by John Judge
Occupy the Grassy Knoll

On the day
that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, now almost
50 years ago, an independent and feisty newspaperman, Penn Jones,
Jr., editor of the Midlothian Mirror about 35 miles south
of Dallas, came to hear JFKÂ’s scheduled speech at the International
Trade Mart building along Stemmons Freeway. Penn, and other reports
were sitting at the lunch tables for the event when they got news
that Kennedy had been shot in Dealey Plaza and was on his way to
Parkland Hospital with serious wounds.

George Dealey
was a conservative newspaper editor at the Dallas Morning News
who had no love for President Kennedy. D.H. Byrd, of the rich and
politically influential Byrd family of both Texas and Virginia,
owned the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza,
where Lee Harvey Oswald worked. Byrd also despised John F. Kennedy.
Years later he was reported to have removed the original window
frame from the Sixth Floor of his building, the alleged window that
was part of the “sniper’s nest” from which the fatal
shots were supposedly fired by Oswald, and hung it in his hunting
trophy room at home next to heads of deer and other trophies.

Penn Jones
and other reporters rushed from the Trade Center and drove to Parkland
Hospital, and later to the scene of the crime that day. Penn did
his job as a journalist, taking pictures and asking questions. One
of his photos caught the back of Jack Ruby going into Parkland Hospital
when both JFK and Gov. John Connally were still in the building.
Ruby was in many interesting locations on November 22, and was seen
by one credible witness taking a rifle up the back of the Grassy
Knoll in Dealey Plaza. Ruby had access to the Dallas police station
and had many friends among the Dallas cops. He was present at public
press conferences where Lee Harvey Oswald protested his innocence
and claimed to be a “patsy”. When a Dallas police official
stated to the press that Oswald was part of the Free Cuba Committee
(an anti-Castro organization based in Miami, Florida), Jack Ruby
spoke up to correct him, saying “It’s the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee.” This from a man who the Warren Commission
(set up by President Lyndon Johnson to study the crime) said did
not know Lee Harvey Oswald and who was reportedly a disinterested
a bar and striptease joint owner in Dallas. The next day Jack Ruby
was able to be present during the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald
to another jail and he leapt out and fatally shot him.

Penn Jones
began to collect evidence from the first day of events in Dallas
that would later severely contradict the official version of events
being reported in the Dallas Morning News, and across the country
by press and electronic media, and also contradicted the final conclusions
of the Warren Commission report, which blamed Oswald without trail
of being the “lone assassin” of President Kennedy. The
hard ballistics, forensic, medical and witness evidence revealed
over the years and available to both the Warren Commission and the
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) fifteen years later,
exonerates Oswald and points to multiple gunmen and a conspiracy
to kill the President in Dallas. PennÂ’s investigation almost
immediately centered on the untimely and violent deaths of witnesses
and others who knew information that contradicted the official statements
of the Dallas police and press. He would eventually collect information
on nearly 175 suspicious witness deaths, continuing into the era
of the House Select Committee.

Penn first
wrote his articles in the small circulation Midlothian Mirror, but
eventually collected them into a series of four books, Forgive
My Grief, and his work was printed in Ramparts, the L.A.
Free Press, and The Rebel over the years.

In 1964, Penn
Jones returned to the scene of the crime on November 22 at 12:30
pm and held a Moment of Silence to commemorate the death of a President
he loved and to keep alive the need for a criminal investigation
into the still unsolved assassination of JFK. He continued this
tradition for many years, when only a handful of people would return
annually to ask the question, “Who Really Killed President
Kennedy?” and to speak truth to power. The established press,
the national media and government bodies continued in the other
direction, along with the FBI and CIA who were hiding documents,
destroying and altering evidence, and giving instructions on how
to discredit the critics of the official reports. To this day, the
national media have their own annual tradition around the time of
the assassination of presenting yet another “special investigative
report” that tries to buttress the flawed conclusions of the
Warren Commission and smear all evidence to the contrary as “conspiracy
theory”.

I joined Penn
Jones, Jr. out on the Grassy Knoll for his annual vigil starting
in the early 1970s and have been there every year but one, when
we visited the Kennedy family gravesite instead. By then, Robert
F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had also been assassinated
by a modus operandi and cover-up that was very similar to the assassination
in 1963. The same agencies and the press and police played a similar
role in hiding the truth and framing a pasty for each crime. Few
people know that Robert Kennedy believed his brother was murdered
by a political conspiracy and told close associates that he would
reopen the investigation if he was able to be elected into the White
House. Even fewer people know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
high on his list of possible running mates for the presidency in
1968. All these deaths served to kill public hope for social and
political change and left the rising Military Industrial Intelligence
Complex warned about by outgoing President Eisenhower in 1963, and
a permanent war economy and Cold War and nuclear arsenal were left
in place to grow, along with the power of the intelligence agencies
and the national security and police state who were clearly suspect
of playing a role in these murders.

