Dealey Plaza in Dallas, with views of the Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll. Photo / The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
On a hot day in Dallas, Winston Aldworth finds there's still plenty of heat in the conspiracy theories
Spare a thought for poor old George Bannerman Dealey. He was, by all accounts, a good man. Born a poor kid in Manchester, England, in 1859, he emigrated with his family to the States, where he became a proud Texan and a pillar of the Dallas community, publishing the Dallas Morning News and leading the charge for civic development. Running the newspaper, he refused advertisements from dodgy oil prospectors and campaigned against the KKK. In his spare time, Mr Dealey was a director for a charitable kids' hospital. So, one of the good blokes.
It's not his fault that in history's page his name is forever linked to the murder most foul of America's most-beloved President.
Today, at Dealey Plaza, visitors wait for a break in the traffic so they can dash out on to the street to get their photo taken standing at the spot — helpfully, it's marked by an X — at which John F. Kennedy was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald. Well, most of them do. Some want their photo taken at the spot at which JFK was shot dead by the CIA. Still others are getting a snap at the place where he was whacked by the Mob. Or by Cuban spies. Me, I'm an Oswald man.
Up on the slight green incline of the world's most famous grassy knoll — many of us surely wouldn't know what a knoll was if it weren't for this unassuming bump — people wait patiently to take their turn standing on the plinth where Abraham Zapruder filmed the most complete footage of the assassination. Along a hedge just behind them, some of the fruitiest of the conspiracy theories have it that another shooter popped a bullet into the President from the front.
"You can see his head jolt backwards in the Zapruder film," says a man I meet at the grassy knoll. The bag over his shoulder is stuffed with pamphlets and for a couple of bucks you can get a pamphlet and a quick rant, most of which boils down to one inconclusive conclusion: "There's more to it than people think."
Do you like conspiracies about foul political killings? If so, the grassy knoll, an otherwise mundane incline with a perfect view of the otherwise mundane Elm St, is your spot.
Where Elm St meets Houston St, The Sixth Floor Museum — once home to the Texas School Book Depository — commands great views of both streets. If you did fancy shooting a man seated in the back of a slow-moving car, it'd be a cracking spot from which to take your shot.
That's what Oswald figured. The area around the sixth-floor window from which he shot the President has been meticulously restored to the state it was in on November 22, 1963. But this is no mere museum replica or carefully restored vintage piece: This is modern America's Garden of Gethsemane. A promised son was snatched away by a treacherous act at this crime scene. It now sits, preserved, behind glass.
Museum curators pored over photographs taken in the aftermath of the shooting and restored the area to match. The boxes that Oswald used to form into a sniper's nest are now tucked away in the US federal archives. Oswald's rifle is also there too, as is Mr Zapruder's camera. The museum staff had new cardboard boxes made with the same design and placed them exactly as Oswald had laid them out.
"They have the window set up to look exactly like it did on that day," said the late, great Bill Hicks. "And it's really accurate, you know. Because Oswald's not in it."
Oswald's sixth-floor perch is glassed off so you can't see out of the window, but you can have a gander from the matching window on the seventh floor. (They've set up a camera on the sixth floor with a live webcam feed. To see Oswald's view, go to earthcam.com.)
Before reaching the window, visitors to the sixth floor are taken through a comprehensive display about Kennedy's life, his presidency and the turbulent times in which he lead America — civil rights, Southeast Asia and a stand-off with the Soviets over missiles in Cuba. There's the smart, cream suit worn by Jim Leavelle, the Dallas detective who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby shot the assassin. Leavelle's shoes are there, works of hand-stitched beauty. The suit, given to Leavelle by a friend who no longer fitted it, came from an upmarket Dallas store, Neiman Marcus — it was more expensive than a detective's wages could afford back in 1963; it's recently been valued at about $110,000.
The old Book Depository, once a distribution centre for school books (Oswald had a job there in the weeks before the shooting), only became a museum in 1989. For a long time, the people of Dallas preferred visitors to wonder more about who shot JR than who shot JFK. Early attempts at setting up a museum in the city were privately run and haphazard at best.
These days, they're not ignoring the past. Rebecca, from Discover Dallas tours, says there's plenty to do.
"We've got great food and shopping, great museums and galleries. But we know plenty of people are interested in the Sixth Floor."
Many of the key figures from the day of the assassination are still around, the ordinariness of their lives casting a greyness over the grand vision of the conspiracy theories. For a while, former detective Leavelle worked with tour companies, showing visitors the sights, sharing his yarn. ("He's a great guy," says Rebecca.)
