Introduction

 According to the Warren Commission Report,[1] President Kennedy was murdered by one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, operating alone and firing a World War II vintage Italian made rifle. The report states that 3 shots were fired by Oswald from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository building at Kennedy’s limousine as it passed below, heading west, away from him, down Elm street and through Dealey Plaza. The Warren Report states that the first shot missed completely; that the second shot hit Kennedy in the back and exited his throat, then struck Texas Governor John Connally (riding in the jump-seat in front of Kennedy) in the back, speeding downward from the Governor’s collarbone through the right side of his chest, where It smashed three ribs and punctured his lung. It then exited his chest and blasted through his right wrist, shattering it, before finally lodging in his left leg just above the knee. From there it supposedly fell out onto a hospital stretcher in nearly pristine condition, where it was discovered later. This is the famous “magic bullet,”[2] which you may have heard about. Oswald’s third shot, according to the Warren Commission, was the Kennedy head shot—the one that blew his brains out, as so vividly shown in the 8 mm home movie of the assassination made by a Dallas dress maker named Abraham Zapruder,[3] who happened to be filming the motorcade as it passed through Dealey Plaza. Those are the ABC’s of what the Warren Report says happened in the assassination of President Kennedy. Since Oswald himself was shot and killed by a Dallas night club owner named Jack Ruby[4] two days later while in the custody of the Dallas police, on national TV no less, he was never afforded a trial and a chance to respond to the two charges against him: that he shot and killed not only President Kennedy that fateful day, but also a Dallas police officer named J.D. Tippit.[5] Indeed, during his two-day incarceration Oswald had no legal representation at all, and during those two days in the custody of the Dallas police, through 12 hours of questioning[6], he never confessed to either crime. On the contrary, he loudly protested his innocence to the press, stating he hadn’t shot anyone, and that he was just a patsy. Had his case gone to trial, it’s very likely a competent defense attorney would have secured his acquittal; such is the abundance of evidence and witnesses the attorney could have called upon to challenge the charges. All of which brings us to the man who may be the most important eyewitness of any in Dealey Plaza that day—Ed Hoffman. This is his story…

(Much of the information in this article is taken from the book “Beyond the Fence Line-The Eyewitness Account of Ed Hoffman and the Murder of President Kennedy,” by Casey Quinlan and Brian Edwards, linked here: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fence-Line-Eyewitness-President)

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Witness to Tragedy

On the morning of Friday, November 22^nd, 1963, Ed Hoffman had a tooth ache. During his mid-morning break at Texas Instruments, where he worked, he’d been munching on an ice cube from a cup of Dr. Pepper and had cracked a molar. After getting the OK from his boss, he took off from his place of work in north Dallas and headed toward his dentist on the east side of town. As he was crossing through downtown he noticed the large crowds of people gathering on the streets and recalled that this was the day President Kennedy was coming to Dallas. Not wanting to miss a chance to see the President in person, Hoffman decided to park his car and find a good vantage point to watch the motorcade as it passed by on its way to the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was scheduled to deliver a speech. After a bit of a search, the place he selected was the west side of  Stemmons Freeway, close to where it merged with the Elm Street on ramp. (please see map) From there he had a sweeping view east toward Dealey Plaza, especially including the area behind the picket fence at the top of the grassy knoll, about 200 yards distant. Roughly 100 yards in front of Hoffman was a triple underpass, where the three streets, Elm Street, Main Street, and Commerce, all converged and passed under some parallel railroad tracks that led into the area behind the picket fence. Besides being a yard for the railroad, the area behind the fence also served as a parking lot. As he stood there gazing toward the Plaza, Ed had no way of knowing it, but he was about to become an eye witness to history—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The motorcade route to the Trade Mart that day was a peculiar one. It could have taken a much shorter route to the Trade Mart, one far less risky, by heading southwest from Love Field, which would have delivered JFK to his speech within 10 minutes or so of leaving the airport. Instead, the route selected was more than twice as long; going southeast from the airport to Main Street in downtown. It then turned right, heading west through downtown and all the way to Houston Street, where it took a sharp right turn to the north, skirting the eastern border of Dealey Plaza, and then almost immediately made an even sharper left hand turn onto Elm Street, passing the Book Depository building and continuing on through Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot. Negotiating the sharp turns, especially the turn onto Elm Street, forced the Presidential limousine to a near standstill, making the President the equivalent of a sitting duck, subject to potential crossfire from multiple directions, including the Book Depository and the now famous “grassy knoll.”

