Gigantic Plague to "Honor" JFK Will Be Placed on Grassy Knoll

URGENT - URGENT -URGENT

THIS MUST BE STOPPED, AT ALL COSTS THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Now I'm not calling for the stopping of the entire memorial the Dallas elite have planned, though I do have plenty of problems with that, no, this is something new.  The Dallas power elite want to hoist a gigantic plague, 3 and 1/2 feet by 15 feet long that will be placed somewhere on the grassy knoll.  Such a plague would forever change the nature of the grassy knoll.  I suspect it will be placed in such a manner as to obscure and obliterate sight lines of trhe suspected areas where a grassy knoll assassin may have stood.  Think of the grassy knoll as it exists today.  Now, think, where would you put a 3 and 1/2 feet by 15 feet long plague? BTW, this will be in addition to various markers giving the official 6th Floor viewpoint of the assassination.

Dealey Plaza Memorial Planed for 50th anniversary of JFK Assassination

A message that President John F. Kennedy intended to deliver to the people of Dallas will be immortalized this year, in time for the 50th anniversary of his death.

Leaders of the city’s official commemoration of that event have been planning a large memorial plaque in Dealey Plaza that will quote the final paragraph of a speech Kennedy was to give at the Trade Mart on Nov. 22, 1963.

He was on his way to deliver that speech when he was assassinated by a sniper as the presidential motorcade passed through the plaza.

Plans call for his words to be written in 2-inch-high letters on a plaque 3½ feet wide by 15 feet long that will be placed in the ground on the grassy knoll on the north side of the plaza.

“We didn’t think a monument of a man on horseback or something that looked like a tombstone would be appropriate,” said Ruth Altshuler, chairwoman of the 50th Committee. “But we got a copy of the speech and thought it was very moving and ought to be remembered.”

The proposal, presented a few weeks ago to a subcommittee of the City Landmark Commission, goes to the full commission next month. If approved by the city, it will go before the Texas Historical Commission for final approval.

The state commission acts on behalf of the National Park Service, which in 1993 designated Dealey Plaza a National Historic District. That designation carries strict rules to protect the immediate environment of the plaza, ensuring that it will look as it did 50 years ago.

The proposal to keep the memorial only slightly raised off the ground is expected to allay concerns. Willis Winters, Dallas Park and Recreation director, said the state commission has informally approved the plans.

“It won’t be a monument. It’s not something that will be standing up,” Winters said.

Much about the memorial remains undecided. Planners rejected using granite, which looked too much like a tombstone.

One proposal calls for the plaque to be molded out of steel; another calls for the letters to be inlaid in concrete. Because of those uncertainties, there is no final estimate on the cost, which will be funded by private donations, Altshuler said.

Like the memorial itself, its completion will be low-key. There are no plans for a formal unveiling.

“The feeling was that a ceremony would attract large crowds and it would take away from the dignity of what we’re trying to do,” Altshuler said.

Instead, the plaque will be recognized as part of Mayor Mike Rawlings’ speech at the 50th-anniversary ceremonies in November.

The original Kennedy speech is perhaps best known for the line, “We in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.”

Committee members felt the eloquence of Kennedy’s words was the best way to honor his memory.

“The words themselves were so uplifting, we thought it was right to place them in a place that had brought so much grieving,” said Deedie Rose, the 50th Committee member tasked with developing the memorial.

Altshuler said that after the 50th-anniversary commemoration, it’s unlikely that there will be more physical representations of the assassination on the plaza.

“It’s the last thing we’re ever likely to add out there,” she said. “Unless it would be for the 100th.”

FINAL LINES

The final paragraph of the speech President John F. Kennedy was to deliver in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963:

We in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility — that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint — and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal — and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

SOURCE: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Who Died and Made the Sixth Floor Museum the King of Dealey Plaza?

Get Off My Lawn:
By Jim Schutze Thu., May 16 2013
Who Died and Made the Sixth Floor Museum the King of Dealey Plaza?

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/05/who_died_and_made_the_sixth_fl.php

Last night the history group called Preservation Dallas gave a special award to Lindalyn Adams, one of the people who created The Sixth Floor, the Kennedy assassination museum downtown.

