Friday Flashback: Touring DC in the Steps of JFK

This post originally appeared on July 3, 2013

This year, 4 historic anniversaries are being celebrated in the nation's capital: the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech, and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To commemorate the 4 events, The Prices Do DC has designed a full-day tour featuring monuments and museum exhibitions selected to help you know more about the people and events of the times. Today's tour: The Life and Times of President John F. Kennedy

Morning

Kennedy Grave Site at Arlington National Cemetery
Pay your respects to the slain President. To learn more, click here.  Free. (Metro - Arlington Cemetery - Blue Line.)

Newseum
It has been 50 years since President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and to commemorate JFK's life the Newseum is displaying 3 special exhibitions: A Thousand Days, Creating Camelot, and Three Shots Were Fired. To learn more, click here. Admission charge. (Metro - Archives - Yellow and Green Lines.)

Afternoon

Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space
In 1961, President Kennedy pledged that America would send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. Although he did not live to see it, America made the deadline. The story is detailed in the exhibition From Apollo to the Moon. To learn more, click here. Free. (Metro - Smithsonian Station - Blue and Orange Lines or L'Enfant Station - Yellow or Green Lines.)

International Spy Museum
The 1960's was the time of the Cold War and one of President Kennedy's favorite authors was Ian Fleming, the creator of 007 James Bond. Check out the exhibition Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains. To learn more, click here. Admission charge. ( Metro - Gallery Place/Chinatown Station - Yellow, Green, and Red Lines.)

Evening

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
There are electronic kiosks here where you can learn more about JFK. The building itself is impressive and worth a visit. Also, every night of the year at 6 p.m. there is a free 1-hour show on The Millennium Stage. To learn more, click here. Free. (Metro - Foggy Bottom Station - Blue Line - then take the free shuttle bus to the Kennedy Center.)

Related Dining Experiences for Lunch or Dinner

• Martin's Tavern (This 78-year-old Georgetown eatery is where John Kennedy proposed to Jackie) 
• Mrs. Kennedy loved elegant dining and French food. Try one of DC's French restaurants. Click here for some suggestions from Yelp. 

Tuesday's Take - Oliver Stone Talks JFK, Conspiracy

This post originally appeared in The Lantern Lit

Stone makes a point with Newseum Vice Chairman Shelby Coffey III

When film director Oliver Stone speaks about his controversial film JFK, he wants it understood that he was not depicting absolute truth. Instead, he was making what he calls a countermyth to contrast with what he calls the myth of the Warren Commission Report, a voluminous compendium of information that maintains Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago.

"We were not making a documentary, we were dramatizing," Stone says. "I thought the Warren Commission was fiction and I still do today."

Stone appeared at the Newseum in Washington, DC to discuss his film, which was released 22 years ago and is enjoying a resurgence because of the timeliness of the 50th anniversary this month of that dark day in Dallas.

"The (Kennedy) investigation was badly handled from the beginning," Stone said as he detailed his belief in both a conspiracy and a cover-up. "A major medical fraud took place. He should have been autopsied in Parkland (the Dallas hospital where Kennedy died). A doctor there says for 18 minutes he saw brains emerging from the back of President Kennedy's head. A shot from the front was the kill shot and that is a shot that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't have made."

Of course, if the Warren Commission is wrong and Oswald didn't act alone, the question becomes - who is responsible for killing JFK?  "Look at the people who had the power," Stone contends.

In Stones' view, the military/industrial/intelligence complex was highly disturbed about Kennedy actions that they believed were wrong for an America which, at the time, was engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union and the idea of Communism.  "Kennedy was moving toward detente and the end of the Cold War. The generals wanted to blow up the Soviet Union because they could. They wanted a war because they knew they could win it. But Kennedy realized we were facing the end of the world as we knew it and he said no. They were furious and didn't want him to win re-election in 1964. Kennedy took them head-on and paid a price for it ," Stone said.

