In one year the entire world will turn its attention to Dallas to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of John F. Kennedy. The mayor hopes to show off a city that has evolved into a sophisticated global destination. But when it comes to the assassination, nothing is as simple as it seems—and that is why Dallas is so worried. by Mimi Swartz. TexasMonthly.com Unlike so many people who have become part of the Dallas narrative, Robert J. Groden doesn’t radiate the aura of a winner. He is a paunchy 67-year-old nebbish who drives a PT Cruiser and loves dining at Red Lobster. He is tall, but he slouches. His color isn’t good, probably because, by his account, he suffers from three kinds of heart disease. His shaggy hair, doleful eyes, and chronic wince give him the mien of a man locked in a perpetual if not entirely painful state of mourning, which actually happens to be the case. Groden has devoted most of his adult life to exposing what he believes to be a diabolical conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. In better times, he wrote best-selling books on the subject, assisted the House Select Committee on Assassinations,…

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By David Flick, dflick@dallasnews.com, 2:07 pm on November 20, 2012 | Permalink Historian David McCullough in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., in May 2011. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press) David McCullough, perhaps the nation’s most popular historian, will be the principal speaker at the city’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In a news conference Tuesday, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and longtime philanthropist Ruth Altshuler announced that McCullough would headline a 45-minute program of events at Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 2013. The observance also will include a presentation by the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club, a military jet flyover, a brief speech by the mayor and prayers by the Rev. Zan Holmes and  Bishop Kevin Farrell of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. There will be a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m, the exact time the shooting occurred. McCullough, 79, has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for biography, for Truman and John Adams. The former was adapted by HBO into a TV movie; the latter, a mini-series. He is also a two-time winner of the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His most recent history is The…

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The city’s plan for commemorating the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination calls for the right ingredients: simplicity, dignity and focus on the slain president’s memory. And it places the program of Nov. 22, 2013, in the spot where, Dallas has seen from experience, people will want to be.

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November 19, 2012 Dallas Mayor Rawlings is expected to announce tomorrow that the exclusive permit issued for Dealey Plaza to the Sixth Floor Museum this year will be transferred to the 50th Anniversary Planning Committee he appointed. We still plan to hold our Moment of Silence at 12:30 pm this year and next on the Grassy Knoll. Denying a voice that mentions the political reality of conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy due to “sensitivity” about the presence of the international press is a denial of free speech. See the video version at http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas/JFK-50th-assassination-memorial-will-be-at-Dealey-Plaza-180055291.html

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By Jim Schutze Mon., Oct. 29 2012 at 10:54 AM Story by Rudy Bush in today’s Dallas Morning Pravdaabout plans to refurbish Dealey Plaza, the place where Dallas killed Kennedy. Typical straight-up just-the-facts news objective reporting, don’t you know. Except the story ends with a fund-raising appeal: “Those interested in providing assistance can donate to the Dealey Plaza Restoration Project maintained by the Dallas Foundation.” Hmm. You see that more in junk mail than news stories. See also: - The 50th Anniversary of JFK’s Death Could Be the Start of Something Good and Loud Also, even though the story talks a lot about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the day Dallas killed Kennedy (November 22, 2013), and even though most of the people it names as wanting to spruce up Dealey Plaza for the 50th are Dallas Morning News-related people considered to be sort of at the heart of the assassination story, and even though they also dominate the effort to shut down free speech at the 50th, and even though people on the other side of the question have threatened an Occupy-style protest if they don’t back off, Bush forgets in his piece to mention even a single syllable…

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By Jim Schutze On November 22, 1963, the day President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in Dealey Plaza, Robert Groden was an 18-year-old kid at home playing hooky from Forest Hills High School in the nice part of Queens, New York. He sat glued to the television watching a grim but unreal saga unfold — something out of a cheap detective novel set in some distant banana republic — all of it in living black and white, all of it coming from some strange city 1,400 miles away called Dallas. Since that day Groden has devoted his entire life to ferreting out the truth beneath the surface of the bizarre pictures that flashed across his TV screen a half century ago. Author of seven books on the Kennedy assassination, including a New York Times best-seller, Groden now lives here and lectures and sells his books and videotapes to tourists in Dealey Plaza.

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By John Judge In response to the previous post “Mayor Rawlings names committee to plan commemoration of JFK tragedy in Dallas” John Judge wrote the mayor of Dallas: The Coalition on Political Assassinations is a national network of serious researchers into the JFK assassination Our first president was Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, JD MD, who now directs the Cyril H Wecht Institute on Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University. Other leading ballistics, forensic, medical experts, academics and former official investigators, authors and independent researchers present the best new evidence from scientific analysis, historical perspectives, and newly released documents. We were responsible for the passage and implementation of the JFK Assassination Records Act, which declassified a record 6.5 million pages that rewrote the history of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy administration and the assassination itself. The new files verified the research and legal assertions of New Orleans D. A. Jim Garrison depicted in Oliver Stone’s movie JFK. A local Dallas representative of our organization should be appointed to this committee planning the events. Early critic and newspaper editor Penn Jones, Jr. from Midlothian, Texas began the tradition of an annual Moment of Silence on the…

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