Dealey Plaza is very little changed since 1963. The famous Stemons Freeway sign is gone, and the Hertz car rental sign is gone from atop the Depository. Several of the train tracks that cross the Triple Underpass have been torn up, and parked cars share the Underpass with the remaining train tracks. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same place, The Place.

The Umbrella Man

Was this fellow, standing in Dealey Plaza with an open umbrella and no rain in sight part of some conspiracy? The House Select Committee on Assassinations located the Umbrella Man -- a fellow named Louis Witt who was engaged in a somewhat obscure form of political protest. Here are two graphics, one showing Louis Witt's umbrella being opened before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, to the general merriment of all assembled. The second shows the Umbrella Man's umbrella in the Zapruder film in Dealey Plaza. Both of these images are video captures from the NOVA documentary. They are UMBRELL1.JPG and UMBRELL2.JPG. Some conspiratorialists claim that the umbrellas are different, having a different number of spokes. Decide for yourself.

What was the point of the umbrella in Dealey Plaza? Apparently it was an attempt to heckle Kennedy with a reminder of the appeasment policies of British Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlain, whose weak posture toward Hitler was supported by Kennedy's father. UMBRELLA.GIF in a political cartoon connecting the umbrella (Chamberlain's trademark) with weakness toward Naziism.

One of the more bizarre theories about The Umbrella man comes from Robert Cutler. Cutler claimed that the umbrella was a weapon firing a flechette (poisoned dart) that hit Kennedy in the throat, paralyzing Kennedy to set him up for the head shot. PIECE.GIF is Cutler's drawing of this concept.

The Tague Wounding

One of the ongoing mysteries of Dealey Plaza is the origin of the fragment that hit James Tague. Three graphics images, all rendered Autocad drawings, test two scenarios. First is Posner's theory that a shot at about Zapruder frame 160 was deflected off a branch of the Live Oak in front of the Depository and hit the curb in front of Tague. The other theory is that a fragment of the head shot hit Tague. TAGUE1.GIF, TAGUE2.GIF, and TAGUE3.GIF show the trajectories involved.

TAGUE4.GIF deals with the same issue, but this time the drawing is from conspiracy author Josiah Thompson. The diagram, drawn on a map of Dealey Plaza, shows the path a fragment from the head shot would have to have taken to hit Tague.

A Wild and Wolly Scenario?

Conspiracy buffs are keen to believe any story about extra shooters, extra bullets, or extra weapons around Dealey Plaza. Just where do you end up if you believe them all? An essay by Mike Griffith, from his web site, provides a nice compilation of all the "evidence" of additional shooters. Ask yourself: if all this evidence is valid, just how many assassins were blasting away at Kennedy from different directions using different weapons and different ammunition types? The question that follows is: if the vast majority of this stuff is necessarily bogus, isn't it quite possible that all of it is?

Dealey Plaza Witnesses

Abraham Zapruder took the most famous piece of amateur motion picture film in history. His film does not show the back of Kennedy's head exploding, but rather the top, right, and front. Of course, some conspiratorialists claim the Zapruder film has been tampered with. ZAP.GIF is a video frame, from WFAA-TV, of Zapruder's interview with Jay Watson. He here shows where he saw Kennedy's head explode.
Roger Craig is the guy featured in lots of conspiracy books. You remember: he saw Oswald run from the TSBD and get in a Rambler on Elm Street, supposedly belonging to Mrs. Paine, a few minutes after the assassination. He saw lots of other suspicious stuff too. RAMBLER.TXT is David Perry's investigation into the Craig story. Was it really a Rambler? Was it really Mrs. Paine's? Did a photo really show up years later to vindicate Craig? An excellent adjunct to viewing Mark Lane's video Two Men in Dallas.

Seymour Weitzman, the officer who first saw Oswald's behind some boxes on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, said it was a Mauser, and several other officers repeated this statement. Before the Warren Commission, Weitzman said that "in a glance" the gun looked like a Mauser. RIFLE1.JPG, taken from SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS, is a photo that shows Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano beside a Mauser. So you be the judge: could someone "in a glance" mistake one rifle for the other?

Among the Dealey Plaza witnesses, Marilyn Sitzman was superbly positioned to see what was going on. Standing on the same pedestal with Abraham Zapruder (and helping steady him), she was only a few yards from the supposed position of the Grassy Knoll shooter. She saw Kennedy hit in the head, and she turned to look in the direction of the Stockade Fence after the head shot. Although she did not testify before the Warren Commission, SITZMAN.TXT is a transcript of her interview with author Josiah Thompson.

Jackie Kennedy is widely quoted in assassination books as a witness who claimed to have seen a wound on the back of Kennedy's head. JACKIE.TXT gives her account of the terror of Dealey Plaza, as told to Theodore White. It provides an interesting supplement to her WC testimony.

Acoustic Evidence of Four Shots?

The "acoustic evidence" that supposedly showed at least four shots fired during the assassination was quickly debunked by the National Academy of Sciences. An element in the debunking was the discovery, by Steve Barber, of the voice of Sheriff Decker saying "hold everything" during the time of the "shots" on the police dictabelt. This established that the "shots" were fired about a minute after the assassination, and could not have been shots. Defenders of the "acoustic evidence" claimed that the needle of the Dictaphone may have skipped and overlaid the Decker statement over the real assassination shots. SKIP.TXT recounts the NAS examination of this issue.