The director said he began to question the Oswald-only position after reading On The Trail of the Assassin by New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison in 1989. Garrison's book detailed his investigation of a Kennedy conspiracy. Kevin Costner portrayed Garrison in Stone's film.

Stone said he had always admired the 1969 film Z, by Greek director Costa-Gavras, a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of a Greek politician and the outrage at the military dictatorship which hatched the killing plot. "I wanted to do something similar on an American level," Stone said. "I wanted to give a reason why he (Kennedy) must be removed from office."

"In drama, you have the right to interpret history as you want. Shakespeare proved that," Stone said. "Even documentaries aren't objective. But I think the facts of JFK hold up to me."

The Day The President (And Our Innocence) Died

It is said that everyone who was alive in 1963 remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed. And while all may have memories, some memories are more dramatic than others. Take those of former PBS news anchors Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. At the time, MacNeil was a young NBC TV reporter covering the presidential trip to Dallas. Lehrer was a young staffer for one of Dallas' local newspapers. Last night the former long-time hosts of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour appeared at a special Newseum program to recount their memories of the JFK assassination they both covered. Here is what they remember about that fateful Dallas day 50 years ago that changed their lives and all of America forever.

Jim Lehrer (on left) and Robert MacNeil at their anchor desk

Lehrer
At the time, Texas Democrats were politically divided. Republicans didn't exist. It was very much a mixed blessing that the president was coming to Texas. There was concern that there would be some right wing event that would mar the visit. Earlier, someone had spit on Lady Bird Johnson when she and her husband Lyndon had visited Dallas. Now, Dallas officials wanted to put their best front on for the country and the Kennedys. There was excitement, but there was also a lot of anxiety about the visit.

MacNeil
The Kennedys were looking forward to the 1964 campaign. This was a campaign trip. Kennedy was going to give a speech (an advance copy of which we in the press saw) that was going to blast his expected GOP opponent Barry Goldwater for the attitudes he was espousing. It was also a trip to mend political fences in Texas. But there was that anxiety. We were told that the Dallas police force was so nervous about the visit that they had authorized a kind of citizens arrest process ...

Lehrer
That's not true. I was writing about security for the Kennedy visit and the police were anxious but they didn't make any special provisions like that.

MacNeil
Well, that's what we were told.

Lehrer
I was to cover the arrival and the departure from Love Field airport. My newspaper was cheap, but they had sprung for an open line so I could call to rewrite. They even had a table for me to put the phone on. I got a call from rewrite and they wanted me to check to see if they were going to put the bubble top on the president's car since it had been raining. It wasn't bullet proof. It was 3/4 inch plexi-glass. I saw the car and it had the bubble top on. So I asked an agent in charge if they were going to keep it that way. He made some calls to agents downtown. They said it wasn't raining there. The agent said "lose the bubble top." I often wonder what would have happened if the bubble top stayed up. It might have deflected the bullets. Or it could have shattered the window and made shards of glass that could have killed Mrs. Kennedy and the Connollys (then Texas Gov. John Connolly and his wife, who were riding in the car with the Kennedys). What if? What if? The Kennedy assassination is filled with what-ifs.

