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Dealey Plaza: The Geography That Defined a Presidency
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The turn onto Elm Street, the sixth-floor window, the grassy knoll — the physical geography of Dealey Plaza is the foundation on which every JFK assassination theory rests. This episode maps the space where history broke, and explains why the geometry still matters sixty years later.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A decision about road barriers changed everything. That's not hyperbole.
The Secret Service, working with Dallas officials in the days before the visit, selected the downtown route to maximize public exposure. Kennedy's approval ratings had been under pressure.
Dealey Plaza itself is smaller than most people imagine when they first see it. The open area sits at the western edge of downtown Dallas, a modest public space bookended by a concrete pergola on the north side, a grassy embankment running up toward a wooden stockade fence on what became known as the grassy knoll, and the triple underpass at the western end where Elm, Main, and Commerce Streets converge beneath a railroad overpass.
Oswald had purchased a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, model C two seven six six, by mail order in March of nineteen sixty-three. He used an alias, A.
The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired three shots in roughly five and a half to six seconds. One shot missed.
This is where the route's geography intersects with a completely different type of investigation. In nineteen seventy-eight, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations re-examined the case, its analysts reviewed police dispatch recordings made on Dictabelt from the day of the assassination.
The motorcade accelerated through the triple underpass and rushed toward Parkland Memorial Hospital. Kennedy was pronounced dead at one p.m. local time.
That left turn onto Elm Street took less than five seconds to complete. The shooting was over in roughly six seconds more.
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