He also had to do something about that bastard LBJ. His Vice-President from Texas had damned near ruined his presidency and if he didn’t do something to fix it, he wouldn’t be elected to a second term. There were rumors in Texas that Johnson had paid people to buy the elections in Texas, Chicago and West Virginia. There were rumors that LBJ had gotten kickbacks for ensuring General Dynamics got the military fighter jet contract in Ft. Worth. Then there were the Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker scandals.49 On top of that, even at his age, LBJ had as many ‘lady friends’ as Kennedy had. There always seemed to be an ‘incident’ lurking in the shadows whenever Lyndon Baines Johnson was near.
Knowing this, President Kennedy had brought his best defenses to Texas. He donned his Peace Corps mantel, charismatic lasso, and beautiful wife and brought them to Texas to fight the war of votes and help alleviate the dissension. If he could divert a Cuban missile crisis, by God he could tame these Texas mavericks and that out-of-control LBJ.
*****
SECRET SERVICE AGENT
SAM KINNEY WAS TOLD TO
REMOVE IT. HE WAS
HESITANT, BUT HE DID
WHAT THE D.C. BRASS
TOLD HIM AND HAD THE
PROTECTIVE BUBBLE-TOP
REMOVED.
There were several motorcycle officers and four of the motorcycle officers from the Dallas Police Department flanked the presidential limousine. In the lead car, Forrest and Win were riding with Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry and Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker. Win had mentioned to Forrest this was unheard of. Normally, the lead car was all Secret Service agents. Forrest had suggested that because of the Adlai Stevenson incident in Dallas a few months earlier, the Dallas Police and Sheriff Departments wanted the public to know they meant business and this was a united front. In an unmarked white Ford were the commanders of the Dallas crime fighters along with Winston Lawson and Forrest Sorrels of the Secret Service. Behind them in the second car, the President and Mrs. Kennedy sat in the backseat of a dark blue Lincoln Continental limousine. President Kennedy, noting the beautiful day, had requested that the protective bubble-top be removed while they were at Love Field50 so he could better interact with the crowd.
Secret Service agent Sam Kinney was told to remove it. He was hesitant, but he did what the D.C. brass told him and had the protective bubble-top removed. Kennedy and his First Lady would be sitting at the back of the car, and the First Lady’s Secret Service Agent Clint Hill would be behind the car along with Secret Service agents Hickey and Kinney. In the middle of the huge blue Lincoln stretch limo, in jump seats a little lower than the front and back seats, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie would be sitting. The driver of the presidential car was Secret Service Agent William Greer, accompanied by Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman.
The four motorcycle officers from the Dallas Police Department flanked the presidential limousine. Several dignitary cars followed whose passengers were also in convertibles: Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Ladybird; Senator Ralph Yarbrough; Democratic Representative Ray Roberts; and Dallas City Mayor Earl Cabell, who was the brother of the former CIA Deputy Director, Charles Cabell. Charles Cabell had recently been fired by John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had flatly turned down Cabell’s request to employ fighter planes during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba and after its failure, Kennedy asked for Cabell’s resignation.51
There were three Secret Service cars interspersed between the dignitary cars then several photographer cars; including two buses. Forrest had had Chief Curry set up a police unit on the overpass looking down on the parade. He tried not to worry about how open the whole motorcade would be. It’s a short parade he tried to reassure himself. It’ll all be over in less than thirty minutes.
The motorcade was huge and daunting to Forrest, though the amalgam of powerful interests in Dallas that day was bigger: some were even riding in open cars of the motorcade; others were conspicuously out of town. The eyes of Texas were upon them all.
A few had brought cameras with them, including Orville Nix, who didn’t realize he was about to take a home movie that would be speculated about and hidden more than any home movie he had ever taken, and would become a piece of a puzzle he would have never tried to work. To many, the film he was about to take would become a modern day Holy Grail.
CHAPTER
FIVE
12:30 PM CST -11/22/1963
“If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a President of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the President’s.