At this point it’s important to understand a few things about Ed Hoffman. Christened Virgil Edward Hoffman, he was born on September 20, 1936, which in November of 1963 made him 27 years old. He was married to his high school sweetheart, Rosie, and they made their home with their young daughter in the town of Grand Prairie just west of Dallas. By November of 1963 he’d been working at Texas Instruments for a couple of years. Another thing to know about Ed: at the age of 4-years old he lost his hearing, and had been deaf ever since. Because of this, his main form of communication was sign language. His eyesight, however, has never been in question—in November of 1963 it was perfect.

According to Hoffman, he arrived at his position on Stemmons Freeway about noon, and across the next 25 minutes observed the following behind the picket fence:

*A man in a business suit standing at the backside of the picket fence at the top of the grassy knoll, facing Elm Street. This man had a stocky build and wore a fedora style hat.

*He saw a 2^nd man, tall and slender, who looked like a railroad worker. This man was standing next to the middle of what looked to be three railroad switchboxes.

*Looking toward the triple underpass, Ed also saw several men dressed like railroad workers, standing on the railroad bridge above the underpass and facing away from him. The men were leaning on a rail overlooking Elm Street. He also observed two police officers on the railroad bridge.

*As Ed watched, he saw the man in the suit walk back and forth between the picket fence and the “railroad” man back by the switch boxes. The “suit” man did this twice, each time appearing to speak briefly to the “railroad” man before walking back to the fence.

*During this time he also saw two different cars drive into the parking lot; the first a white four door, followed a few moments later by a light-colored Rambler station wagon. At the time Hoffman assumed these cars were looking for parking spaces.

From where he was situated, Ed could not observe directly into Dealey Plaza and he could not see Elm Street. Thus, he could not see or hear (being deaf) the approach of the motorcade, but he continued to have an untrammeled view into the area behind the picket fence. As the time approached 12:30 PM he observed the following:

*A man in a plaid shirt came around from the east end of the fence, walked up to the “suit” man and spoke to him for a few moments, after which he turned and walked back around the fence, disappearing from Ed’s view.

*The “suit” man then walked over to the “railroad” man by the middle switch box and once again appeared to speak to him. He then returned to his original position by the fence.

*A moment later the “suit” man bent over and then stood up, resuming his position at the fence looking toward Elm Street.

*Just then Hoffman saw a puff of smoke wafting up from where the “suit” man was standing at the fence. Initially Ed thought this was from “suit” man smoking a cigarette or a cigar.[7]

* “Suit” man then turned away from the fence, so that he was directly facing Hoffman’s position. Ed could then see that the man had a rifle. Holding the rifle in front of him with both hands, “suit” man then ran toward “railroad” man and, once close enough, tossed the rifle to him underhand.

*The “railroad” man, as observed by Hoffman, caught the rifle with both hands, then took a step back, bent over, broke the weapon into two pieces, and placed them into a carrying bag. He then walked north at a brisk pace and disappeared into the rail yard north of the picket fence.

*Meanwhile, Ed saw “suit” man turn around and begin walking casually back toward the east end of the fence, where almost immediately he was confronted by a uniformed policeman. The policeman pointed his pistol directly at “suit” man, obviously challenging him. “Suit” man extended his arms, showing he wasn’t threatening, and then reached into his pocket and handed the contents to the policeman, who then holstered his gun and let “suit” man walk away into the crowd that was now coming around both ends of the fence. Ed assumed that “suit” man had handed the policeman some sort of identification.

Ed now knew that he had witnessed “suit” man shooting a rifle at what he assumed was the Presidential motorcade; which was confirmed for him moments later when he saw the limousine pass underneath him and head up the on-ramp onto Stemmons Freeway. Looking down at the limousine from above, Hoffman saw Kennedy lying on his left side across the blood-spattered back seat of the car, and could see a large, gaping wound in the right rear of the President’s head. Once the limousine passed him, Ed turned his attention back toward the area behind the fence, and saw “suit” man enter the passenger side of the Rambler station wagon and drive out of the parking lot along the north side of the Book Depository.