MacNeil
Mrs. Kennedy had become politically engaged on this trip. She was wearing a bright strawberry ice cream colored dress. At the Dallas airport, someone gave her a bouquet of blood red roses. The sight of her   carrying that against that pink dress was incredible. At the airport, I boarded the 1st press bus, which was about 7 cars behind the president's. On the trip into the city, I kept looking at my watch to see how much time I had to file a story and deciding which quote from that morning's speech I would use. When we got to Dealey Plaza I heard a bang. Was that a shot I thought? Then I head bang, bang in quick succession. I was sitting in the front of the bus and I shouted at the bus driver to stop.  He opened the door and I ran out of the bus. There was all this incredible screaming. I saw parents lying down covering their children with their bodies. I saw police officers running across a grassy knoll. I ran after them. All we found (behind the knoll) was empty train tracks. I ran back and dashed into a building. (It was the Texas Book Depository). I saw a young blonde-haired man who was leaving and and asked him where's a phone. He said he didn't know, but another person directed me. I phoned NBC in New York. I said "There were shots fired, but it is not known if the shots were fired at the president." I went back outside. A small black boy was pointing to the building I had exited and telling officers "I saw a man in the window with a gun." I discovered the president had been shot and had been taken to Parkland Hospital. I thought "I'm supposed to be covering the president and here I am miles away." I raced down the street and flagged down a car. I offered the driver $5 bucks to take me to the hospital. Five bucks was five bucks in 1963. I remember I kept hitting him in the arm and telling him to go faster and disregard the red lights. I told him NBC will pay the fines. When I arrived at the hospital, the pool reporters filled me in. Inside, I saw Merriman Smith, who would win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, phoning parts of a story in while the nurses kept saying "Sir, you can't use this phone". I found a room with a pay phone. Bob Pierpoint of CBS was on the phone next to me. I began telling my story to Frank Magee and Chet Huntley in New York. Communications weren't working properly, so they couldn't get me live on the air. Magee came up with a plan. I would say a sentence to him on the phone and he would repeat it on air for the audience.

Lehrer
I was eating breakfast at the airport. Suddenly, a waitress came in screaming "they've shot the president." I rushed to the phone and called my office. "We think he's dead. Get to Parkland (hospital)," they told me. I jumped in my car and drove to the hospital. When I got there, it was chaos. Nobody was in charge. Everybody was in charge.

MacNeil
The Secret Service and authorities cleared the hospital, but they didn't look in the room where Bob and I were. I went outside and I saw a white-faced Lyndon Johnson. I asked him "Mr. Vice President, is the President dead?" He walked right through me. Back on the phone, I heard Bob say "Walter, Walter (Cronkite), you can't say the president is dead before they announce it." Today, the whole world thinks Walter Cronkite announced Kennedy had been killed (because of the famous video footage of him removing his glasses and brushing away a tear), but he had time to prepare.

Lehrer
When I heard they had arrested the suspect, I rushed to the police station. I got there as they were bringing the suspect Lee Harvey Oswald in. I still have my notebook. Initially, I misspelled his last name in my notes. We were right there. I asked him if he had killed the president. Reporters were all asking him questions. The chaos was unlike anything I could have ever imagined. Everyone was wanting to know what had happened, but no one wanted to believe that it had really happened. We got a report that a Secret Service agent had also been killed. (That turned out to be false - it was actually agent Clint Hill who threw his body over the president and Mrs. Kennedy and was smeared with blood). Of course, we did find out that a Dallas police officer (J.D. Trippett) had been killed. We all stayed at the station all night trying to get any details we could.
People today can't believe the way things happened. But security just didn't exist at all like we have come to know it now.

MacNeil
As we waited, I began to think about a time sequence. I came to realize that Oswald, if he was indeed in the Book Depository, would have been exiting just as I came in looking for a phone. Years later, author William Manchester, who wrote the 1st comprehensive book on the assassination told me "I'm 95 percent convinced that the person you asked to use the phone was Lee Harvey Oswald".

Postscript
MacNeil and Lehrer kept filing stories on the assassination, but neither was present when Jack Ruby calmly walked forward in the police station and shot and killed Oswald, forever silencing the suspect and beginning what has been an ongoing debate on exactly who killed JFK. MacNeil was in Washington and Lehrer was in church in Dallas when Ruby pulled the trigger. It would be a decade before the 2 men would meet and form a news partnership that would last 20 years. Ironically, they discovered they had both been standing by the same fence at Love Field, just a few steps from each other, on that Dallas day, so long ago but still so dramatically remembered.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
Last night's engaging Newseum discussion was moderated by current PBS correspondent Judy Woodruff, who now reports for the renamed PBS NewsHour. Woodruff  told the 500 Newseum members and their guests that being the moderator had special meaning for her. Twenty years ago this summer, MacNeil, who she calls Robin instead of Robert, had hired her as a reporter for the 1st ever hour-long news broadcast in America. "That made a huge difference in my life and my professional career and I thank you," she said.

