A conspiracy -- between JFK museums
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Tourists visit The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.
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•On Saturday, see "CNN Presents: 'President Kennedy Has Been Shot'" at 8 p.m. EST.
•Then stay tuned at 9 p.m. EST Saturday for a "Larry King Live" interview with Nellie Connally, the last surviving passenger of the Kennedy presidential limo.
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VIDEO
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CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks with Dr. Robert Grossman, one of the physicans who worked to save Kennedy's life in 1963.
The book 'Remembering Jack' offers photographer Jacques Lowe's intimate portraits of Kennedy and his family.
CNN's Jeff Greenfield on U.S. optimism in the days before the assassination.
Dan Rather, who covered John F. Kennedy's trip to Dallas for CBS, describes what he saw and heard.
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DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- The man behind the counter popped in a video in the Conspiracy Museum's darkened back room and pulled a chair in front of the TV.
"Here's what they don't want to show you down the street," Ron Rice said, his voice lowered.
The video is a copy of Abraham Zapruder's amateur footage of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Zapruder, a spectator who was part of the crowd greeting the president, was the sole person to film the deadly shot to Kennedy's head.
Rice contends that The Sixth Floor Museum, two blocks away, won't show Zapruder's film in its entirety because they want to hide a popular conspiracy theory: that bullets fired at Kennedy came from the grassy knoll, not from Lee Harvey Oswald and the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.
Ahhh, a conspiracy -- this one between museums.
While the sleek Sixth Floor Museum is considered the authority on Kennedy's assassination, the Conspiracy Museum, operating on a shoestring budget down the street, aims to address the countless conspiracy theories swirling around Kennedy's death.
Many of the 10-year-old Conspiracy Museum's displays are hand-drawn: the purported route Oswald took to escape and something called an "assassination tree" tracing prominent Americans assassinated over time.
The gift shop consists of a rack of refrigerator magnets and Texas bluebonnet cards, assorted books and tapes, and a few other items.
The museum's owner, Robert Cutler, lives in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, and remains detached from the day-to-day operations.
'You don't need to see the man die'
Meanwhile, The Sixth Floor Museum has attracted nearly a half million visitors annually since it opened in 1989. Audio tours come in seven languages. The National Parks Service designated the museum and Dealey Plaza as a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
Dallas County owns the former Texas School Book Depository, which contains The Sixth Floor Museum. The museum operates separately as a nonprofit organization and is funded primarily through donations and ticket and gift shop sales.
The former book depository building has been preserved to look as it did in 1963, with its brick walls, wooden beams and exposed vents. A corner window is sealed off with plexiglass. Boxes inside are stacked precisely as they were when it was used as a sniper's nest.
Visitors are first reminded of what life was like back then. A Chubby Checkers album and a playbill for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" put the era into context, as do displays on racial struggles and the space race. Dozens of Kennedy family photos as well as those of Kennedy in office hang on the walls.
The museum shows Zapruder's film -- but stops before the point when the president is shot. Curator Gary Mack said the film stops there because the graphic scene might offend some people, especially parents visiting with their children.
"Of course we're criticized for doing that," Mack said. "But we'd also be criticized if we did show it. ... The reality is, you don't need to see the man die to know that he did."
For the 40th anniversary, the museum on November 22 will debut the exhibit "Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys."
No conclusions
The museum tackles several of the most prevalent conspiracy theories, such as the "grassy knoll" theory, with clinical detachment. Some believe a sniper awaited Kennedy's motorcade atop a grassy knoll downtown and fired along with Oswald at the president.
Other conspiracy ideas point to organized crime and the Cuban government, which had bitter relations with the United States during Kennedy's presidency.
This is the window at The Sixth Floor Museum where Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have fired his rifle, assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
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The museum explores why suspicions were raised, what investigations were done and the outcome -- without any innuendoes or any conclusions drawn.
Across the street from where Kennedy was shot, the Conspiracy Museum draws in those who want to learn more about the theories. Rice, who refuses any title beyond "worker," speaks in a near mumble. His answers are more like hints to the next question.
"There had to be a conspiracy with JFK. There's too many red flags," Rice says as he points to a map on the wall showing six shots fired in Dealey Plaza. The official count is three.
Visitors can also study a sketchy array of questionable outcomes in the assassinations of President Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Even mysteries behind UFOs are scrutinized and linked to government cover-ups.
But the Kennedy assassination is the museum's bread and butter.
As Rice puts it, "It's America's No. 1 mystery."
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