In the intervening
years a body of literature questioning the official conclusions
of the Warren Commission, and the events themselves, led the vast
majority of Americans to conclude that there was a conspiracy that
went beyond Oswald, or in some cases one that framed Oswald and
concealed the real killers. That majority has not really wavered
to this day. A small group of researchers worked on the JFK case
over those years, filing FOIA requests, digging into new evidence,
interviewing witnesses the Commission ignored or misrepresented,
giving lectures to the public, and calling for a new investigation.
There was enough public pressure in that direction by the mid-1970s
to convince Congress to create a Select Committee of the House to
study the murders of both President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Hobbled by political considerations and the loss of its
original staff director, homicide prosecutor Richard Sprague, the
HSCA failed to answer many questions about the forensic evidence
and the guilt of the alleged assassins, but did end its probe in
1978, concluding that there had been a “probably conspiracy”
which it instructed the Justice Department and FBI to investigate
further. To date, those agencies have neither done an honest or
thorough investigation of these murders, nor examined the evidence
pointing to the role of J. Edgar Hoover, former FBI director in
both the assassinations and the cover-up. The HSCA Chairman then
ordered their extensive investigative files sealed from public view
for 50 years, until 2028. President Johnson had also sealed the
Warren Commission investigative files for 75 years in 1965, for
potential release in 2035. Freedom of Information Act requests and
legal suits succeeded in the getting several thousands of pages
released from 1964-1994, but nowhere near the complete classified
records on JFK alone.

In the 1980s,
one of the people who came out annually for the Moment of Silence
was a California labor organizer who had worked with Cesar Chavez
and the National Farm Workers Union. He would hold up a cardboard
sign with the insignia of that group that had been splattered with
the blood of Robert F. Kennedy in his presence on the night of the
assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. He also knew what the country
had lost with the death of the Kennedy brothers. The Dallas Morning
News did not send reporters out to cover our annual events.
I once suggested to Penn Jones that we few were like a small remaining
flame for democracy and truth in a darkening world. Only a handful
of people were out there on the Grassy Knoll until the 30th anniversary
in 1993.

What changed
everything was the release in 1991 of Oliver StoneÂ’s film,
JFK, based on a book, On The Trail of the Assassins by New Orleans
District Attorney Jim Garrison, who had tried to prosecute conspirators
involved in killing Kennedy who had operated out of his city in
the period before the assassination, and who knew Lee Harvey Oswald
when he lived there briefly. Defeated in court, but adamant in his
writings about the reality of the conspiracy he tried to unearth,
which went to the top levels of the Pentagon and the CIA, Garrison
had called at the end of the trial for release of the JFK assassination
files in time for his young son to read them. Stone based the film
very accurately on the official records released by the Warren Commission
in 26 volumes of evidence and on the investigative work of many
serious critics in the intervening years. Every line of dialogue
in the film script was footnoted to a known source or witness. Stone
presented GarrisonÂ’s legal case as it developed into his arguments
at trial. At the end of the film, Stone had a short notice that
the files remained sealed to that day.

The film introduced
a whole new generation to the questions that remain about the murder
of John F. Kennedy and made a plausible argument for motive, means
and opportunity for enemies of the President in the government who
conspired to stage a military coup to prevent his policies that
aimed at peace instead of ongoing and even nuclear war with the
Soviet Union, Vietnam and Cuba, and his support for domestic changes
regarding racism, wealth and poverty, and international relations
that would end the Cold War and promote the United States in a more
positive role around the world. The trailer regarding the records
generated hundreds of thousands of calls and letters to Congress
calling for their release and gave momentum to the passage of the
JFK Assassination Records Act in 1992, drafted and supported by
the research community working on JFKÂ’s assassination. The
Committee for an Open Archives, formed in 1989 to promote legislation
opening the records and the evidence to public scrutiny, had generated
several earlier bills, which did not get out of committee. The Records
Act was not really implemented until 1994, when an independent Records
Review Board was created and began a four-year process of releasing
over 4.5 million pages of classified records, and setting the machinery
of review in motion that has resulted in a total of over 6 million
pages released to date. More files remain buried and their release
is being considered under the earlier and flawed provisions of the
FOIA and in court actions. The HSCA files on Dr. KingÂ’s murder
remain sealed until 2028, lacking legislation or a decision by the
Clerk of the House.

