Dallas is to be appreciated as a rich, energetic city, but it is hard to be there and not think about THAT day. We had only been in the town for about an hour to attend a conference when a colleague pointed out that Dealey Plaza was only a few blocks away. The draw was hard to resist. What happened there is too much a part of our lives to pretend disinterest. How to deal with the site of a presidential assassination is a delicate question. In an intellectually free country it can't be demolished and replaced with modern construction, like Hitler's bunker. Yet decency hopes that the location is not exploited. There were several people walking near the site, including a group of Boy Scouts. A white "X" is painted on the street at the point where the fatal bullet hit, but without explanation – though none is needed.
Had it not been for the events of Nov. 22, 1963, the site would still be historic, at least in Dallas history, for it was near there that the first settlers began to build a community. There are markers telling about the early history, but the marker that people gravitate to is the one on the side of the old brick building that is now a city facility but the world will forever know as the Texas Book Depository. Several paragraphs tell about the long history of the site, but the part of the story that people are there for is toward the end, the sentence that tells about Lee Harvey Oswald. What surprised me was the wording which said that Oswald "allegedly" shot and killed the president. Allegedly? Someone scratched an underline beneath the word.
Because of Jack Ruby the Kennedy case will probably never fully resolve everyone's suspicions, but make no mistake: It was Oswald who killed the president, not allegedly, but in fact. There is room for debate about why Oswald pulled the trigger and if anyone prompted him to do it, but the shots were his.
There is a Pulitzer prize and instant fame, waiting for the person who can prove to the contrary but, even with new investigative technology and skilled sleuthing, that has not happened. True, Oswald was never found guilty in a court of law, but, in the 52 years since the crime the failure to disprove has provided a powerful verdict.
Perhaps we would all like to think that the case was more complex because it is scary to imagine that one 24-year-old man acting alone could unsettle the government of the world's most powerful nation and change the course of national and international politics.
As visitors approach the former schoolbook depository, they cannnot help but count the floors to number six and the corner window from which the shots were fired. From the outside, that space is inconspicuous. On the inside, it is a museum. An alleged action would not get so much attention. Visitors go to the sixth floor because what happened there was real.