The Kennedy Conundrum They'd Heard a Shot from the Knoll

NATIONAL AFFAIRS what the Warren Commission was forced to conclude, despite witnesses who said The Kennedy Conundrum they'd heard a shot from the knoll. Connal- ly insists that he and Kennedy were hit by different shots—and Abraham Zapruder's Still too many questions—and too many answers famous home movie of the assassination proves Oswald alone wouldn't have had the time to fire them both. An American writer n all the news stories leading up to the all accept that both Oswald and Jack Ruby, named Steve Rivele even says there were 25th anniversary of the assassination of who asseRsinated Oswald before he could three second gunmen. When he named John F. Kennedy this week, the single stand trial, had linksto the organization of them last month on a Britis h documentary, 'most telling detail may have been a new New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello- one of the two who are still living came caption on an old photo in The New York a chief target of the Kennedy administra- forward with an alibi. Central Independent Times, "Shortly after the assassination tion's war on crime. (The Warren Report Television and producer Nigel Turner are of President Kennedy," it read, "report- said Ruby, like Oswald, was simply a lone sticking by their story. Rivele is in hiding. ers stood at the spot in the Texas School nut.) But Marcell% now 78, denies he or- Turner's documentary has at least one Book Depository Building from chilling moment, involving a which Lee Harvey Oswald's ri- computer-enhanced photo of fle was fired." [Emphasis add- the grassy knoll, and a man ed.] A quarter century ago, few named Gordon Arnold who be- editors would have hesitated to lieves he's in the picture. Ar- call it "the spot from which Os- nold tells of filming the motor- waldahot the president." But in cade from the knoll when a 1988 this was as much as the bullet from behind whizzed Times seemed willing to assert. mew. ?MP --- past his ear—and someone As assassination researcher Jo- : dressed as a police officer took siah Thompson notes, JFK's • his movie camera. Shown the murder has been "the most in- photo for the first time Arnold vestigated homicide in his- identifies himself, then a uni- tory." And it's only come to 19177SY LULL COMPANY ALL MD MS RESERVED formed man behind a splotch of seem more confusing. light he interprets as a muzzle The official version of what blast. "If this is true," he says, happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, voice quaking, "then I could be 1963, is still that of the Warren the only one who ever saw the Commission: that Oswald, act- man that killed the president ing alone, killed JFK. But the . If I'd known this [photo] was Times's own poll data show here I wouldn't have given the that only 13 percent of Ameri- interview." cans buy it. Two thirds believe Simple solution: The picture, some, version of the counter- says researcher Gary Mack of theory: that there was a con- Ft. Worth, who had it en- spiracy to kill the president. hanced, "is proof positive of a And 61 percent think there has conspiracy." Not likely. It's been an official cover-up. David only one minuscule corner of W. Belin, a former assistant a puzzle that never seems counsel to the Warren Commis- to come together—and which, sion, says they just haven't tak- like any one of a hundred such en the trouble to study its details, can seduce the most ra- much-maligned 1964 report, tional researcher into obses- which dismissed such possibili- gi t96A RORERTJACKSON.-DALLAS TIMES sion. Will a new government ties. Belin's new book, "Final ReSignill to uncertainty'? Above, the Zapruder film shows inquiry settle the whole thing? Disclosure," says critics focus Kennedy as he is shot, below, Jack Ruby shoots Oswald Also unlikely. The really dis- only on evidence that fits their turbing figure in that New awn theories—just as critics York Times poll is that 59 per- say the commission did. cent of Americans oppose fur- Hose mimic Conspiracy theorists have dered the killing. And what would possess ther investigation. Which suggests that blamed, variously, the Soviets, Castro, an otherwise competent crime boss to hire nearly half of us are simply resigned to the anti-Castro Cubans or the CIA. Two new Oswald, with his 521.45 mail-order rifle? uncertainty. There's nothing more Ameri- books, John H. Davis's "Mafia Kingfish" How was Ruby induced to murder Oswald can than an active distrust of institu- and David E. Scheim's "Contract on Ameri- in full view of cope and cameras? tions—it's there in the Constitution—but ca," set forth t he curren tly fashionable the- Scheim, unlike Davis, postulates a sec- the Kennedy assassination has bred a pas- ory: that JFK's killing was a mob hit. The ond gunman on the grassy knoll near sive despair that is unhealthy in a democra- House Select Committee on Assassinations which Kennedy's car was passing. If Os- cy. David Belin has a simple solution: that hinted as much a decade ago; new TV docu- wald did all the shooting, one bullet be- Americans accept the gospel according to mentaries by former Wall Street Journal haved oddly: it tore through Kennedy's the Warren Commission. That's not too reporter Jonathan Kwitny and columnist neck, shattered Texas Gov. John Connal- likely, either. Jack Anderson come to similar conclu- ly's ribs, yet turned up on a hospital DAVID G Arss with FIt ANIC GIBNEY Jr. sions. Despite important differences, they stretcher little the worse for wear. This is in Dallas and Ras RT PA R. RY Wa.shington 46 NEWSWEEK NOVEMBER 2S,1988 .

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