The First Ground Zero

On this bright, sunny, and quite warm day I finally got make my long-awaited pilgrimage to Dealy Plaza – site of the darkest deed ever committed in this land of promise.  The site – in the very heart of old Dallas – the birthplace of the city, in fact -- is, even after all these years, a popular tourist attraction, and it was, indeed, swarming with visitors of all shapes and sizes, who scampered across the Grassy Knoll, posed for pictures on the very spot (marked with an “X” in the middle of the street) where JFK met his fate, and filed through the 6th Floor Museum in the former Texas School Book Depository sporting earphones to hear and view the narrative concerning the events of that dark day nigh unto 46 years ago.  And I must say, the “text” of the museum tour was, if not even-handed, at least not overly propagandistic.  There was plenty of treatment of the various (often conflicting) pieces of evidence and eyewitness testimonies – and the most striking exhibit (to me) was a collection of cameras (still and movie) that various people had been using on the occasion, and which produced important pieces of the mountain of evidence.  Also on the scene – at a table on the Grassy Knoll – was none other than Robert Groden, who has written extensively on the assassination and compiled a great deal of evidence, and who was heavily involved in the Oliver Stone film as a writer and advisor.  Yes, one of the foremost JFK conspiracy theorists was sitting right there, on public property, selling his materials without the slightest harassment from the authorities.  How times have changed! 

Of course, Dallas has come a long way since those innocent times – from a, basically, provincial city to a sprawling megalopolis that threatens to spill over into Oklahoma on the north.  It has more (highway) rings around it than Pig Pen’s bathtub.  The downtown is that typically weird combination of shiny skyscrapers on the one hand, and vacant lots and “legacy” buildings on the other, with an ample helping of new yuppie townhouse condos and “artsy” cafes and galleries thrown in for good measure.  It is an all-American city to a fault.  And it has finally, I believe, lived down its sordid past and its reputation as “that place where JFK got shot” enough so it can freely and unabashedly admit that it is, indeed, that place where JFK got shot – and instead of adding a bunch of chamber of commerce propaganda simply present the event as what it was – the “crime of the century” perhaps, but certainly nothing that reflected particularly badly on Dallas – at least not any more badly than it reflected on any other place, or the country in general.

I have often wondered if Dallas was chosen as JFK’s O.K. Corral because it was the only place – or the best place – such a deed could have been pulled off.  There was certainly an instant and well-orchestrated circling of the wagons immediately after the event… inconvenient facts were suppressed… dark suspicions were quashed… and a united front was, almost miraculously, created out of what had been, truth be told, a very volatile political situation.  Of course, LBJ, being a Texan, had it in his power to more or less dictate every element in the “rush to judgment”, down to the smallest detail – and he had any number of people anxious to assist.  There were cover-ups, then cover-ups of those cover-ups, then cover-ups of those cover-ups, and so on ad infinitum.  Any skeptics were immediately thrown into the outer darkness, and accused of treason and/or mental illness.  (Sound familiar?  The same game plan was pulled out and dusted off after 9-11.)  But having said all this, I suspect that the same thing could have been accomplished anywhere else in the country – perhaps not with as much cold efficiency or completeness, maybe not with the overwhelming, multi-layered blanket of obfuscation, but nonetheless successfully. 

But still, there was something iconic – Greek tragedy-esque, even – about a Northeastern, elite, handsome rich boy with a glamorous wife getting cut down in a Texas cow town, with his successor – a hard-core Texan, no less -- craggy and grim-faced – right on his heels.  Maybe JFK really had walked into the valley of the shadow of death, against all caution and advice – maybe he had refused to be intimidated – maybe he felt that it was time to make amends to the South for all the pre-Civil Rights Act strife.  Who knows?  We know that LBJ was adamant, that JFK simply had to visit Texas.  Was this some ancient Old Testament piece of treachery?  Was this one tribal chief or warlord inviting the opposing warlord into his camp, supposedly under a white flag of truce, only to have him mercilessly cut down so that he could take over?  It seems so savage – so crude – so barbaric.  But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.  And yet I think the agenda reached far beyond the normal rough-and-tumble of politics.  There were scores of people, groups, and organizations that wished JFK ill… he had disappointed many powerful people… and his own mob connections might, ironically, have backfired on him and hastened his demise.  It’s one thing to be the titular head of the U.S. government – but it’s another thing to be on the hit list of groups that are even bigger and more powerful than the U.S. government… and I suspect that JFK, with all of his titanic self confidence (a family trait, of course), if he had a hint about any of this, did not take it seriously enough.  He was also the first Catholic president – although it’s hard to utter that phrase without gagging a bit – and he was not, i.e. never, acting solely on his own behalf but on that of his family – a criminal enterprise in its own right – and also on behalf of the Ivy League know-it-all elite which had, even then, vexed and offended the South – and so many others – so grievously.  He was a cold warrior who was accused of being soft on communism.  He was a “family man” whose promiscuity was legendary, if kept a total secret from the public by a media even more obsequious than today’s.  And he was, arguably, in way over his head – on all fronts.  It could not have been an easy time to be president, but it was certainly far from the worst.  The country was still enjoying the remnants of the 50s legacy of American dominance and post-war triumph.  Things like race and communism were problems, but not of the magnitude witnessed in prior times or since.  And the economy was in fine shape, thank you – we were still on the silver standard, even!  And Islam?  Never heard of it.  “Terrorism” was people throwing overripe mangoes at Dick Nixon in Venezuela.  No – most of the troubles of that era seem trivial in retrospect.  We had even conquered polio!  And all of these “rights” agitators and victim groups were still in the larval stage.  So – he “coulda been a contenda” – but he got the wrong people mad at him and the result – or at least some main elements of the result – was on open display in Dealy Plaza on a fine, sunny day in 2009.  So long ago… and yet still so riveting, and so conducive to dark suspicions as to how the world really operates, and who is at the controls.