”
“I remember Forrest… the corner of Main and Houston at Dealey Park. I’ll be there!”
He and Forrest hadn’t been at the Country Club long; just for a few games of poker, and back to work Forrest went. He had told Orville that an associate had come in from Washington, D.C. and he had to meet him. Forrest never stayed in one place too long. In fact he was known to show up in all kinds of places in downtown Dallas.
Orville smiled and shouted to his friend, “Thanks for reminding me, Forrest, I’ll wave at you in the parade.”
He smiled thinking of the great tip his friend Forrest Sorrels gave him. He had bought a new camera just for this parade and couldn’t wait to see how it worked. It was a brand new 8mm Keystone Auto-Zoom Movie Camera12 he had bought less than a week ago: the newest model, a K-810. It cost him $159.99 on sale at Sage’s Department Store. He had wound the spring too tightly on his last camera, and not only had he lost a new roll of film trying to fix it, he had broken it.
Ella had been furious.
“Orville, another new camera?” she shouted. “Do you know that is almost two week’s pay for me? You go through cameras like I go through nylons, but nylons are cheaper,” she ranted.
Orville winced at Ella’s reprimands. She was right. But what did it matter? It was just the two of them now, and they had suffered enough financially while Orville Jr. was growing up. Why not indulge in something expensive now and again that was just for their pleasure? When Forrest had told him the President and First Lady would be in town, that made the decision even easier. Orville had bought the fancy camera, where the auto-zoom even had a grip-power mechanism on the handle. It still had to be wound, so he made a mental note to not wind it too tightly this time. Holding the camera’s squeeze mechanism was like squeezing a trigger on a gun. Ha, he thought, Forrest may have a real gun, but I have a gun for taking pictures.
His friendship with Forrest had gone back a long ways. Forrest was the Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Secret Service and his offices were in the General Services Administration. The GSA had offered to pay for Orville’s high school equivalency diploma through courses taken at Southern Methodist University so that he could get promoted, but that wasn’t until later. Orville always wondered if Forrest had put a good word in for him. Acquiring this diploma did get him a promotion, and although Orville had recently transferred to the Terminal Annex building13 in October, he still visited Forrest once or twice a week. Orville remembered the day a week or so earlier that Forrest had told him about how he changed the parade route.
“Don’t you think this route will be better for everyone?” he had queried Orville. “We’re headed to the Trade Mart, so this should be a straight shot to the freeway.” Orville couldn’t tell if his friend was trying to convince Orville, or himself.
“I don’t recollect you ever having a bad idea, Forrest,” Orville replied. “It looks good to me.”
It was true. He respected and truly liked Forrest Sorrels. Forrest had an important, high government security position, but he never let it go to his head. He was close to Orville in age and more often than not, they talked about their personal lives rather than politics. Forrest was a family man and a professional who never jumped to conclusions. He solved problems logically and patiently. Like the time that drifter had found his way into the GSA. Orville had been working near the elevators when a tattered guy had come into the building. Anyone could tell he was lost, but a couple of young Secret Service men pushed the poor guy into a wall. A lady screamed and an elderly couple just getting off the elevator hurriedly rushed out the door. Just then, tall, thin Forrest appeared. Orville watched as he calmly spoke to the drifter, and with nothing more than his eyes, told the two young men to release the poor guy. After speaking with him for a few minutes, Orville saw Forrest reach into his pocket and give the guy what looked like some money. They shook hands and Forrest patted his back as the man left the building and everyone went back to their jobs. Forrest was a good man. He missed seeing him now that he had been transferred to the Terminal Annex building on the south side of Dealey Plaza. The postal inspectors and postal employees weren’t nearly as friendly as his friends in the GSA building.
On his drive home from Riverlakes, Orville paused for a moment still thinking of his friend and lit another Lucky Strike, though one was still smoldering in the ashtray. He inhaled deeply and pulled into the Wyatt’s parking lot at Cedar Crest where Ella was still at work. His son Orville Jr. worked part-time at the Cedar Crest movie theater just a few stores down.14 He smiled at the thought of nuzzling against his wife’s vegetable-scented face and his stomach growled. It was 6 p.m. and she would be getting off work soon. The rain began to fall lightly again and his thoughts shifted from hunger to the presidential parade tomorrow and he realized he had never been to a presidential parade. Hell, he had never had a birthday party! He never had a formal education. He never had anything to call his own except Ella and Orville Jr.
He caught himself tapping the steering wheel with each ‘never’ and watched the people entering the cafeteria, hoping Ella would come out soon.
The wait allowed Orville more time to reflect upon his hardscrabble life. He seemed to do that often. When Jr. commented on how often his dad thought about his past, Orville would say, “You have to know where you come from to see where you are going.” Orville hoped that if he taught his son anything, he taught him that. He wanted his son to have a better life than he had.
His parents were young but old as he remembered them. It had been twenty-five or more years since his mamma had died and for the life of him, he could barely recall her face. At least his daddy had lived long enough to see his son Orville Jr., but then he too died when Jr. was only two. His parents had worked hard and had expected their children to do the same and none of their six kids, except Eva, questioned their chores. As the children made the long walk home from the small schoolhouse, they would see other kids playing baseball or flying kites. Heck, some even had bicycles; but not anyone in his family. They didn’t even have a radio. Though all of them worked, even the kids, they could barely afford food and clothing. Orville picked cotton to help his parents. That’s what boys from families like his did, even at the age of six. His two older brothers worked the cotton fields right along beside him and they made up games to help them forget how the bolls cut their hands and to make the time go by faster. His sisters had sometimes helped, but they had had other chores. His younger brother Edward had had epilepsy, a disease so scary that Orville was afraid he would get it too. He remembered Mamma’s Mama saying one time that having an epileptic child in the family meant the Nixes were cursed, though he didn’t really know what ‘cursed’ meant. He just knew it was bad by the look on her face.
The Missing JFK Assassination Film Page 2