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Dealey Plaza: Six Seconds That Still Aren't Settled
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The JFK assassination in Dealey Plaza lasted six seconds — but the evidence, the Zapruder film, the magic bullet, and the grassy knoll have fuelled sixty years of unresolved debate. This chapter examines what the physical record actually proves, and where it falls apart.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
It's just past noon on November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three. President Kennedy's motorcade has been moving through downtown Dallas for about fifteen minutes.
Start with what is established. Lee Harvey Oswald was employed at the Book Depository.
The timing is where the certainty starts to fracture. The Warren Commission concluded Oswald fired all three shots in approximately five point six seconds, using a bolt-action rifle that required manual cycling between rounds.
The single-bullet theory is the part of the Warren Commission's findings that draws the most sustained criticism. It's worth understanding exactly what the theory claims before evaluating the objections.
Dozens of witnesses in Dealey Plaza reported hearing shots that seemed to come from the grassy knoll, the sloped area to the right and front of the motorcade's path. Some ran toward it immediately after the shooting.
On the morning of November twenty-fourth, Lee Harvey Oswald was being transferred from Dallas police headquarters to the county jail. The transfer was televised.
For decades after the assassination, a substantial volume of government records remained classified. The Assassination Records Collection Act of two thousand nine hundred and ninety-two required the release of all materials by two thousand seventeen.
After sixty years, here's where the evidence honestly leaves us. The physical evidence linking Oswald to the rifle and the rifle to the sixth-floor window is solid.
What makes the Kennedy assassination different from other historical events that remain disputed isn't just the scale of it. It's the structure of the uncertainty.
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