That's great. She deserves it. Now I want to know why The Sixth Floor got Robert Groden thrown in the slammer.

Groden is a best-selling author whose books argue that the killing of the president in Dallas a half century ago was a conspiracy. On weekends, when tourists, including plenty of assassination buffs, flock to downtown to visit Dealey Plaza where it happened, Groden sets up a table there and lectures and sells books and videos. After ticketing, arresting and jailing him on multiple occasions over the years, the city of Dallas has backed off, apparently agreeing with Groden's lawyers that he was never breaking the law in the first place.

But Groden still has a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city plodding its way slowly through the court system. I hope someday the lawsuit will answer my question.

In today's Dallas Morning News story about the award for Adams, the executive director of the museum, Nicola Longford, makes a statement that is quite telling, if you're as close to this stuff as I have been. It's your typical Morning News party-pix happy-talk everybody's-just-GRAND-GRAND story, in which Longford says, "The Sixth Floor has a collective responsibility to maintain the landmark district site."

Oh, is that right? When exactly did that duty get assigned to the museum? Is that responsibility the reason security personnel from the museum asked the Dallas PD to go arrest Groden on June 10, 2010? That was the city's version later, under oath, when they responded to Groden's lawsuit. The cops told the court they popped Groden and threw
him in the Lew Sterrett jail because a security guard from the museum told them to. This is after Longford told me the museum had nothing to do with it -- apparently not a truthful statement, if the city is to be believed.

Listen: Adams and curator/designer Connover Hunt did the city a huge solid by saving the School Book Depository Building and turning the sixth-floor "sniper's nest" into a museum. Had it been up to the usual owners that be in Dallas, the building would have been imploded and the site turned into an animatronic Biblical theme park.

But the mission of the museum has been perverted in recent years. It has become a kind of enforcement arm for the ilk of people in Dallas who can't stand controversy about the assassination. Their official line, as purveyed by the museum, is that some lone nut named Oswald did it, that's it, forget about it, it wasn't Dallas' fault.

For all I know that's true. But it's also true that a whole bunch of people disagree, and the intensity of that debate is higher this year because of the impending 50th anniversary of the event. The city has gone to absurd lengths to control that anniversary, giving itself permits that will effectively lock down Dealey Plaza and bar the general
public during the entire week of the event.

Why? Who? Who wants this done? Who is afraid of what being said? And why is the museum, which touts itself as a center for scholarly research, out there in the plaza with the gendarmes getting somebody who disagrees
with them about history hauled off to the slammer? Who told Longford it was any of her damn business what goes on in Dealey Plaza?

Right now, as the anniversary approaches, the fact that somebody in Dallas is still this touchy about it is the most interesting thing about the anniversary. Otherwise I'm not sure many people would pay attention. But apparently somebody with a lot of stroke in this city wants the bolts screwed down tight on free speech in Dealey Plaza that week. Why?

Tunheim gives presentation on JFK assassination

In the Interest of History

U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim speaks about the Kennedy Assassination during Thursday’s Law Day event at the Lowell Inn. Tunheim was chairman of the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board that examined records related to JFK’s 1963 shooting death.

The November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains one of America’s most debated and discussed historic events. What members of the local Lions and Rotary International clubs learned at their annual Law Day event Thursday is that history is sometimes best left open to interpretation with the facts.

U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim, the featured speaker at Thursday’s event at the Lowell Inn Banquet Center in Stillwater, was chairman of the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board for four years. The board was established in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush and continued by President Bill Clinton. The board was created as an independent agency to re-examine for release JFK assassination-related records that federal agencies still regarded as too sensitive to open to the public. The board was not to come to conclusions, but simply declassify the records.

“As you and I all know there is some fairly broad disagreement about who is responsible for what happened that day. Our job was to open records to the public and let them decide for themselves what happened in the days after the assassination.” Tunheim told his audience. “We’ve all heard the conspiracy theories, and I feel that the secrecy at the time of the assassination did have an impact on those.”

Tunheim gave a brief overview of the events of Nov. 22, 1963, with supplemental video that included footage of the Kennedys landing at Dallas Love Field, the famous Zapruder film that captures JFK’s assassination and news coverage of the aftermath of the assassination, as well as the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Tunheim said the board went through millions of documents including CIA and FBI records, foreign organization records, police reports, records from New Orleans and information from the Clay Shaw case, the only man brought to trial and acquitted of Kennedy’s assassination. The collection, which includes 6 million pages, can be found at the National Archives.

“We did run into conflict with quite a number of organizations. The process was set up with an appeal and could be challenged by the organization.” Tunheim said. “What we didn’t declassify at the time were documents related to protection of the President.”

Tunheim added that the board did go through KGB files that had been collected on Lee Harvey Oswald when he defected to old Soviet Union after being discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps.

“The KGB had records of Oswald that were eight feet high. They had kept a close eye on him, making sure he wasn’t a trouble maker. In the roof of his apartment that he got when he found a job in Minsk, there were peepholes on the roof and a Russian woman in the attic, so we have a pretty complete record of his life for the two-and-a-half years he spent there.” Tunheim said.

Tunheim said Oswald was the prime suspect from the beginning of the investigation.
“His motivation is, I think he thought he was supposed to be someone famous in his own mind,  and if he did this he would be viewed with great glory in the Soviet Union and Cuba,” Tunheim said. “He was a really mixed-up 24-year-old who was on a parade route that had changed to go near his workplace.”

Tunheim said the board was given the opportunity to look at the Warren Commission report that ruled there was one shooter, no proof could be found that organized crime was involved, and there were only three bullets used.

Tunheim said the FBI was not involved in the investigation because at the time, shooting the president was not a federal crime. He added that the number of shots going from three to six and then three again dealt with skipping tapes, and that Oswald’s shooter, Jack Ruby, had minimal ties to organized crime though it remains unknown who paid for his lawyers during trial.

“Records of Ruby’s conversations with his lawyer have never been released because of attorney-client privilege,” Tunheim said. “In the interest of history though, I think they should be.”

NDC Releases 170 New Entries Between December 7, 2012 and April 24, 2013

NDC Blog has posted a new item, 'NDC Releases 170 New Entries Between December

7, 2012 and April 24, 2013'

The NDC has released a listing of 170 entries  that have completed

declassification processing between December 7, 2012 and April 24, 2013 and are

now available for researcher request. This release records from both military

and civilian agencies.

Highlights include:

Records from the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, Fort Holabird,

Naval Ordnance Systems Command records related to the Port Chicago [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://blogs.archives.gov/ndc/2013/05/09/ndc-releases-170-new-entries-between-december-7-2012-and-april-24-2013/

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are

posted.

Best regards,

Don

don.mcilwain@nara.gov

1026 N Beckley is up for sale.

Owner to sell rooming house where Oswald lived before JFK assassination

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/jfk50/explore/20130508-owner-to-sell-rooming-house-where-oswald-lived-before-jfk-assassination.ece

(Abraham Zapruder's home at 3909 Marquette was torn down a few months ago)

By ROY APPLETON

Staff Writer

Updated: 09 May 2013 09:11 AM

Pat Hall wants to sell her house in north Oak Cliff.

The place at 1026 N. Beckley Ave. should attract some interest, as it has for half a century.

A guy named Lee Harvey Oswald lived there for a while in 1963. That is, until he was arrested and charged with killing President John F. Kennedy and Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippit.

With the 50th anniversary of those events drawing near, Hall plans to list the property for sale June 1. No word yet on an asking price. But she has a minimum in mind.

“It’s not going to be too low,” she said during a recent tour of the house. “I’m selling history here.”

Her grandmother Gladys Johnson bought the house in 1943 and lived there with her husband for years, renting rooms to single men.

On Oct. 14, 1963, a man identifying himself as O.H. Lee took her only available room, paying $8 a week including refrigerator and living room privileges.

“She must have really liked him,” said Hall, for most renters didn’t have refrigerator access.

And Oswald apparently liked children, she said, recalling how he would play ball with her brothers in front of the house.

