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Dealey Plaza (IPA pronunciation: ), in the historic West End district of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA), is infamous as the location of the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963.
History
Dealey Plaza is Dallas' city park completed in 1940 on the west edge of downtown Dallas where three streets converge (Main Street, Elm Street, and Commerce Street) to pass under a railroad bridge known locally as the triple underpass. The plaza is named for George Bannerman Dealey (1859–1946), an early publisher of The Dallas Morning News and civic leader, and the man who had campaigned for the area's revitalization. Many believe the monuments outlining the plaza are there to honor President Kennedy, but they actually honor previous prominent Dallas residents and predate President Kennedy's visit by many years. The actual Dallas monument to Kennedy, in the form of a cenotaph, is located one block away. Dealey Plaza is historically known as the site of the first Masonic temple in Dallas (now razed), and there is a marker attesting to this fact in the plaza.
Kennedy assassination
Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination
Dealey Plaza is bounded on the south, east, and north sides by 100+ foot (30+ m) tall buildings. One of those buildings is the former Texas School Book Depository building, from which both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired a rifle that killed President John F. Kennedy. There is also a grassy knoll on the northwest side of the plaza, from which the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined there was a "high probability" that a second gunman also fired at President Kennedy, but missed. At the plaza's west perimeter is a triple underpass beneath a railroad bridge, under which the motorcade raced after the shots were fired.
Today, the plaza is typically filled with tourists visiting the assassination site and The Sixth Floor Museum that now occupies the top two floors of the seven story former Book Depository. Since 1989, more than 5 million people have visited the museum.
Two sources of information that include the location of each witness on picture of the site with the witness's key testimony can be found here and here. One of the better-scaled maps of Dealey Plaza showing witnesses locations and observations, suspected assassins locations, evidentiary artifacts, and other valuable information can be found here.
The United States National Park Service designated Dealey Plaza a National Historic Landmark in 1993. Therefore, nothing of significance has been torn down or rebuilt in the immediate area. (A small plaque commemorating the assassination exists in the plaza.)
Visitors to Dealey Plaza today will see street lights and street signs that were in use in 1963, though some have been moved to different locations and others removed entirely. Buildings immediately surrounding the plaza have not been changed since 1963, presenting a stark contrast to the ultra-modern Dallas skyline that rises behind it.
Over the last 40+ years, Elm Street has been resurfaced several times; street lane stripes have been relocated; sidewalk lamp posts have been moved and added; trees, bushes and hedges have grown; and some traffic sign locations have been changed, relocated or removed. In late 2003, the city of Dallas approved construction project plans to restore Dealey Plaza to its exact appearance on November 22, 1963. As of 2004, voters had approved US$500,000 of the $3,000,000 needed.
The "Grassy Knoll"
The "grassy knoll" of Dealey Plaza is a small, sloping hill inside the plaza that became infamous following the John F. Kennedy assassination. The knoll was above President Kennedy and to his right (west and north) during the assassination on 22 November 1963.
The north grassy knoll is bounded by the former Texas School Book Depository building along the Elm Street abutment side street to the northeast, Elm Street and a sidewalk to the south, a parking lot to the north and east, and a railroad bridge atop the triple underpass convergence of Commerce, Main, and Elm streets to the west.
Located near the north grassy knoll on 22 November 1963, were several witnesses; three large traffic signposts; four sidewalk lamp posts; the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure, including its two enclosed shelters; a tool shed; one 3.3 foot (1 m) high concrete wall connected to each of the pergola shelters; ten tall, wide, low-hanging live oak trees; a 5 foot (1.5 m) tall, wooden, cornered, stockade fenceline approximately 176 feet (53.6 m) long; six street curb sewers openings, their sewer manholes, and their interconnecting large pipes; and numerous 2 to 6 foot (0.6 to 1.8 m) tall bushes, trees, and hedges. Behind the stockade fence was the train control tower in which Lee Bowers was working during the assassination. Bowers testified to the Warren Commission:
“Yes, there were three cars that came in during the time from around noon until the time of the shooting... The first car was a 1959 Oldsmobile, blue and white station wagon with out of state license... at approximately... 12:20... There was another car which was a 1957 black Ford, with one white male in it that seemed to have a mike or telephone or something... He was holding something up to his mouth with one hand and he was driving with the other... Had a Texas License... Third car, which entered the area, which was some seven or nine minutes before the shooting, I believe was a 1961 or 1962 Chevrolet, four door Impala, white showed signs of being on the road. It was muddy up to the windows, bore a similar out of state license to the first car I observed, occupied also by one white male... He spent a little more time in the area...The last I saw of him he was pausing just about in--just above the assassination site... The sounds came either from up against the school depository building or near the mouth of the triple underpass... at the time similarity of sounds occurring in either of those two locations... Directly in line, towards the mouth of the underpass, there were two men. One man middle aged or slightly older, fairly heavy set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about mid twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket... They were facing and looking up towards Main and Houston, and following the caravan as it came down. There were one or two people in the area. Each had uniforms… At the time of the shooting there seemed to be some kind of commotion, and immediately following there was a motorcycle policeman who shot nearly all of the way to the top of the incline... He was part of the motorcade and had left in for some reason, which I did not know... I am just unable to describe rather it was something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason, which I could not identify... A large number of people came... between 50 and a hundred policemen within a maximum of 5 minutes...”
