Above, Elm Street in Dealey Plaza in 2021. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
President Donald Trump is continuing to make good on his campaign promises.
The latest is that he issued an executive order to declassify and release the remaining files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
According to CBS News:
President Trump announced that he'll declassify any remaining files from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He signed an executive order at the White House Thursday.
After an aide announced the president was signing the executive action "ordering the declassification of files relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.," Mr. Trump said, "That's a big one, huh? A lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years, for decades."
The president instructed his aide to give the pen he used to sign the order to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and Mr. Trump's nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services. The elder Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general and New York senator and was a Democratic presidential candidate when he was slain in 1968.
Above, a view of Elm Street in Dealey Plaza two windows away from Oswald's sniper's window. Photo by Armand Vaquer
Sixty years is a long time. I can still remember that day almost as if it were yesterday.
Today marks the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. I was in fourth grade at the time at Woodcrest Elementary School in Los Angeles.
Above, a view of Elm Street and the former Texas School Book Depository Building. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
I had just finished lunch in the school cafeteria and got up to bring my tray and dishes to the busboy window. It was there at the window I was told that Kennedy was assassinated, and the school’s flag had been lowered to half-staff. I left the cafeteria and went outside and saw that the flag was indeed at half-staff.
I then went to the playground for the remainder of the lunch hour.
Minutes later, the bell rang for everyone to return to class.
Above, a view of Elm Street from Main Street in 1984. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
There, in class, our teacher tearfully confirmed what had happened. Everyone was in stunned silence. Then, a fire drill bell started ringing and we all headed out to the playground. There, outside of the auditorium at the top of a stairway, the school principal, over a public address system, also told everyone the news and had everyone sing patriotic songs.
He also announced that school would be dismissed for the day following the program.
Above, Oswald's sniper's nest recreated in the Sixth Floor Museum. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
I then headed home (I only lived across the street from the school) with a friend from the Cub Scouts. His mother wasn’t at home so he came home with me. After getting home, we watched the television coverage with my mom. All programming on all television stations were preempted by the assassination coverage. This would ultimately be the case throughout the weekend until after Kennedy’s funeral on Monday, November 25.
Much of what was repeatedly shown was the Kennedys at the breakfast in Fort Worth, their arrival at Love Field and some footage of the motorcade. Later, a live feed from Andrews Air Force Base showing the arrival of Air Force One was shown and Lee Harvey Oswald under arrest.
Above, a view of Elm Street from the grassy knoll area. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
As this was a Friday, my family usually went out for dinner. But, for the life of me, I cannot remember if we did or ate at home.
Nobody who was alive at the time would ever forget, just like other generations who remember what they were doing and how they learned about Pearl Harbor and September 11.
Above, the Kennedy limousine after it passed under the triple underpass from a display in the Sixth Floor Museum.
Since then, I have visited Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas twice, being a history buff. The first was during the 1984 Republican National Convention and the second was in January 2021. A visit to the Sixth Floor Museum in the former Texas School Book Depository Building is well worth a visit.
For those who wish to delve further into the Kennedy assassination, these DVDs are recommended:
Above, this DVD by the History Channel is the best one. It covers the assassination and what transpired since, including conspiracy theories.
Above, this National Geographic DVD covers much of the same as the History Channel DVD.
Above, this DVD shows the Zapruder film from sharp photographic copies made from the original camera film.
Below is a video I took of former Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, now 91, giving a talk on the assassination at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California on June 11, 2016.
Above, a view of Elm Street from a sixth floor window of the former Texas School Book Depository. This window is two windows to the west of the actual sniper's window. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
To date, roughly 97% of the previously withheld classified JFK assassination documents have been released. Yesterday, 13,000 more were released.
There's 3% remaining. People are already asking, What are they hiding?
Above, the sniper's next at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
The Gateway Pundit has jumped into the fray.
They wrote:
In 2017 President Trump approved the release of approximately 2800 long-classified JFK assassination records.
News outlets from around the globe furiously combed through the files in search of more pieces to the puzzling death of President John F. Kennedy.
President Trump released a second trove of documents later that year.
One of the documents revealed that Democrat President Lyndon Johnson was a KKK member.