The Burden of Knowledge

Knowing that he’d seen the man who shot the President, Hoffman’s next effort was to get back to his car and drive over to the grassy knoll area to help find the “suit” man he’d seen with the rifle. He soon realized that would be impossible, however, due to the police directing people away from Dealey Plaza, and so drove out of downtown and over to the town of Grand Prairie just west of Dallas, where he first stopped at a body shop to tell a friend (also deaf) who worked there what he’d seen. The employees in the shop who could hear, saw Ed signing excitedly and gesturing to his friend, which at first they found amusing. They quickly changed their tune when it was explained to them what Ed was saying, and someone turned on a radio and they heard about the Kennedy shooting. After leaving the body shop, Ed then visited his family’s floral shop to see his father, Frederick Hoffman. On meeting his dad, Ed signed to him, “I saw them shoot JFK, I saw who did it!” Surprised to see his son not at work, Frederick seemed more concerned about getting Ed’s tooth fixed and back to work than he did about hearing what Ed was saying about Kennedy. He sternly told his son to get to the dentist and handle his tooth, whereupon a frustrated Ed got in his car and drove back to east Dallas to his dentist office.

Once at the dentist office, Ed continued to try and tell people his story, writing notes to other patients in the office to try to get them to understand what he’d seen. He also wrote notes to the dentist working on his tooth, Dr. Zawicki, explaining where he was and what he saw. Dr. Zawicki then left Ed in the dental chair and went out into the office to catch a radio report, after which he returned and told Ed that the President was, indeed, dead, thus confirming what Ed had seen with his own eyes. After getting his tooth fixed, Ed headed back across town to his father’s floral shop and appealed to him to call the police; at least to call Ed’s uncle, Robert Hoffman (his father’s brother), who was a detective in the Dallas police department, so Ed could relay his story to him. By the time he got there his father also knew the President was dead, but remained adamant on not informing the police, his brother, or anyone else about Ed’s witnessing the assassination; instead telling his son to go home and let the police do their job.

His frustration mounting, Ed then drove home, and upon arriving found his wife Rosie watching TV reports of the assassination. Puzzling him was the concentration by the news reports on the 6^th floor of the Book Depository as where the shots originated. And when he saw the suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, he excitedly signed to Rosie, “No, that’s not him! That’s not the man I saw!” Ed and Rosie were to celebrate their 7^th wedding anniversary that day, but instead, on duplicating her husband’s story of what he witnessed, Rosie then accompanied him on a drive back to where he was standing a few hours earlier, on the west side of Stemmons Freeway, close to where the Elm Street on ramp passes under the freeway and turns north to merge into the freeway traffic. He showed her the view he had into the area behind the picket fence, where he saw the shooter, and also where he was able to look down from the freeway and see the fatally wounded President.

Knowing her husband, Rosie had no doubt that he was telling the truth, but it wasn’t until 6 days later, while at his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner, that his father at last agreed to letting Ed tell his uncle Robert what he knew. With Robert being a detective in the Dallas Police Department, Ed’s meeting with him would be his first chance to download his knowledge to someone in any kind of authority to do something about it. Before allowing his son to speak with Robert, Ed’s father spent a few minutes talking with his brother, during which Ed assumed his father was relaying the details of what he’d seen. More likely his father was expressing his concerns to Robert about Ed’s safety, and was enlisting his aid in the task of protecting his son. One of the things Ed witnessed immediately after Kennedy was shot, was the motorcade passing under Stemmons Freeway and then turning right up the Elm Street on ramp and into the freeway. By then secret service agents had responded to the shooting and several were riding in the car just behind the President’s in the motorcade. One of these agents, George Hickey, was carrying an AR-15 assault rifle, loaded and ready to fire. Alert to any further threats, when he saw Ed looking down at him from the overpass, he pointed the rifle directly at him, at which point, and for the next few moments, Ed froze. Likely, Ed’s story of being confronted by the rifle-wielding secret service agent was fueling his father’s concern for the safety of his son.