In 1994, the
Committee for an Open Archives proposed the creation of a national
coalition and network of researchers and organizations representing
our interests to effectively oversee the functions of the JFK Assassination
Records Review Board and to continue serious research into the emerging
documentary and scientific evidence in the major political assassinations
of the 1960s and since. The Review Board was receptive to our expertise
in the case and our input and worked effectively for release rather
than postponement of records, and ended its work in 1998.

The new organization,
the Coalition on Political Assassinations, continues to work for
full release of classified files relating to our own history and
holds annual conferences in Dallas, Texas on the best new evidence
being released or discovered in these unsolved murders. We commemorate
JFK’s speech ending the Cold War, seeking détente and
calling for an end to the nuclear arms race and weapons testing
on June 10, 1963, at the site on the campus of American University,
Washington, DC at noon, by the memorial plaque. Every fifth year
we have held conferences in Memphis and Los Angeles on the anniversary
dates of the murders of Dr. King (April 4) and Robert F. Kennedy
(June 6) in 1968. Next year will be the 45th anniversary of our
deaths as well. COPA has also sponsored discussions on the assassination
of Malcolm X in New York City over the recent years, some of them
held in conjunction with the Dr. Betty Shabazz/Malcolm X Memorial
Center at the site of the old Audubon Hotel in Harlem where he was
killed on February 21, 1965. See www.politicalassassinations.com
for more on our work or write to [email protected]
for emails about our upcoming events.

By the mid-1990Â’s,
Penn Jones, Jr. was suffering from an advancing case of AlzheimerÂ’s
disease, which made it hard for him to continue the annual commemorations
on the Grassy Knoll. He asked me to do them in his stead. The Moment
of Silence has been held, with a legal permit, on the Grassy Knoll
under the auspices of the Coalition on Political Assassinations
to larger crowds over the years. There were close to 5,000 people
there on the 40th anniversary and the City of Dallas made Dealey
Plaza into a public historical site. Penn Jones and I were unable
to get through a massive police blockade of the Grassy Knoll that
year, and held our Moment of Silence on the south slope of the Plaza
instead. The Sixth Floor Museum was created to preserve the Book
Depository building and the alleged site of the assassinÂ’s
lair, but by doing so they promote the official “lone nut”
version of events and fail to answer the questions of the critics
in the case.

Literally millions
of tourists visit the site each year and a lone critic, Robert Groden,
sells videotapes and books relating to the conspiracy to kill the
President based on the best photographic evidence and analysis.
Groden was on the staff of the HSCA and handled their photographic
analysis. He was responsible for the first nationally viewed showing
of the famous Abraham Zapruder amateur film of the assassination,
which clearly demonstrates more than one gunman hitting President
Kennedy, a film sealed from public view for more than three decades.
Groden has been illegally arrested by Dallas police dozens of times
over the years for selling without a permit, winning his release
each time without conviction when judges ruled no such permit exists
for the park location. This harassment has led Groden to sue the
City of Dallas for his civil and constitutional right to sell and
distribute critical materials on the Grassy Knoll regarding the
most famous assassination in world history at this point.

Anticipating
ever larger crowds on the 50th anniversary of JFKÂ’s assassination
on November 22, 2013, the Coalition has applied for a legal permit
in advance over the last three years, only to be told no permit
can be issued more than a year in advance. Despite that rule, the
Dallas Parks and Recreation Department informed me this year that
a permit has been issued to the Sixth Floor Museum and the City
of Dallas for the use of Dealey Plaza for the entire week from November
19-24, for exclusive use of the area and that no other permit can
be issued for our event. The Director of the Sixth Floor Museum,
Jessica Langford, has stated in the Dallas Morning News that they
have no event planned for the Plaza, but they wanted to be “proactive”
in preventing “a circus atmosphere” and the presentation
of “conspiracy theories” in 2013. They also know quite
well how many will be there listening. At one point she was asked
what sort of an event they want to hold and she told the DMN reporter
that she was not sure, “maybe a Moment of Silence”. This
direct and content-based refusal of permit for the use of a public
and historical site violates the protections of the First Amendment
for free speech and expression.

