Posted on 11/24/2008 11:07:50 AM PST by lewisglad
Edwards, a Lawrence resident and former Lawrence police officer, has co-authored a book telling the story of one of those eyewitnesses. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred 45 years ago today in Dallas.
“Beyond the Fence Line,” which he wrote with Marysville teacher Casey J. Quinlan, is about Ed Hoffman, who cannot hear or speak and whose accounts were largely ignored for years because of his difficulty communicating.
Now, his story is told in detail in a 233-page book that includes many diagrams explaining his experience. Though he’s told his story through shorter publications and has presented at the annual conference on the assassination sponsored by JFK Lancer Productions and Publications, an organization that supports alternative theories to the assassination that also published the book, this is the first in-depth look at his experience.
“It is a wonderful feeling,” Hoffman says via e-mail. “I have been to the conference almost every year and have been able to tell my story, but I have often worried that when I am gone, the story will no longer be available for those interested. I now have it in print, and it will always be available for anyone to read and/or study.”
The incident
Edwards, who now works in security for Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City, Kan., first met Hoffman almost 20 years ago after Hoffman’s story began circulating. Edwards has published several papers regarding the Kennedy assassination and was looking to do more research.
Hoffman’s story is this, according to Edwards:
Hoffman broke a tooth while working at his job at Texas Instruments in Dallas. While driving to his dentist, he stopped in the Dealey Plaza area to watch the president’s motorcade drive by.
He stood on a bridge near the plaza and saw a pair of men talking by a railroad switchbox.
He saw a man in a business suit and fedora raise a rifle, saw a puff of smoke and ran down a fence line. The shooter stopped and tossed the rifle to another man, who took the weapon apart, put it in a canvas bag and walked away.
A few seconds later, Hoffman saw the president’s motorcade drive by, with obvious wounds to Kennedy’s head.
Hoffman attempted to tell several police officers — including his uncle, who was on the force — about what he saw, but his inability to talk and hear made it difficult.
Also, his family wanted to protect him from scrutiny or physical danger. After all, the government concluded that Oswald acted alone in the assassination, and the case was closed.
Unusual book
Debra Conway, president of JFK Lancer Productions and Publications (“Lancer” was the Secret Service’s code name for Kennedy), says “Beyond the Fence Line” is rare in that it focuses entirely on one witness’ account.
“Typically in a book about witnesses, every chapter will have a different witness,” she says. “Whether we want to believe it or not, originally the witnesses were, and still are, very fearful about talking about what they had seen.”
Conway, who lives in a Dallas suburb, says she realizes some people view “conspiracy theorists” as being crazy.
“It’s hard,” she says. “And I always say I wear my tinfoil hat with pride. You have to get past that and wear it with pride. There are reporters (and) there are professional historians who won’t get near this case.”
The Internet, she says, has made it easier for anyone with a theory to publish his or her thoughts. But she says Edwards and Quinlan have done their homework.
“These authors did a tremendous job,” she says.
A story told
Edwards says Hoffman is a “sincere man” and that the details in his story can be corroborated by other witness accounts from Nov. 22, 1963. Much of the book is spent explaining those connections.
Edwards believes as many as a dozen potential shooters were at the site to kill Kennedy that day.
But he’s not confident the entire truth will ever be uncovered.
“I hate to use the cliché that it’s the crime of the century,” he says. “It’s killing the president in broad daylight, with hundreds and hundreds of witnesses. And the government seemed to brush it under the carpet.”
For his part, Hoffman says he’s always been angered that more people didn’t listen to his story, even 45 years later.
“It has always been frustrating to me that my story wasn’t taken more seriously. From the first few hours following the assassination, no one took me seriously,” he says. “I knew I had valuable information and tried in every way to tell those who needed to know.”
Now, the memories are as vivid as they were back then, he says.
“I am sure that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin that day,” he says. “Without a doubt.”
“Could Oswald pull off 3 shots in about 6.8 seconds for 75 yards and less?
With what I have learned over the years about firearms and what the Marines teach. Oswald could have gotten off the three very easily.”
Thank you!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Well, it was forty-five years ago.
I don’t know which is the bigger fraud accepted by the American public: The New Deal got America out of the Great Depression. or there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. All you have to do is examine Oswald’s activities immediately after the assassination and it becomes clear that he was fleeing Dealy Plaza for a reason. Then again, maybe he had an innocent explanation for sneaking into a movie with a gun.
As for Oswald having the aid of others, how much sense would it make to have the shooter commit the crime from his workplace-thereby assuring immediate identification, if not capture?
The left hates the fact that a red killed JFK. If LHO were alive today, he would no doubt be a DUmmie or kossak.
Hey, I’m just a conspiracy theory nut!
I think Stone was trying to present every conspiracy theory wrapped into one case. It turned out to be a convoluted mess and typical obsessive crusader movie.
;-)
The LEO's arresting him didn't even know he was the one missing from the TSBD at the time.
LHO and BHO ... Spelling Similiarities? ... Communists? ... There is a new conspiracy at hand. It's all interconnected! BWWWWAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I used to believe in the JFK conspiracy theories, but then I grew up.
The last think anyone should base this on is Oliver Stone’s JFK movie... Stone has an active imagination.
It's a game-style simulation where you get to be Oswald. Makes it very clear very fast that he easily could have acted alone - so easily that Occam's Razor neatly eliminates all other theories.
It’s not hard. Really.
See post #32 if you’d like to try a first-person simulation.
I saw that but I’m not a video gamester. I’ll take your word for it. :)
It is a challenge to believe that Ruby killed Oswald because he didn’t want to put wife thru trial
Maybe the KGB was unwittingly supporting the truth. They may not have known what really happened and simply tried to spread what they thought was an idea that would hurt the country. That doesn’t mean maybe it is closer to the truth than we would like to believe.
I went up there in the 6th floor of the Texas School Book
Depository and looked out the window this past summer.
The whole place has an eerie feel to it. Sort of locked in time. anyway. I looked at the fence. If someone were behind that wooden fence and shot from the front, there would be some evidence- a bullet, a fragment, a mark, some damage, I believe that Jackie Kennedy would have been possibly struck as well if it was the second shot. (from that particular angle.
Bump to try at home.
Right. If you go the grassy knoll and stand behind the fence, you notice what a tough shot it would have been. Not only would you have a limited time to track the car due to the branches, but the limo would simultaneoulsy moving away from you and descending on a slight grade as it approached.
My spontaneous reaction when I looked out the window adjacent to the sniper’s nest in the 6th floor museum was, ‘Yeah, he really did it.’ It’s much closer than it appears on TV, books etc.
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