American History's Greatest Mystery

It’s perhaps somewhat debatable, but you could call it this country’s greatest mystery.

And – nearly 60 years later – it remains unresolved in the minds of many.

There are many dates that witnessed profoundly life-changing events in America's history. Like Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Nov. 22, 1963 was a day that America’s future changed in an instant.

Most every American knows that was the date when – on a sunny day in Dallas, Texas – President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

And while there’s no doubt JFK was murdered that day in front of his wife and thousands of spectators, we can’t agree to this very day about the details of his killing.

I was 13 years old when it happened. It was a Friday afternoon, and I recall I was a seventh grader sitting in study hall and probably looking forward to the end of the school week and the upcoming pre-Thanksgiving weekend when the study hall monitor tearfully announced the news coming out of Texas.

Kennedy’s open-top limo was wrapping up a slow cruise through the streets of Dallas and had just pulled onto a short stretch of Elm Street through a small park called Dealey Plaza to begin its way back to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport when the shots rang out.

That began an unforgettable week – for those old enough to remember it – when JFK’s presumed killer – an extremely odd man named Lee Harvey Oswald – was himself assassinated in the basement of the Dallas Courthouse where he was about to be transferred to a more secure facility.

A man named Jack Ruby – later found to have organized crime connections – used his friendship with local cops to gain access to the basement at that exact moment and shoot Oswald to death.

And millions of Americans watched – in horror – as Oswald’s murder unfolded on live national television. A murder that silenced any further interrogation of Oswald concerning co-conspirators and exact motive.

A special bipartisan group called the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy. Oswald, a former Marine who had gone to Russia to live because he didn’t like America, moved back to Dallas and obtained a job at the Texas School Book Depository shortly before Kennedy’s visit.

Who killed JFK? There’s not much doubt that Oswald fired the first two shots at Kennedy from a School Book Depository sixth-floor corner window, with one shot entering the president’s back and exiting his throat. This was confirmed in the so-called Zapruder film taken by Dallas resident Abraham Zapruder in Dealey Plaza as JFK’s car passed by.

But a third shot – the “kill” shot – appears to come from the front, blasting into Kennedy’s right temple and pushing his head backward and to the left.

That shot, according to many witnesses in Dealey Plaza, seemed to come from the so-called grassy knoll slightly above Elm Street and to JFK’s right.

In other words, a coordinated effort by TWO assassins strategically placed to provide crossfire against a slow-moving, extremely vulnerable target.

For many years, I told myself I had to visit Dealey Plaza to see how everything fit together. But Life always somehow got in the way, and Dallas is a long way from where I live in Northern Colorado.

But last week my Sweet Wife and I finally made the 15-hour drive to Dallas ( I hate flying, and the idea of a Road Trip appealed to us).

And I’m glad I finally did it. To me, it is obvious that the “kill shot” to Kennedy’s forehead came from the front – likely just above the grassy knoll. There is a fence there (not the original but similar in height) where a shooter could level a rifle and easily hit Kennedy sitting in a slow-moving, open-top vehicle.

Who might this person be or be working for? What makes this killing so mysterious is Kennedy had many enemies: organized crime, Cuban immigrants unhappy with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion overseen by JFK, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who the U.S. had tried unsuccessfully to assassinate, the Russians – embarrassed by Kennedy demanding the removal of their missiles from Cuba in 1962 – and even some in America, including militant right-wingers and Kennedy-hating FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

So many possibilities, but nothing ever stuck. And while thousands of pages of assassination documents have been slowly released over the last six decades, there remain many that continue to be kept secret.

But why? Why can’t the American people finally know the entire truth of that day? Democrat and Republican presidents have come and gone, but many portions of the documents remain secret.

In fact, President Joe Biden recently OK'd another batch of assassination docs to be released.

But again -- not everything.

While I was there, I learned Dallas is preparing for another BIG commemoration of the event next month. Probably good for the local economy, as interest in the assassination never dies.

Will we ever know the Whole Truth about that fateful day? I’m not betting on it, but the National Geographic Channel will air a three-part look at the event beginning Nov. 5.

Check it out and see what you think.