When at last Ed got to communicate with his uncle Robert, it was with his father as his sign language interpreter. After understanding Ed’s story, Robert stated to him (Ed’s father interpreting,) “Your father is right, you should keep quiet about this, and you might be in danger.” Unimpressed by the warning, Ed objected that the real killers had gotten away; that he was sure the authorities did not know about the shot fired from the picket fence, and he insisted that someone look into what happened there. To that Robert responded, “You keep quiet! You talk, you get shot!”, after which Ed, despairing of ever getting his family to help him, left the room. His father encouraged him to forget what happened, and to enjoy Thanksgiving. For Ed Hoffman, however, that simply wasn’t possible.

Regarding Ed’s conversation on that Thanksgiving with his dad and uncle, many years later, in 2007, in an interview with Casey Quinlan and Brian Edwards, (the authors of the book referenced at the outset of this article) Robert Hoffman confirmed that his brother was very concerned about Ed’s safety. He also stated that in their conversation, Ed, as interpreted by Ed’s father, told his story of seeing the two men behind the picket fence, one of whom had a rifle and appeared to shoot at the President. In the interview with the authors, Robert Hoffman stated that he believed that Ed accurately reported what he’d seen. He said that no one in the family ever questioned Ed’s credibility, and that he “…believed his story right away.”  He also said that, “Ed was one hundred percent reliable, he would never lie about something like that.”

Though he was, no doubt, one of the premier witnesses to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Ed Hoffman, like many other witnesses in Dealey Plaza that day, was never called to testify before the Warren Commission. As far as they were concerned, he did not exist. The Warren Report, the official published findings of the Warren Commission, was issued in September of 1964, and stated that JFK was killed by a lone rifleman named Lee Harvey Oswald, firing from a 6^th floor window in the Texas School Book Depository; that Oswald was himself shot and killed two days later by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby; that there was no conspiracy to kill the President, or Oswald for that matter, and the case was officially closed. Nevertheless, still haunted by the gunman he’d seen behind the picket fence, and despite the admonitions of his father and uncle, Ed felt a keen responsibility to get his information to the appropriate agencies, so they could do something about it. At last, in the early summer of 1967, with help from his boss at Texas Instruments, a man named Jim Dowdy, Ed got an appointment with FBI Special Agent Will Hayden Griffin, to be held on June 28^th, 1967 at the Bureau field office in Dallas.

In setting up the appointment, it was made clear to Griffin that Ed was a deaf mute, yet when he arrived at the field office to meet with the FBI agent there was no sign language interpreter present. Thus, Ed was forced to relay his story with hand-written notes, gestures and crude drawings. In his description of the meeting to authors Quinlan and Edwards, Ed stated that Griffin appeared to be attentive and understanding of what he was saying. He also said the agent requested no clarification on what he was saying, yet FBI reports of the interview, later released under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, per Quinlan and Edwards, “…are vague and distorted, perhaps because of poor communication or a deliberate attempt to discredit Ed’s account. Agent Griffin’s report is full of transcription errors, and the only correct information on the report was Hoffman’s address, the location where he was standing (Stemmons Freeway), his seeing the two men behind the fence, and that he was coming forward with this information against his father’s advice.” There was no mention in the FBI agent’s report of Ed seeing a rifle, the puff of smoke, or the second man behind the fence breaking down the rifle, which, intended or not, effectively gutted it in terms of the importance of Ed’s account.

According to authors Quinlan and Edwards, once Ed felt he had communicated everything, agent Griffin collected Hoffman’s notes and drawings. Then, using gestures, he communicated back to Ed, understood by him and reported by Quinlan and Edwards as follows:

“…while raising an index finger; he points to Ed and brings an index finger up to his lips (as if to say ‘quiet’); mimes removing a wallet from his back pocket; mimes giving Ed something small with one hand; holds up one hand, palm facing Ed, with (five) fingers extended… (indicating the number ‘5’); Griffin closes the hand into a fist, twice (suggesting two zeroes).”

Though Griffin, per Ed, did not actually produce any money to give to him during the interview, the suggestion that he keep quiet in exchange for money shocked him. He gestured back to Griffin that he was not interested in money for his silence, at which point the agent’s attitude changed; becoming stern, almost angry. Antagonistically, he gestured back to Ed, interpreted by him as that he needed to “keep quiet about this.” After that Ed got up and rapidly left the room, only to return a couple hours later to correct one of the drawings he had left with agent Griffin. On seeing Griffin this time, the agent was, if anything, even more angry toward Ed; once again gesturing to him to “keep quiet.” As reported by agent Griffin, in this second meeting Ed told him that he had just returned from the spot on Stemmons Freeway where he’d seen the shooter behind the fence, and that he wanted to amend his earlier statement; revising it to state that he realized he could not actually have seen the 2 men running because his view was obstructed. Conversely, Ed maintained that he never made this statement, leaving us to wonder if Griffin merely misunderstood Hoffman, or if he was willfully false reporting.