While our Moment
of Silence events have always been dignified, holding banners calling
for release of files or citing the open questions surrounding these
murders, followed by myself and other researchers speaking to the
crowds without public address system about the issues that remain
to be resolved and the historical importance of the ongoing investigations,
there have been over the years other events held without permit
ranging from performance art, large puppets, music and speech that
some may consider as “carnival” or “circus”
atmosphere, they also are protected expressions of free speech.
Our permit has never been exclusive, though we have asked those
who come with sound systems to allow us a few moments of silence
and speech each year at 12:30 pm. Some years we have been drowned
out. But, if the Sixth Floor Museum and the MayorÂ’s office
are allowed to control the content of the message that day to only
include what I was told would be events “celebrating the life
of John F. Kennedy” and not mentioning or questioning his death
and the conspiracy and cover-up which have no statute of limitations
in an unsolved crime, it will mark not a moment but an eternity
of silence on the real issues of this historical tragedy and its
implications today.

COPA continues
to negotiate, as we were instructed to do by the Parks Recreation
Department, with the Sixth Floor Museum and the MayorÂ’s office
by informing them of our intent to continue a 48-year tradition
of our Moment of Silence and speaking truth to power on the Grassy
Knoll on the day that marks the brutal assassination of a President
and of hope for change in this country since. For several months
we have had little or no response to our communications. We have
been told clearly that we will not be issued a permit. For us, the
permit was not to allow us free speech but only to permit coordination
of events in a public space. I was told when I asked for an exclusive
permit for a few hours so that our event would not be overwhelmed
by a sound system, I was told by the Dallas Police liaison to the
Parks Department that their right to interrupt me was “free
speech” in his view. Those interfering had secured no permits
when they did so over the years.

If
this silence in regard to our right to free speech and to hold our
commemorative event continues into 2013 then we may attempt legal
action to secure our rights. However, given the history of harassment
of critics in Dealey Plaza and the attempts by the national press,
media and official bodies to suppress and discredit our message,
I am making a call to all those concerned with having another point
of view present, audible and visible on the Grassy Knoll, Dealey
Plaza, Dallas, Texas at 12:30 pm on November 22, 2013, the 50th
anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy, which will
solemnly celebrate his life, but also acknowledge that his life
got him killed, to be there at the site and to Occupy the Grassy
Knoll so that we can be heard. The press of the world is likely
to be present along with thousands of Americans that day. If they
do not allow a sound system then perhaps I will yell out “Mike
Check!” to make myself heard to the crowd.

I am calling
on the national network of Occupy groups to join us as well as the
thousands of researchers, authors, critics and concerned citizens
who know the truth about the Kennedy assassination, or at least
suspect that the official version is wrong, to join us there. I
am not calling for anyone to get arrested or confront or challenge
the police present. I am and have always been non-violent and I
follow in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. in using only non-violent means to expose the truth.

If there is
not enough democracy left in America to ask questions in public
about the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X and others
on the 50th anniversary of JFKÂ’s murder at the scene of the
crime and be heard by those who are coming that day with his assassination
in mind, then those who killed him have won. I think the American
people need to win back our democracy and restore our real history
instead. This will not be done by ignoring the questions but by
embracing them and calling for the full release of information and
the serious criminal investigations that need to be done to resolve
them and hold those responsible to task. I think this is worthy
of an Occupy action and that it is in the spirit of all earlier
actions by citizens to empower themselves to have a say in our own
countryÂ’s future.

“The past
is prologue” is the quote on the front of the National Archives
building in Washington, DC. The future is just as important as the
past and depends on knowing about it. George Orwell wrote, “Those
who control the present control the past, and those who control
the past control the future.” In any real democracy, shouldn’t
that be the people themselves, not an elite few? Finally, Thomas
Jefferson said, “There is no safe repository for the powers
of a society except among the people themselves. If we find them
unable to exercise their discretion in a wholesome fashion, the
solution is not to take the power from them, but to inform their
discretion.”

A CALL TO
OCCUPY THE GRASSY KNOLL IN 2013

Please join
us in reclaiming our own history and our own future on November
22, 2013 at the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 pm so that
we can inform the discretion of the American people and put the
power back in our hands. DonÂ’t let the forces that arrayed
against President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X steal our hope one more time. DonÂ’t contribute to
perpetual silence on these murders but come to a Moment of Silence
followed by free speaking of historical truth to the power of the
1% who do not want real democracy and freedom and who are afraid
of the truth.

OCCUPY THE
GRASSY KNOLL IN 2013

Reprinted
from Occupy the Grassy
Knoll.

December
29, 2012

Copyright
© 2012 Occupy
the Grassy Knoll