John F. Kennedy52
A dark past is inherently built into everything. It navigates, it determines, it concludes. It is evil, it is pure, and it is objective. One never leaves the past; it burrows into the psyche of its witnesses and remains trapped there forever. It spreads like a virus to those who look for truth and infects those with a conscience. Only those free of morals and intellect are immune… or crazy.
On November 22, 1963, the past came down upon Dallas. Some would say this day was the fruition of the sins of the fathers. There were so many fathers in Dallas that day. Some were at the parade with their wives and children. Some were in the motorcade. Some were there with their mistresses. Others were there in spirit, but not in body… those had sent their stand-ins. Others had sent patsies. Some were aware of what was about to transpire, but the majority of Dallas was not.
The citizens of Dallas were so delighted to see the president and First Lady that between 150,000 to 200,000 people lined the streets… almost a quarter of the population of Dallas in 1963. They were dressed in their work clothes, or Baptist Sunday best to see the first Catholic president and his wife. Many schoolchildren skipped school to come to the parade. Others had used valuable days off to see the president. It was a worldwide event being hosted in Dallas. Sadly, for many Dallasites, this would be the last day they would tell a stranger they were from the glistening city.
* * * * *
Orville Nix, father and grandfather, looked down at his watch and realized it was 12:05 P.M. His wife Ella, daughter-in-law Elaine, and eldest granddaughter Gayle were not there yet. Dressed in his newest suit, he moved to the edge of the Kelly-green grass strip that separated Main from Elm and looked over the crowds and crowds of people. Orville was 6’6, so it was easy for him to stand on his toes and see. There was no sign of his family. But how could there be? The onlookers were as thick as the molasses Orville had mixed with butter and slathered on his breakfast toast this morning. There would be no way he could find Ella, Elaine, and Gayle if he walked down Main. He decided to stay where he was and let them find him.
At 12:11 P.M., Ella, Elaine, and five-year-old Gayle were braving the crowds to make their way to Main and Houston. People were smiling. Bright confetti rained down upon them. Red, white and blue bunting festooned between the buildings. People were cheering and with each shout Gayle would scream, “He’s here Mama, He’s here Granny! He’s here!”
Ella looked every time she shouted and every time she said, ‘No Gayle, not yet, but he’s on his way. Just like Santa Claus.”
Elaine, who was holding her eldest daughter’s hand, was wearing her new button-down turquoise dress with a smart, self-tying belt in the front. Gayle would grab the belt from time to time, untying it and Elaine would have to stop among the crowd to tie it back again. One time as she was tying it again for the eighth time, a man came up behind her and said, “Let me do that for you, honey.” Elaine smirked at him and grabbed Gayle’s hand. What is wrong with people today? she thought to herself. She looked up and realized they were near a place she would never go to: the Carousel Club.53 Elaine stood in front of the window so her daughter wouldn’t ask questions when she saw the horse and half-dressed woman that adorned the door to the place. Thankfully, at that moment, Gayle announced she had ‘to go to the bathroom.’
As they neared the Adolphus Hotel, Elaine realized there was no way they would make it several more blocks and the on
ly place close with a restroom was the Walgreen’s store54 across from the elegant Hotel.
“Granny!” Elaine said loudly. Ella couldn’t hear her over the din of the crowd. “GRANNY!” she yelled again. This time Ella turned around at the sound of her name and smiled. Elaine said, “Gayle has to go to the restroom, is it okay if we stop at Walgreens?”
“Well of course, that’s where I wanted to go after the parade so she could play the jukebox, but we can do it now.”
Elaine didn’t think playing the jukebox during the president’s visit was a very good idea, but she wasn’t one to argue with her mother-in-law.
“Gotta go, Mama, I gotta go!” Gayle wriggled and cried.
