Dallas unveils documents on Kennedy shooting
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (AFP): Officials in Texas have unveiled a trove of long-hidden memorabilia related to the assassination of president John F. Kennedy which they predict will fan conspiracy theories about the killing.
Dallas County district attorney Craig Watkins Monday showed off a dozen boxes filled with papers and items found inside a courthouse safe, where they had lain for decades.
"Our motto has always been that everything is open. We have nothing to hide. So we're making public everything that we have found in the safe," Watkins said, adding that he had learned about it shortly after taking office in 2007.
"Every DA to my knowledge has been made aware of the contents of that safe and every DA, until this new administration, decided that it wanted to keep it secret for whatever reason," Watkins told a press conference in Dallas.
"We decided that this information was too important to keep secret."
The courthouse overlooks the site where Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, hit by bullets as he passed in an open top car with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy.
The prosecutor said the discovery could fuel new conspiracy theories about the assassination, but one of the most intriguing documents has already been discounted as a likely fraud.
It is a purported transcript of a conversation between Kennedy's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby, the club owner who killed Oswald before he could face trial.
Watkins said he didn't know whether or not the conversation ever took place.
"But what we do know is that it will open up the debate as to whether or not there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president," he said.
In the alleged conversation, the two men discuss a plot to kill Kennedy a month before the popular president's assassination in Dallas, according to US media.
Dallas County district attorney Craig Watkins Monday showed off a dozen boxes filled with papers and items found inside a courthouse safe, where they had lain for decades.
"Our motto has always been that everything is open. We have nothing to hide. So we're making public everything that we have found in the safe," Watkins said, adding that he had learned about it shortly after taking office in 2007.
"Every DA to my knowledge has been made aware of the contents of that safe and every DA, until this new administration, decided that it wanted to keep it secret for whatever reason," Watkins told a press conference in Dallas.
"We decided that this information was too important to keep secret."
The courthouse overlooks the site where Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, hit by bullets as he passed in an open top car with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy.
The prosecutor said the discovery could fuel new conspiracy theories about the assassination, but one of the most intriguing documents has already been discounted as a likely fraud.
It is a purported transcript of a conversation between Kennedy's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby, the club owner who killed Oswald before he could face trial.
Watkins said he didn't know whether or not the conversation ever took place.
"But what we do know is that it will open up the debate as to whether or not there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president," he said.
In the alleged conversation, the two men discuss a plot to kill Kennedy a month before the popular president's assassination in Dallas, according to US media.