One day, while I was waiting for Passion to finish working, I took the six dollar tour of the Texas School Book Depository, where conditions have been almost perfectly preserved in a glass case of the situation in which Oswald shot Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
After that, I went in search of the famed "grassy knoll". This was difficult to find. I searched and searched and still I could not find it. I was convinced that as part of the conspiracy it had been dug out. Then, suddenly I found it. The Problem: It was too close. I had imagined a hillside some far distance from the road from which a man with a telescopic sight could have shot the president. However, the real grassy knoll is right next to the highway, only about 60 yards from the road where Kennedy's car went. I paced it off myself. A kid with a slingshot could have hit Kennedy from such a close distance.
More than that, there was a picket fence along the grassy knoll and a parking lot behind the fence. What a perfect place to shoot! Just put your rifle over one of the notches in the picket fence, which provides a perfect rest for the rifle plus a hiding place for the shooter, fire and then jump into a car conveniently parked in the parking lot and take off.
What could be more easy? A more ideal place to assassinate the president could not be imagined.
Also, the famed Zapruder film, which was on display, provided more evidence than I had previously imagined. Because the film is so clear, it is possible to figure out the exact spot where Zapruder was standing when he shot the film. Again, he was remarkably close to the president. More importantly, he was directly between the grassy knoll and the motorcade. In fact, it is almost as though Zapruder himself could have shot the president. What clearly happened was the gunman was standing almost directly behind Zapruder. The shot came over Zapruder's right shoulder.
The next important "discovery" on my part (I use quotation marks because it is obvious that millions have previously made the same discoveries that I have made) is that the same parking lot behind the grassy knoll was also the parking lot which served the Texas School Book Depository.
Thus, a picture of what really happened formed. There were three gunmen, one of whom was a driver. The plan was that Kennedy would be shot simultaneously from two directions. Oswald would shoot him from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, while the other two would shoot him from the grassy knoll.
After the shooting, Oswald would come downstairs and wait to be picked up. The other two would get into their car and drive over a few hundred yards to where Oswald would be waiting, and then all three would take off in the car.
What went wrong was that, having just shot the president, the other two were not willing to idle their car next to the entrance of the Texas School Book Depository, while waiting for Oswald to walk down six flights of stairs. They probably came by, but when Oswald was not there, they took off.
Oswald's subsequent actions seem to confirm this. For the next few hours, Oswald aimlessly wandered back and forth, clearly trying to figure out what to do next. He was as if lost at sea. He had missed his ride and could not come up with a plan. Finally, he entered a movie theater, a strange thing to do for a man who had just shot the president, where he was captured.
Further proof that Oswald did not act alone is from the setup within the School Book Depository. Again, seeing it with my own eyes made the picture more clear. The Kennedy motorcade came slowly down Houston Street going directly towards the School Book Depository. This gave Oswald a clear downward shot at the president, at point blank range. Again, a kid with a sling shot could have hit the president from that direction.
Yet, Oswald did not shoot there. Instead, he waited. The motorcade made a sharp left turn onto Elm Street and then proceeded onto the main highway. The car accelerated, going down hill past a tree. It was at this point that Oswald shot at the president. It was a difficult shot, requiring an expert marksman. Oswald had to shoot between the branches of a tree at a target which was accelerating. Only an expert marksman could have hit such a target.
Why would Oswald not shoot when he had the target at point blank range and could not have missed, only to shoot later when the target had become much more difficult.
The obvious answer is that Oswald had two accomplices. From the point where he was standing almost directly above the slow-moving president, only a person in Oswald's position could have shot him. However, at the point where the president was actually shot, he could have been hit simultaneously from the grassy knoll and from the Texas School Book Depository.
Using boxes of school books, Oswald had constructed a blind for himself. He had stacked a ring of boxes of books around the spot where he would be shooting. Thus, if any other worker had happened in at that point in time, he would not have seen Oswald, who was behind these stacks of books.
Had Oswald shot Kennedy while Kennedy was coming down Houston Street, Oswald would have had to come directly to the window, where someone in the Dallas Recorder's Office or even from the street could have seen him briefly. However, at the point where Kennedy was actually shot, Oswald would have been crouched around the corner, at a spot from which nobody outside the building could have seen him.
It is often said that Oswald was a "patsy". It seems that this was literally true. The other two men involved in the assassination probably realized that the shot from the Texas School Book Depository was so difficult that the chance for a successful assassination from there was slim. However, from the point blank range provided by the grassy knoll, the success of the operation was virtually guaranteed. Therefore, the other two probably wanted Oswald involved so that he would be given full blame for the assassination and they would escape scott free, which is exactly what happened.
Nothing I have just said is new. Thousands of other writers and observers have said the same thing before me. What is remarkable is that this conclusion is so obvious and still there are those who believe that "Oswald Acted Alone."
Sam Sloan