The threesome hurried across Main to Walgreens. Just as they were entering the store, a group of men in dark suits and sunglasses were leaving a booth that faced the window. One of them handed a leaflet to Elaine as he pushed past her. She looked down at the writing. In bold letters were the words, “WANTED FOR TREASON”55 with mug shot looking photos of the president. Elaine wadded it up and threw it into the busboy’s dirty dishes bin. The busboy made a face at her. She looked over her shoulder to see if she could still catch one of the men who gave it to her. They were gone. She would have liked to give him a piece of her mind. How revolting, she thought to herself. Whoever printed these should be ashamed! What a horrible way to make people in Dallas look; uneducated, rude and hateful.
“Mama,” Gayle cried, “I have to go now!”
“I’ll take her, Elaine,” Ella offered. “You just save our booth.”
Elaine wriggled into the booth and gazed out the window. People were everywhere, inside and out. Elaine looked down at the watch she had gotten from her parents when she graduated from South Oak Cliff High School a little over a year ago. It was 12:19 P.M. She could see the crowds looking towards their left. The president must be coming and there would be no way they could see him from inside. She sighed in disappointment. She wanted her daughter to see the president as badly as she wanted to.
* * * * *
A few blocks down, Abraham Zapruder had rushed back from home to the Dal-Tex Building and was searching for a good place to film the Presidential Parade in Dealey Plaza. His receptionist, Marilyn Sitzman was with him, along with his bookkeeper Beatrice and her husband Charles Hester. He took pictures of all of them with his movie camera to check out the lighting before the parade began. Though Abraham was an amateur photographer, he wanted to make sure he got a wonderful film for his grandchildren and wife. They began their search for the perfect place to film at the far east side of the Plaza.
“Oh my, Mr. Z., this is the perfect place for pictures,” Marilyn cried. “Make sure you get one of Jackie, I just know she’ll be wearing something elegant.”
* * * * *
Zapruder chuckled and looked at his watch. It was 12:20 P.M. He wasn’t happy with any of the places they stopped at while walking through the plaza. He walked to the furthest point of Dealey Plaza, the part closest to the underpass, and saw a raised pergola and a few ledges. The first one he tried was too narrow and since he had vertigo,56 he had a hard time balancing himself. He then moved to another raised ledge, but there were too many branches and shrubbery obscuring his view. He finally found the place to take what would become the most historic home movie in history - a pergola about four feet high.
“Hold onto me, Marilyn, I don’t want to fall,” he said to his receptionist as he raised his Bell & Howell camera up to his face. About that time, motorcycles leading the parade turned onto Elm Street and he began filming. He heard Beatrice and Charles Hester cheering and clapping behind him.57
Across the street from Abraham Zapruder, Orville Nix had a tornado of thoughts racing through his mind, the most important one being, “Were Ella, Elaine, and Gayle okay?”
Just then, he heard a siren on Houston Street. Had someone been run over? As he turned around, he saw a man having an epileptic seizure58 across the street from the reflecting pond in the plaza. He was lying on the corner of Houston Street and Main, and the old red courthouse behind him seemed to be watching the man seize, with its ornate windows and blood-red brick. For a moment he froze, thinking of his experience with Edward as a child. The man was seizing violently and he could hear the chatter of men and women around him. They all just stood there watching the man as if they were watching a Punch and Judy Show playing out in front of them. He thought to run towards the man, and then decided against it. He couldn’t help the man, he could just empathize. The words of his daddy immediately rang in his ears, “You can only do what you can do, Orville.” He looked up at the skies thinking of Edward and noticed the Texas School Book Depository and the buildings across the street from it: the Dal-Tex Building and the County Court House. For a moment he wished he had worked in one of those buildings because the upper floors would have been a great place to watch the parade. Some of the windows seemed open, so he supposed that people had the same idea he had: watch the president from a comfortable place and enjoy the cool day. At the Dal-Tex building, he saw three women leaning outside the window. He still couldn’t shake the thoughts of Edward, so he turned again to look back where the man was. It was over. The ambulance was closing the back doors. The small crowd of onlookers had dispersed. He remembered that his sister Grace had said that sometimes excitement led to seizures with Edward. Maybe that man was excited about the parade. Then he thought about what his daddy had said years ago: “Hug your brother and thank him for making your life easier today.” He wondered if someone’s life had been made easier in downtown Dallas today. Maybe it was a distraction. But a distraction for what? To make people go home?
