Thursday, November 22, 2012

On the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

"The President's been shot," he said seriously.

We heard about it; it was what we talked about.

Brains and blood and bones in an upward curve

And his body across the woman: that's what we imagined

Though we'd be proven wrong by slow motion film

Showing his body just as if we were there with him.

But we didn't stop looking; we haven't stopped yet.

* * * *

From the Las Vegas Sun:
Forty-nine years ago today, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza.

The assassination and subsequent slaying of shooter Lee Harvey Oswald shocked the country. In the five decades since, the assassination continues to capture the imagination of authors, filmmakers and the public. It has sparked hundreds of conspiracy theories and studies into who — if not Oswald — was behind Kennedy’s slaying.

Robert Blakey, an attorney who served in the Justice Department in the 1960s and worked on drafting the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations that was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Unlike the earlier Warren Commission, which found Oswald acted alone, the House committee concluded its two-year investigation with a report stating Kennedy’s assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy.