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Holland Déjà Vu
by Dale K. Myers with Todd W. Vaughan
December 20, 2007
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A theory that Lee Harvey Oswald fired his first shot earlier than anyone had ever considered before is making the rounds again. But despite the accolades from uninformed circles, the theory has proven, once again, to have no factual basis. I say ‘once again,’ because we’ve heard all of this before. Déjà vu.
In their article “J.F.K.’s Death, Re-Framed,” published as a New York Times Op-Ed piece on the forty-fourth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, Max Holland and Johann W. Rush propose once again that Oswald fired his first shot nearly three seconds earlier than previously thought and that this first shot struck a traffic pole resulting in a ricochet that missed the motorcade.
According to Holland and Rush, their theory is supported by eye and ear-witnesses to the shooting (including Amos L. Euins, the only one named in the New York Times article) and explains why Oswald missed his first and closest shot.
“Oswald still did it,” Holland and Rush assure us, but their new theory, they say, could have saved the Warren Commission from falling into disrepute because it offers a shooting sequence that is far more plausible in its timing.
New theories abound in the Kennedy assassination. In fact, we’re awash every November in new theories about what happened in Dallas. Most of these new theories are a lot of nonsense.
But, when the New York Times publishes a piece by someone like Max Holland (author of “The Kennedy Assassination Tapes,” and a forthcoming book on the Warren Commission) and Johann Rush (a television photographer, who filmed Lee Harvey Oswald demonstrating in New Orleans in August 1963) people sit up and take notice.
One expects to read a factual, accurate, and well-researched take on this very controversial subject in such a prestigious venue. Instead, Holland and Rush stumble their way through an embarrassing, ill-conceived, unsupportable theory that comes off more like ‘headline grabbing’ than anything else. What a shame...
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Anniversary Circus
by Dale K. Myers
November 23, 2007
About 300 people, including history buffs, conspiracy theorists, two Elvis impersonators (you read right), and artists working on a peace exhibit gathered in Dealey Plaza yesterday to mark the 44th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination in a loosely organized ceremony that was part memorial and part circus.
On hand were Beverly Oliver (who claims to be the ‘Babuska Lady,’ prominently featured in a number of photographs of the 1963 event), who sang the national anthem and signed autographs; members of the “Coalition on Political Assassinations,” who held aloft a banner bearing the name of its organization; people wearing T-shirts that said "Who shot JFK?" on the front and "Not LHO" on the back; and of course Robert J. Groden, the self-proclaimed photo expert who has been hawking his 11 books and glossy magazines on a daily basis from a table top near the grassy knoll for the last 12 years.
Groden spent his 62nd birthday (yes, his birthday is on November 22nd) talking to the curious and the ever present media about the case that has dominated his life.
“The public still wants to know the truth and they know they don't have it,” Groden told the Dallas Morning News. Ironically, Groden himself has proven to have an aversion to the truth...
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Forty-four years and counting
by Dale K. Myers
November 22, 2007
What a wild year it’s been for Kennedy assassination enthusiasts. Here’s some of what you might have missed:
In February, "1963: 11 Seconds in Dallas", an article by Max Holland and Johann W. Rush appeared on the Internet website History News Network (HNN). In it, they detailed their theory that Oswald fired his first shot several seconds before Abraham Zapruder began filming the Kennedy limousine, and consequently, Zapruder's infamous film did not capture the entire shooting sequence as previously accepted.
A minor point to be sure, but in the final analysis, the Holland-Rush thesis had no support whatsoever in the historic record. They might just as well have pulled their thesis out of thin air. They started with a false premise, based on a generalization of the earwitness accounts which described the spacing of the shots, then backward engineered an earlier first shot which failed to pass the litmus test in every respect. When they were called out on it, they refused to acknowledge the obvious. [See: Max Holland's 11 Seconds in Dallas]
In May, Vincent Bugliosi’s seminal 2,500 page (including endnotes) work, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was released and quickly ignored by conspiracy buffs. Their reason for ignoring Bugliosi’s 25-year investigation of the case? According to postings on various conspiracy newsgroups from persons admitting right up front that they hadn’t read the book and had no intention of doing so, Bugliosi’s book was full of “lies and omissions.” It’s hard to understand on anyone who admits that they hadn’t read the book could possibly know what was in it or whether it was accurate or not....
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