Bowers also gave a statement to the same effect the day of the assassination marked as Warren Commission Exhibit 2003.
This testimony is consistently misrepresented by Warren Commission apologists. For example Jim Bishop’s book ‘The Day Kennedy Was Shot’ summed up Lee Bowers’ statements in just one paragraph on page 142.
“Behind the lot, the railroad towerman, Lee Bowers, Jr. could see the parking lot, the railroad tracks, the overpass, and the back of the Depository, without moving from his big window. He had heard no shots, seen no smoke, seen no one leave the area. As the police flooded the trestle and back lots, Bowers threw red-on-red block signals from the switchtower, effectively stopping all trains.”
It is unclear how any objective journalist could conclude Bowers “heard no shots” since he clearly testified, “I heard three shots. One, then a slight pause, then two very close together. Also reverberation from the shots.”
In 1991 filmmaker Oliver Stone was falsely accused of distorting Bowers’ testimony in his film ‘JFK’ when it was dramatized by actor Pruitt Taylor Vince. Vince mentions seeing a “flash of light” from the grassy knoll. Stone explained in the DVD audio commentary that several scenes were composites for dramatic purposes. While Bowers said no such thing during his testimony he did mention a flash of light when being interview by Mark Lane for the documentary ‘Rush To Judgment’
The first person to rush the grassy knoll was motorcycle officer Joe Smith. He testified:
“There was some deputy sheriff with me and I believe one Secret Service man when I got there... I pulled my pistol from my holster and I thought, this is silly, I don’t know who I am looking for, and I put it back. Just as I did, he showed me that he was a Secret Service agent… Well, he saw me coming with my pistol and right away he showed me who he was.”
Smith stated during an interview with Anthony Summers:
“The man, this character, produces credentials from his pocket which showed him to be Secret Service. I have seen those credentials before, and they satisfied me... He had on a sports shirt and sport pants. But he had dirty fingernails, it looked like, and hands that looked like an auto mechanic’s hands. And afterwards it didn’t ring true for the Secret Service... At the time we were so pressed for time and we were searching. And he had produced correct identification and we just overlooked the thing. I should have checked the man closer, but at the time, I didn’t snap on it.”
Officer Seymour Weitzman also rushed the grassy knoll after the assassination. Weitzman told the Warren Commission that behind the grassy knoll he found, “...other officers, Secret Service as well.”
These sightings are important because all of the Secret Service agents had accompanied the president to Parkland Hospital. The first agent to return was Forrest V. Sorrels an hour after the assassination. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded, “The Committee was unable to resolve the contradiction.”
On the knoll itself were nine witnesses: groundskeeper Emmett Hudson and two other men, standing on the stairs of a walk going from Elm Street to a parking lot; a young black couple eating lunch on a bench in an alcove along that same walk; Abraham Zapruder and his employee Marilyn Sitzman, standing on a pedestal on the west end of the pergola; and Zapruder employee Beatrice Hester and her husband Charles, sitting on a bench at the eastern end of the pergola.
Hudson gave no opinion as to the direction of the gunshots. Zapruder testified to shots from the knoll. Marilyn Sitzman was not called as a witness. In a interview with Josiah Thompson she has no opinion as to the direction of the shots. Charles Hester stated in an affidavit the day of the assassination that he and his wife heard shots from the knoll. Beatrice did not give a separate statement.