About that time, he heard the thousands of people cheering more loudly and heard the roar of the motorcycle escort engines. “Oh my God,” he thought, “I’m going to miss the whole parade.” He aimed his Keystone camera toward Houston Street where he had been waiting for his family. He looked towards the area where the epileptic man was earlier, again thinking of his brother Edward. He put his new camera to his eyes and took a few frames, but he didn’t get a close up of the president. All he had gotten was a shot of the president and his wife talking to each other and smiling happily and then Senator Ralph Yarbrough ‘s car moved into his viewfinder. That wouldn’t do. He would rather not have a movie of Ralph Yarbrough since he couldn’t stand that lying no-good. He walked faster down Main as the motorcade was moving very slowly it seemed to him the cars were moving less than five miles per hour. He wondered which car his friend Forrest was in as his eyes scanned the motorcade. The day was so beautiful and the sun so bright, it was as if everything from the people to the sidewalks glittered like gemstones.
He looked up at the Texas School Book Depository. The Hertz sign on top of the building blinked 12:30 P.M. in glittery red neon.
*****
HE SQUEEZED THE
CAMERA GRIP AS HE RAN
TOWARDS THE SLOW-
MOVING MOTORCADE.
WHAT WAS
HAPPENING?
Suddenly a shot rang out. Orville knew that sound. It was gunfire. Time stopped and Orville would later wonder how strange it was he had just looked at the huge clock atop the Texas School Book Depository Building. The cheering he had heard moments earlier had turned into screams. It was cacophonous. People were dive-bombing onto the ground in front of him as if terrorized missiles were dropping from the buildings and trees. He squeezed the camera grip as he ran towards the slow-moving motorcade. What was happening? Bang! Bang! Why were the cars moving as if in slow motion? Two more shots rang out in quick succession. This time he looked up towards the stockade fence. He was sure that’s where the shots came from. But he didn’t smell smoke. He didn’t see muzzle flashes. By this time Orville was acting on primal impulse. He saw people covering their children. He saw people running in all directions. Would he be shot? Should he find a place to hide?
There was no place in the plaza to take cover. He again looked towards the presidential limousine and
in that horrific moment saw the president’s head explode into brilliant shards of red confetti: glittery, red confetti. What was happening? The two motorcycle policemen were stopping and looking to their right.
The First Lady, wearing a pink suit and pink hat seemed to be trying to get out of the car. A man in a dark suit had jumped onto the back of the president’s car, was it Forrest? trying to push her back into the slow moving, midnight blue limousine. She seemed to be reaching for something. He heard another shot, or was it a backfire? My God, there are guns everywhere. Glints of shiny somethings were everywhere. Flashbulbs? Fireworks? Gunfire? He watched the limousine finally speed up and head towards the Triple Underpass. He stopped to catch his breath. He looked down at his hands and they were white knuckling the grip of his camera. Had he been taking pictures? Again, he looked up towards the stockade fence on the Elm Street side of the Plaza and policemen and people were running towards it. He began running and filming this time, since he couldn’t remember if he had been filming before, and filmed the hordes of people running up the plaza to the stockade fence and train yards.59 He thought that the shots had come from there. As he skillfully made his way through the crowds, he felt as if he were in a minefield. He looked to his right; another group of people were hurrying towards the Texas School Book Depository. Behind him, people were scampering towards Main Street. To his left people were moving quickly toward the policeman standing atop the Triple Underpass. He stopped filming. He had to find his family. But he also had to know what he had just witnessed. People were screaming. Some were still lying on the grass. Were they hit? He walked up to a few of them to check if they were okay. They were sobbing and scared. He saw a young couple across the street shielding their two young children. By this time, photographers were everywhere. So were policemen. Where the hell had they been before? Why was this happening?
The Missing JFK Assassination Film Page 6