In succeeding years Ed would have more adventures with the FBI, including Bureau investigations of him and another interview in 1977. At one point he even took the unusual step of writing to President Kennedy’s brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, in an attempt share what he knew, only to have the Senator respond that speculation about what really happened to his brothers (by then Robert Kennedy had also been assassinated) was painful for the family, and that if there was additional evidence to consider it would be the responsibility of the proper legal authorities to do so. In 1979, after expecting for months to be called as a witness to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)[8], but never being called, he wrote to the Committee to tell them what he knew. The letter was acknowledged as received, but just as the Committee ran out of operational funds and was being shut down. Thus, though the HSCA final report stated that JFK’s murder was mostly likely the result of a conspiracy, it wasn’t because of Ed’s information. In addition, as more and more private assassination researchers became active, awareness of Ed’s story grew and he was interviewed multiple times by these researchers; unfortunately, only rarely with competent, qualified sign language interpreters present. The resulting accounts varied with one another, therefore, sometimes slightly and at other times significantly. Through the years, JFK conspiracy theory critics would use these variations against Ed to invalidate his testimony; stating that he was always changing his story. Also, as time went by key characteristics on the grassy knoll and in Dealey Plaza changed. Trees and vegetation grew more, and view-obstructing signs were placed where they hadn’t been in November, 1963. These, too, were used by his critics to make nothing of Ed’s testimony, stating that he couldn’t have seen what he claimed, and that he was lying.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The one constant in the whole Ed Hoffman narrative, is that if one takes the time and care necessary to understand him, his story has never changed: that on Friday, November 22, 1963, he was standing on Stemmons Freeway with an excellent view east, into the area behind the picket fence atop the grassy knoll, and there saw two men work together, one of them shooting at the President with a rifle; the other breaking it down and making his getaway through the rail yard.

Epilog

Ed Hoffman passed away on March 24, 2010, at the age of 73, never having wavered from his story of having witnessed a rifleman behind the picket fence, firing at President Kennedy on the day he was killed. The significance of Ed’s testimony is obvious, for if it is true, there were clearly more people involved in the assassination of JFK than Lee Harvey Oswald shooting from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository with an old rifle. If Ed’s story is true, and I think it is, then there is no question about there being a conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In the 1960s, and even into the 1970s and 80s, some of those perpetrating Kennedy’s murder were still alive and could have been brought to justice. It’s our great loss that they weren’t, especially with the multitude of witnesses to what happened in Dealey Plaza that day, willing to help with what they saw and knew.

One of those witnesses, probably the best one, was a deaf, mute man named Ed Hoffman, who, despite all the barriers, did his best to report what he knew to those who had the responsibility to do something about it.

He deserved so much better at their hands.

And so did we.

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[1] The Warren Commission, formally President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was appointed by U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, two days later. The chairman of the commission was the chief justice of the United States, Earl Warren. The other members were two U.S. senators, Richard B. Russell of Georgia and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky; two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Gerald Ford of Michigan; and two private citizens, Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John J. McCloy, former president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. From December 5, 1963, when it first met, to September 24, 1964, when it submitted its finding to the president, the commission took the testimony of more than 550 witnesses and received more than 3,100 reports from the FBI and Secret Service. It was aided by 10 major departments of the federal government, 14 independent agencies, and 4 congressional committees. The commission’s 888-page report was released to the public immediately after being submitted to President Johnson. The commission reported that the bullets that killed President Kennedy were fired by Oswald from a rifle pointed out a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository

[2] The magic-bullet theory, was introduced by the Warren Commission in its investigation of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to explain what happened to the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. Given the lack of damage to the presidential limousine consistent with it having been struck by a high-velocity bullet, and the fact that Texas Governor John Connally was wounded and was seated on a jumper seat in front of and slightly to the left of the president, the Commission concluded they were likely struck by the same bullet. Generally credited to Warren Commission staffer Arlen Specter (later a United States Senator from Pennsylvania), this theory posits that a single bullet, known as “Warren Commission Exhibit 399” or “CE 399”, caused all the wounds to the governor and the non-fatal wounds to the president, which totals up to seven entry/exit wounds in both men. In actual fact it is doubtful if Kennedy’s throat wound was an exit wound, as it had been identified as a wound of entry by the trauma room doctors (all seasoned at treating gunshot wounds) at Parkland hospital, and even was reported as such in the initial broadcasts after JFK passed. Most likely, the shot (or shots, as there may have been more than one) that hit Connally missed Kennedy, which would mean that, since Kennedy was hit 3 times (back, throat, and head shot), Connally was hit at least once, and another shot missed the limousine completely and struck a concrete curb, causing a chip to fly off and strike a bystander named James Tague, in turn causing a superficial wound to his cheek; if you add them up, that’s at least 5 shots, not the 3 shots claimed by the Warren Commission. With the duration of the shooting fixed by the Zapruder film at 5.6 seconds, there is no way Oswald could have gotten off all those shots. The “magic bullet” theory was the Warren Commission’s expedient solution to the problem.   

[3] Abraham Zapruder (1905 – 1970) was a Ukrainian-born American clothing manufacturer who witnessed the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. He unexpectedly captured the shooting in a home movie while filming the presidential limousine and motorcade as it traveled through Dealey Plaza. The Zapruder film is the most complete footage of the assassination.

[4] Jack Leon Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein; (1911 – 1967) was an American nightclub owner and alleged associate of the Chicago Mafia who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was accused of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Dallas jury found Ruby guilty of murdering Oswald and sentenced him to death. Ruby’s conviction was later appealed, and he was to be granted a new trial; however, he became ill in prison, was diagnosed with cancer, and died of a pulmonary embolism on January 3, 1967. In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald, shooting him on impulse and out of grief over Kennedy’s assassination. These findings were challenged by various critics who suggested that Ruby was involved with major figures in organized crime and that he was acting as part of an overall plot surrounding the assassination of Kennedy.

[5] J. D. Tippit (1924 –1963) was an American World War II U.S. Army veteran and police officer who served as an 11-year veteran with the Dallas Police Department. About 45 minutes after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Tippit was shot and killed in a residential neighborhood in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of Tippit and was subsequently charged with killing Kennedy. Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, two days later.

[6] Unbelievably, during Oswald’s 12 hours of questioning by the Dallas police, there was no stenographer or tape recorder present to record the accused assassin’s answers to questions being put to him. After the death of Oswald’s primary interrogator, Capt. JW Fritz, handwritten notes written by Fritz made following the interview were found in his possessions. The notes corroborated Fritz’s testimony before the Warren Commission: that Oswald, during questioning, denied assassinating Kennedy, denied owning a rifle and claimed a photograph of him holding a rifle in his Dallas backyard was a forgery.

[7] The puff of smoke witnessed by Hoffman from Stemmons freeway was also seen by 3 railroad workers standing on the railroad bridge over the triple underpass, about 100 yards closer to Dealey Plaza. They report seeing the smoke waft out of the grassy knoll foliage at the time of the shooting. They also corroborated Hoffman’s report of a shooter behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, stating that is where the shot(s) appeared to come from.

[8] In the wake of Watergate and President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Congress undertook investigations of the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies with the creation of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities chaired by Idaho Democratic Senator Frank Church. The Church Committee published 14 reports containing its findings, which included CIA involvement in, among other things, assassinations. With the public airing of the Zapruder home movie of the JFK assassination showing Kennedy reacting to an apparent shot from the front, there were calls for reinvestigation of this and other political assassinations of the 1960s. In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations undertook reinvestigations of the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1979, a single Report and twelve volumes of appendices on each assassination were published by the Congress. In the JFK case, the HSCA found that there was a “probable conspiracy,” though it was unable to determine the nature of that conspiracy or its other participants (besides Oswald). This finding was based in part on acoustics evidence from a tape purported to record the shots, but was also based on other evidence including an investigation of Ruby’s underworld connections. The acoustics evidence was disputed by a panel of scientists, but that “debunking” has itself come under attack recently.

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