I was 18 years old, working in an auto body shop, and under a car bolting a fender back on when the news came over the radio in the shop. There was dead silence and the shop owner and I both stopped what we were doing and moved a couple of chairs over to the counter where the radio was. The owner fished a couple of cold beers out of his ice bucket and we sat down both in silent shock. I do not remember a word being said for about an hour as we listened to the fragmented reporting and the announcement that the president was dead. The owner closed the shop early that day.

I had no opinion on the why's and how's for several years later but I felt the world had changed at that moment. Post vietnam tour I began reading everything that I could find about the killing and the associated conspiracy theories. Watched the Zapruder film many times. Read the Warren Commission report, and on and on through the endless parade of theories set forth in hundreds of books supposedly addressing the conspiracy.

I will be 68 years old in a matter of weeks and I still believe that Oswald was a patsy as he claimed he was. I believe that the Dulles brothers and some high level military establishment types were a part of the conspiracy along with some CIA renegades who handled the ground work using shooters for hire. I believe LBJ understood the cold hard truth from the Dulles brothers and understood clearly that the war in Vietnam was back on the table and would not only proceed but would do so post haste and would continue to be escalated. I think LBJ clearly understood that to not follow those instructions would cost him his life.

I think that former General and President Eisenhower spoke the truth when he warned the American people that the military industrial complex posed an ominous threat to our democracy.