Police officers J.W. Foster and J.C. White were to provide security on the triple underpass, turning away reporters who sought the best possible view of Dealey Plaza. But Foster and White did allow some railroad workers to work on the tracks. As the parade approached, they stopped working to see the President. Almost all serious researches of the assassination have cited these police officers and railroad workers as being some of the most important witnesses in Dealey Plaza. Yet the mainstream media has completely ignored them.
S.M. Holland was on the triple underpass. He heard the shots coming from the grassy knoll, and saw smoke coming up from the trees.
“There was a shot, a report, I don’t know whether it was a shot. I can’t say that. And a puff of smoke came out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground right out from under those trees. And at just about this location from where I was standing you could see that puff of smoke, like someone had thrown a firecracker, or something out, and that is just about the way it sounded. It wasn’t as loud as the previous reports or shots... I have no doubt about seeing that puff of smoke come out from under those trees either.”
Afterwards Holland ran behind the grassy knoll to see what had happened. He said there were dozens of police officers and assumed they had the situation under control. He also saw one of the cars that Bowers described.
J.W. Foster said he too saw smoke on the grassy knoll.
Austin Miller said, “I saw something which I thought was smoke or steam coming from a group of trees north of Elm off the railroad tracks.”
James L. Simmons was never called as a witness before the Warren Commission, but was by Jim Garrison during Clay Shaw’s trial. “Well, after I heard the shots I looked to see if I could see where they were coming from and underneath the trees up the grassy knoll by the fence I detected what appeared to be a puff or wisp of smoke.”
Nolan Potter, Richard Dodd, and Clemon Johnson also said they saw smoke come off the grassy knoll.
Significantly, even witnesses standing directly in front of the Book Depository such as Roy Truly and Billy Lovelady testified the only gunshots they heard came from the grassy knoll.
The Warren Commission concluded on page 71 of their report that many witnesses rushed the grassy knoll because they were “fleeing” the shots. Of the 552 witnesses to testify before the Commission not single one testified they were “fleeing” the gunshots.
Tests performed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations’s acoustical experts prove that neither the grassy knoll nor the Book Depository witnesses were mistaken. After examining an audio recording of the assassination taken by Officer H.B. McLain, acoustical experts Mark Weiss, James Barger, and Ernest Aschkenasy testified shots were fired from the Book Depository and there was a 95% chance or better that shots were fired from the grassy Knoll.
Because of persistent debate, answered and unanswered questions, and conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination and the possible related role of the grassy knoll, the term "grassy knoll" has come to also be a modern slang expression indicating suspicion, conspiracy, or a cover-up.
External links
- Dealey Plaza stock photography, Creative Commons licensed.
- Texas Twisted: JFK Assassination Tour with color photos of Dealey Plaza.
- Bronson photo of the eastern half of the grassy knoll during the assassination.
- Willis photo of the western two-thirds of the grassy knoll during the assassination.
- Dallas to Dealey: The History of Dallas and Dealey Plaza.
- Dealey Plaza Cam — a view from the sixth floor window.
- Dr. Thomas study of the grassy knoll shot, March 2001.
- Dr. Thomas study of the grassy knoll shot, November 2001.
- Dr. Thomas study of the grassy knoll shot, September 2002.
- Dr. Thomas study of the grassy knoll shot, November 2002.
- Dr. Thomas study of the grassy knoll shot, December 2003; Court-tv rebuttal.
- The Man Who Named the Grassy Knoll, by Gary Mack of The Sixth Floor Museum.
References
- Historicist.com - The Mystics, The Masons and Dallas Theological Seminary by James Whisler. Retrieved 25 October 2006.
- Dallas Morning News — 27 January 2004. "Assassination still stirs memories, debate 40 years later" by the Associated Press (AP). Retrieved 25 October 2006.
- Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Lee E. Bowers, Jr.
- Dealey, Jerry T. (2002). D in the Heart of Texas. JEDI Management Group. ISBN 0-9723913-0-4. (includes history of Dealey Plaza).
- Posner, Gerald (1993). Case Closed. Random House. ISBN 0-679-41825-3. (pp. 238-242, unraveling of acoustic evidence in JFK conspiracy finding).
32°46′43″N 96°48′30″W / 32.77861°N 96.80833°W / 32.77861; -96.80833
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