DALLAS - The piano on which the late John Lennon composed his famous anti-war song Imagine made an odd appearance yesterday at the site where US President John F. Kennedy was gunned down, competing for attention with conspiracy buffs on the 43rd anniversary of the assassination.
The plain-looking
brown piano has been brought to America for exhibits by British pop star George Michael and his partner Kenny Goss.
Michael bought it in 2000 at an auction for £1.45 million ($4.13 million).
"George and Kenny are very focused on world peace and they wanted to bring the piano here as a message of peace at this iconic site," said Barbara Buzzell, spokeswoman for the Goss Gallery in Dallas, where the piano goes on display next month.
The piano spent the morning covered in canvas at the so-called "grassy knoll", where many conspiracy theorists are convinced at least one unknown shooter fired the shots that killed Kennedy as his motorcade swept past.
Investigators maintain the act was carried out by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and that he fired the shots from the sixth-floor window of what was then the Texas School Book Depository building.
Oswald was himself subsequently gunned down while in police custody.
Dozens of conspiracy believers were out in force at the site yesterday, hawking cloak and dagger books with titles such as High Treason. An Elvis impersonator was also on hand.
But the piano briefly stole the show after its canvas was whipped off for a few minutes.
"It's kind of weird. It seems people care more about a musician who wasn't even from America than they do about JFK," said Danny Steis, a 25-year-old bystander taking in the proceedings with his niece under a cloudless Dallas sky.
- REUTERS