TV Detective Munch Tackles Real-life JFK Mystery

Richard Beltzer and Dick Gregory confer

For 20 years, actor Richard Beltzer, as his character Detective John Munch, has been employing his fictional investigative skills, 1st on Homicide Life on the Streets for 7 years and then on Law and Order: Special  Victims Unit for the past 13 years. In fact, Beltzer holds a TV record for portraying the same Munch character on 11 different shows ranging from Sesame Street to The Wire.

But Beltzer has been using his real-life investigative skills for twice that long, spending the past 40 years trying to unravel the truth behind the assassination of President John Kennedy and the cover-up that Beltzer believes began long before the shots that killed JFK were fired on that sad November, 1963 day in Dallas, Texas.

Last night, Beltzer appeared at the National Press Club to discuss the latest book he co-authored with David Wayne entitled Hit List: An In-Depth Look at the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination.

Beltzer contends that the JFK hit list contains more than 50 witnesses who died under mysterious circumstances ranging from accused murderer Lee Harvey Oswald (whom Beltzer believes was just a pasty set up by the American government. "He was there, but he didn't fire a shot.") to a Dallas stripper with the stage name Delilah, to national correspondent Dorothy Kilgallen, to U.S. Congressman Hale Boggs. "Anyone who had any knowledge was eventually murdered," Beltzer said. "The sheer number forces us to ask whether their deaths were coincidence?"

"This is the greatest murder mystery of all time," Beltzer added. "It's Sherlock Holmes on speed."

So how did the cover-up that Beltzer alleges begin? "It was the height of the Cold War. People said 'Holy shit! Somebody in government killed our president. We have to cover up." he contends. "I don't think there is one great big conspiracy, but there are a lot of sharks in the water."

So who did plot and carry out the Kennedy assassination? "The real question is who didn't kill him. I know that is glib but there were elements in our government and elements in the mob. President Kennedy was planning many changes," Beltzer maintains. "But it was 50 years ago. It just goes on and on. There is no reason not to tell the full story now. It's only the ongoing contempt for the American people and that to me is very, very disturbing."

Beltzer said that leaders in authority have been able to link the words conspiracy and theory and delusional together. "It's easy to marginalize people who question authority," Beltzer said.

Beltzer's Press Club talk came on the same day Hit List made the New York Times best seller list. This came despite the fact the The Times regularly refuses to review Beltzer's books on the JFK murder. "The New York Times doesn't review my books, so, if I may, I say fuck the New York Times," Beltzer said. "Certain people don't want people to know what I am saying because it is the truth."

Tales, Tips, and Tidbits

Beltzer was joined last night by his surprise special guest, comedian, social activist, and, like Beltzer, active informal investigator into Kennedy's death Dick Gregory. "Just to see Greg alone is worth the price of admission," Beltzer, who began in entertainment as a social comedian said. "He and Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce redefined for us what comedy can do: it can inform us, it can educate us, and it can make us think about who we are. Dick Gregory inspired me early on. I remember when he told an audience 'if you don't laugh, I may move in next to you.' He told the truth. He made us laugh and he made us think." Several times during his hour-long presentation Beltzer employed his comedic skills. For example, he convulsed the crowd when in response to the question if he feared for his own life because of his continued probing, he said no and then immediately collapsed to the floor in a quite convincing, sustained death scene. And then there was his closing remark. When presented with a National Press Club coffee mug he replied. "Hey, I'll put this on the set on my desk. And I want you to know, of all the rewards I've received, this is the latest."