This was not a surprise.
The Ku Klux Klan was founded as the activist wing of the Democratic Party.
On Thursday the National Archives released thousands of the JFK documents.
But the FBI-CIA would not allow the release of all of the documents. Around 3% of the JFK documents are still being withheld from release to the public — more than 50 years after the assassination.
What are they hiding?
We know how trustworthy the CIA and FBI are these days, don't we?
Above, inside one of Dallas Love Field's terminals last year. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Crazies firing guns in public places apparently aren't confined to 20-something males.
A woman was taken into custody after being shot by police after she fired a gun in a Dallas Love Field terminal yesterday. Fortunately, nobody else in the terminal was injured.
She was identified as Portia Odufuwa, 37. She has a lengthy criminal record, including bank robbery.
According to the Gateway Pundit:
A shooting was reported at Dallas Love Field Airport Monday morning.
According to Dallas police, a 37-year-old woman was shot after firing several rounds inside Dallas Love Field Airport.
NBCDFW reported that the woman was dropped off at the airport and immediately walked into a bathroom where she changed her clothing.
The woman walked out of the bathroom wearing a hoodie and began shooting at the ceiling before police shot her in her ‘lower extremities.’
The woman was transported from the airport and taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where her condition is unknown.
I was last at Dallas Love Field a year and a half ago when I took a trip to Dallas and Fort Worth to see the John Wayne: An American Experience, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and Southfork Ranch.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, housed in the former Texas School Book Depository building, posted the following on Facebook:
When I was in Dallas last year, I didn't think to visit Parkland Hospital as I was aware that the original building had been remodeled, probably more than once. The emergency entrance was also changed and actually moved to a different, and newer building.
Trauma Room 1, where Kennedy was pronounced dead, was dismantled and its contents had been saved and in storage near Kansas City, Missouri according to a WFAA article.
Above, Oswald's sniper's nest recreated. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Today marks the 58th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
Mitch Geriminsky and I visited the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza last January.
Above, a view of Elm Street from the stockade fence. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
The Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza posted a video this morning of some newly-discovered photographic negatives of that day taking by Dallas Times Herald photographers.
Since we're supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow, I am glad that I picked up a couple of books while visiting the Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza last week.
They were Twenty-Six Seconds by Alexandra Zapruder (a personal history of the Zapruder film) and Assassination and Commemoration by Stephen Fagin (a history of the Sixth Floor Museum). When I bought the Fagin book, I didn't notice that it was autographed by the author, so that was a nice surprise.
Alexandra Zapruder is Abraham Zapruder's granddaughter.
I finished the Fagin book last night and started the Zapruder book today. I am not quite half way though it and already I came away with two observations: News reporters can be boorish idiots and Dan Rather was a jerk even back in 1963. So, while it's snowing, I can curl up and read tomorrow.
Since it'll likely snow all day tomorrow, I headed into Gallup for some grocery shopping. I hadn't driven the Mustang in over a week, so its battery could use a good charge to fight the cold weather.
Hopefully, the snow tomorrow won't be too bad since I have to go get my mail down at the Flying J. A LP record I ordered over a month ago is finally showing up. The last report (this morning) from the USPS said it is en route from Albuquerque.
Tomorrow promises to be a good readin' weather day.
As this month marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the city of Dallas is expected to be deluged with visitors.
There are several historical sites to see in Dallas and Japan Today has an article on most of them.
They start with:
DALLAS —A 1930s-era movie theater. A county hospital. An old brick rooming house. A bustling airport.
Sites associated with the assassination of President John F Kennedy on Nov 22, 1963 are scattered throughout Dallas and beyond.
“These were just ordinary places — an airport, a hospital, a movie theater, a house, city streets — that were all of a sudden, literally in a blink of an eye, catapulted into this national spotlight,” said Mark Doty, historic preservation officer for the city.
As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the murder, the places connected to Kennedy’s final hours — and to his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald — still resonate.
Back in 1984, I was on the California Reagan Delegation to the Republican National Convention in Dallas. While there, I did take a tour of Dealey Plaza. The 6th Floor Museum at the former Texas School Book Depository was being planned at the time and not yet opened.