In testimony for the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, Johnson said the quiet and tidy tenant spent most weekends with his family in Irving. She said he would keep “a half gallon of sweet milk … and lunch meat” in the refrigerator and occasionally watch television with other renters in the living room.

She also told of learning on Nov. 22 that her Mr. Lee was really Lee Harvey Oswald after seeing his picture “flash on the television” and talking with police officers who swarmed his room after his arrest at the Texas Theatre in the fatal shooting of Tippit.

Oswald had returned to the house briefly after shooting Kennedy — hurriedly, the landlady later said — apparently to retrieve a pistol. Officers found an empty holster in his room, Johnson testified.

“She was ashamed and humiliated that this house was associated with him,” Hall said.

And so it has been ever since. The brown brick house became a place in history, a tie to that tragic day.

Her grandmother put up with an onslaught of reporters and other intruders for months after the assassination before “telling everybody to go away,” Hall said.

The Oswald yoke

Hall’s late mother, Fay Puckett, lived as well with the Oswald yoke, a past that continues to attract tour buses, history hounds and the unexpected — as in the Lee Harvey Oswald look-alike actor from Austin who showed up at the front door one day.

“It was kind of weird having that guy standing there,” Hall said. “It took me back.”

After her mother died, Hall, 61, opened the place to tours for several years, encouraging — with some success — donations toward its upkeep.

But she and her house aren’t getting younger. The structure needs repairs here and there. The public demands of history, she said, have been a burden, something she doesn’t want for her children.

‘Timing is perfect’

So the assassination’s 50th anniversary seemed like prime time to test the real estate market and perhaps make a move.

“The timing is perfect,” Hall said.

The listing will include nine bedrooms and four bathrooms counting the main house, its basement and a detached building — fewer sleeping areas than in rooming-house days.

The kitchen stove dates to Oswald days. The refrigerator that cooled his food and drink is gone, as is the communal telephone he would use. The compact bathroom he and others shared still has its white tile floor and built-in medicine cabinet.

The living room’s reupholstered couch, rocking chair, coffee table, book shelves and fireplace heater remain from the times Oswald sat there watching television.

Above a donation box near the front door, a sign still solicits support:  Help Restore the Lee Harvey Oswald Room & Beckley Rooming House.

“This is it,” said Hall, chuckling as she walked into the Oswald quarters near the dining room, minus the French doors he used for privacy.

Her grandmother, she said, “didn’t want to make a big deal about this being his room.”

But Hall is restoring it for the sale. She has repaired walls and hopes to paint them the green of 1963. She plans to refinish the wooden floor, measuring 5½ feet by 14 feet, and return blinds to the four windows. Oswald’s metal twin bed is back in place. A drawered closet will be returned from storage.

Everything but Hall’s personal belongings will remain with the house, she said.

The property, the 2,078-square-foot house and rear building, is valued on the tax rolls at $65,830. No telling what offers the 78-year-old, red-roofed house with its window air-conditioning, trellised porch and often-told story will attract.

Whatever happens, the structures have some protection. The city’s Landmark Commission must approve any significant changes to their exterior because the property lies in the Lake Cliff Historic District. Presence in the district probably would prevent demolition.

Landmark effort

Preservation Dallas may seek local, state or federal landmark status for the site, said David Preziosi, executive director. It also wants to record the Hall property inside and out, as well as other Oswald-related sites, he said.

“You need to tell the whole story of the assassination,” he said. “You can better understand the events of the day when you have the pieces documented.”

The big story about 1026 N. Beckley, Preziosi said, is more the possible change in ownership than any threat to the property.

“The sale is significant considering how long it’s been in her family,” \he said. “We’re losing that [70-year] connection.”

Hall hopes a buyer will preserve the house, particularly the interior areas where Oswald spent time. “I’d like them to maintain it as it is so young people can come, history buffs can come and see what it was like to live in 1963.”

But first to find that buyer.

Real estate agent Vo Singhal will represent Hall. He will screen inquiries, he said, and try to protect Hall’s privacy.

“When this goes public, I don’t want to spend my time batting off lookie-looks,” Hall said.

Hall and Singhal would just as soon see a bidding war break out. And if she doesn’t get that bottom dollar?

“There’s a Plan B. Definitely.”

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