Associated Press reporter Pierce Allman did the voiceover work that you'll hear on the Sixth Floor Museum's headsets. He was outside the Book Depository on the day of the shooting and, when the shots rang out, he ran into the building looking for a telephone so he could call his office with the story of the century.
"Where's the phone?" he asked a man who was leaving the building. "In there," replied Lee Harvey Oswald. "Thank you," said the young reporter, as the most-sought-after interview subject in the world disappeared around the corner.
You can follow Oswald's path. He fled to Oak Cliff where people were gathering in the street to talk about news of the shooting. Rattled, he shot and killed a policeman, J.D. Tippet. Today, it's a regular suburban street; a "Crime Watch" sign hangs on a powerpole right next to where Oswald killed the cop.
A few streets over, he dashed through Santos auto repair shop — where not much has been done to the paintwork in half a century — and into a shoe store which has since become a shop selling bright debutante dresses for Mexican teenagers. He was caught a few doors along at the Texas Theatre, questioned at the Dallas police station and, a few days later, shot on his way to the courthouse.
Oswald's widow, Marina — a Russian emigre who spoke almost no English at the time of the assassination — dug in, raised their two kids and today lives in Dallas, where she remarried, settling down with a local guy called Ken who used to drive drag-racing cars. She's 73 and doesn't talk much to the press. Around the 50th anniversary, she turned down offers of $3 million for television interviews. A sign at the end of her driveway says "Keep Out", so most do.
Others are more forthcoming. At closing time at Lee Harvey's bar on Gould St, the staff serve me cans of the fantastic Deep Ellum IPA, a 7 per cent beer that makes any conspiracy theory sound believable. Clearly, these guys have been asked before, but they answer again. "Oswald fired the gun. But he wasn't working alone."
It's a sentiment echoed around Dallas, from the guy next to me at a baseball game at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington to every cab driver I meet. He pulled the trigger — he wasn't working alone.
I tell one cabbie about a book I've been reading: Case Closed, by Gerald Posner, who lines up all the conspiracy theories and knocks them all down. Posner does a terrific job — if you're a history buff, you should read it.
"No need to read it," the cabbie tells me. "They killed him. It's a fact."
Sometimes, it's more fun — and more polite — to just go along for the ride.
All the visitors to Dealey Plaza come and go under the watchless gaze of a three-and-a-half-metre bronze statue of George Dealey.
Amid the prosperous towers of Dallas — a city built on the commerce of oil and agriculture in its surrounding region, like a big, hot Hamilton — Dealey Plaza is an elegant spot to be shot. Built in tribute to the city's founders, it already had the look and feel of a memorial before Kennedy arrived. Later, the city erected JFK's memorial just around the corner.
"You know," says the guy with the pamphlets, as he gives a significant nod. "Dealey was a Freemason..."
Sports fans
It pays to have a local for company to explain what's going on at a baseball game. And Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is a fine place to learn the basics of this most American of pastimes.
Rangers Ballpark is next door to AT&T Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys. Any fan of oval-ball sport will appreciate this superb NFL temple. If you can't make it to a game, then book a stadium tour, which includes a visit to the players' dressing room and to the cheerleaders' changing room too.
History buffs
I can outrun a T-Rex. In the basement of the superb Perot Museum of Nature and Science (built by the family of former independent US presidential candidate Ross Perot) visitors can test their speed along a 16.7m track against a variety of speedy creatures (including a Dallas Cowboys running back, a gymnast and a cheetah), which appear on a screen running the length of the track. Pro tip: T-Rex is slow from a standing start, but the cheetah is pretty much gone before you've blinked. The museum's best bit is upstairs, where a T-Rex skeleton stalks a giant plant eater, with the full skeleton of a mammoth standing nearby.
Whether George W. Bush is your cup of tea or not, his presidential library makes for fascinating viewing. Items from his time in office, and indeed a 1:1 replica of the Oval Office (smaller than you think), sit with information panels about his White House years. Hmm, I didn't realise Iraq was now a stable democracy.
Food and shopping
The cool kids in Dallas are over at the Bishop Arts District. It's a great place to shop, eat and drink. It's a small, chilled-out area which is pedestrian-friendly and filled with boutique shops, excellent eateries and some good coffee shops. In the evening, the hipsters come out to play, with some of Dallas' best bars opening their doors. Don't leave Texas until you've had lunch at the Lockhart Smokehouse.
Getting there: Qantas flies six flights weekly from Auckland to Dallas, via the airline's hub in Sydney.
Further information: See discoverdallastours.com
The writer travelled courtesy of Qantas and the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau.
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