2009. In fourth grade, I became more and more engrossed in US History, in particular, presidents (coincidentally, this was the same year as the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday). Lincoln was obviously a favorite of mine, but I was also drawn to Kennedy. It may have been his charismatic nature or his presidency at a crucial time in America's history, but JFK soon became one of my favorites. Now I do realize that he didn't really do a whole lot for America and little to nothing for the Civil Rights Movement despite supporting equality. But that's beside the point.
2015, May. Fast forward six years, and I was a Uni sophomore studying for spring finals in the library when I noticed a book in the "new books" area by James L. Swanson. I immediately recognized his name from his famous novel Chasing Lincoln's Killer: The Ten Day Manhunt for John Wilkes Booth. This novel, however, was regarding a different assassination: that of President Kennedy. It included a synopsis of the assassination from an objective view based on what we know (which sort of means it wasn't really objective since it followed the 'lone gunman' theory, but whatever, I guess it did acknowledge other possibilities), and had sketches of bullet trajctories and sniper positions.
But the important part I found is that it was mainly following Abraham Zapruder's film of the assassination that many historians are citing certain frames of from memory now. That night, probably Thursday the 21st of May for history's sake (last day before finals) I watched the Zapruder film on my school laptop, on a YouTube video similar to the one we saw Tuesday in class. The frame everyone talks about is frame 313, in which the fatal "third Oswald shot" is landed on the right side of Kennedy's head. Of course, while watching it, I was pretty sure Oswald fired that fatal bullet, but it did look like it came from the front.
2016, May 10. Fast forward one year and here I am, watching this film again in class. I've just read the chapter "22 November", which of course, deals with Raymo Benitez shooting the fatal bullet himself and my last thought is this: DeLillo does a great job of interpreting the Zapruder film so that the first shot ("the one that missed") hits Kennedy, the second ("supposed to have hit both") hits Connally before Raymo shoots Kennedy dead and Oswald misses, satisfying the condition that one bullet is found without making its mark. Genius or just another way to sell the conspiracy point of view? Your call.
I thought that Delillo was brilliant in terms of how he constructed his novel around the several conspiracy theories that exist with the assassination of John F. Kennedy (the "magic" bullet, the lone gunman, etc.). I was also very impressed with how historically accurate the book was, especially in 22 November. For sure, Delillo used the Zapruder film as a primary source when he was writing "Libra". One can take so much information from the film, but I think the one thing that'll always stick with me is the image of seeing the President's brain being blown out of his head on the "third" shot (or whatever shot that was). I've watched the film over and over and I know what happens. But still, every time I watch the video, I always slightly flinch when President Kennedy's brain gets blown out. I definitely think that if a person can't be bothered to learn about President Kennedy's assassination, showing them the Zapruder film will either entice them to or give them a good enough idea of what happened in a short time.
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