Correspondence
Inadmissible Evidence As a graduate and one-time Admissions Committee member of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, I must comment on Daniel Wattenberg's "beef . . . with Harvard" ("Harvard's...
...I think the hairpin turn probably seems curious to most out-of-town motorists, regardless of its historical associations...
...Army General Edwin Walker...
...I am aware that it was described in the newspaper on November 19, and I never say otherwise...
...But, like most writers on the assassination, he neglects one very important event out of the many surrounding the President's death...
...It is no secret that most of the faculty lean sharply to the left at the Kennedy School, but when political proclivities are allowed to threaten the school's academic quality there is legitimate cause for concern...
...A novelist working this material would probably reject it as anticlimactic, but a psychologist might find it plausible as the demonstration of a terrible need for "completeness...
...Shelton M. Vaughan Austin, Texas Hunt Country Thomas Mallon's worthwhile article "Dallas Greets President" (TAS, December 1992) makes a few mistakes and one or two accusations that merit immediate clarification...
...Tippit...
...they were taken from the other side of Elm Street, on Mrs...
...There is no access onto the Freeway from Main Street at that location...
...As for the danger of passing near tall buildings, there were many more along Main Street than in Dealey Plaza...
...But as a resident of midtown Manhattan accustomed to seeing heaven and earth moved for frequent presidential visits, I doubt that the divider's temporary removal would have been prohibitive if presidential convenience were at stake...
...Patten's speculation is intriguing...
...the route was described in a Dallas newspaper on November 19 and appeared in a newspaper map on November 21...
...It is possible to get to the Trade Mart by staying on Main through Dealey Plaza, and then turning right onto Industrial Boulevard and wandering northwest, but this is a more circuitousand time-consuming route than the one that was taken...
...The Polaroid and film clip that Ms...
...The luncheon was to be held at the Dallas Trade Mart, and the most immediate and fastest route to this location was via Stenunons Freeway, which was and still is accessed off Elm Street in Dealey Plaza...
...While I did not serve on the mid-career admissions committee that admitted Luis Carrion, it would be naive to deny that some may have had purely ideological reasons to accept him, thereby certifying Carrion with the Harvard seal of approval...
...By March 1963, Oswald had purchased a pistol and rifle and set out to murder someone in order to prove his loyalty to his idol Fidel Castro...
...Harvard's strong bias in favor of liberals and Ivy League graduates would be fine, except for the fact that these decisions to accept students from their schools who think like they do are carried out in the name of diversity...
...Although it may not be common knowledge, one can graduate with honors from Harvard College without ever receiving an "A" in any class...
...Regarding Conover Hunt's letter: In CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 10) my article, I'm not the person asking whether Ms...
...While an applicant with a strong academic record who admits he is a Republican may be the brunt of jokes, a favored minority with a poor academic record—but who graduated with "honors" from Harvard—is likely to receive special consideration...
...The organizers elected not to show the more gruesome frames from the Zapruder film for the reason that Mallon cited: children...
...For better or for worse, Harvard's approval still carries a lot of weight in this country and around the world, as the OAS demonstrated by awarding Carrion a scholarship on thebasis of his Kennedy School acceptance...
...I included it as an index of his paranoia...
...Main Street goes through Dealey Plaza at its western edge...
...Hunt is related to the H. L. Hunt family...
...Who knows...
...If those who seek to subjugate academic quality to ideology prevail, though, this will cease to be so...
...Inadmissible Evidence As a graduate and one-time Admissions Committee member of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, I must comment on Daniel Wattenberg's "beef . . . with Harvard" ("Harvard's New Interior Minister," TAS, January 1993...
...Hunt family...
...I do call the route through the Plaza "curious," even while I'm aware that it is the normal way to access the Stemmons Freeway...
...The key to understanding Lee Harvey Oswald's motive in shooting the President was his earlier attempt to murder retired U.S...
...The limousine would have had to hurdle a permanent divider...
...Regrettably, this happens not infrequently in the admissions process...
...Hunt and I agree, is that the exhibit properly avoids any conspicuous display of gore...
...Doing Something Right I have greatly appreciated The American Spectator over the years, but never more than the last year when you published the desperately needed articles about Anita Hill, Magic Johnson, and Hillary Clinton...
...And it doesn't...
...First, I am not, as he asked, "related to the notorious H.L...
...The route was not changed at the "last minute" as critics have often asserted...
...Oswald was probably on his way to General Walker's home, located in the same Oak Cliff section of Dallas as Oswald's North Beckley Street apartment...
...I never state that there was anything unusually dangerous in deciding to ride past Dealey Plaza's tall buildings, and I am of course aware that the earlier blocks on the route contained many taller ones...
...As I believe the context makes clear, the answer to the question was a matter of indifference to me...
...I conclude the partisan agenda of the major media will continually require their voluntary neglect of all sorts of choice information...
...Secondly, the Sixth Floor exhibition includes both a photograph and a brief film clip that show the moments when the fatal shot hit President John F. Kennedy in the head...
...In his article Mallon asks, "Was Oswald on his way to see Ruby [after killing the President and Dallas police officer J.D...
...Conover Hunt Former Project Director and Curator The Sixth Floor Exhibit Dallas, Texas Thomas Mallon's article offered an interesting and different perspective on the assassination of President Kennedy...
...Fortunately, many of the faculty and staff do place a high premium on academic ability and public policy experience in the admissions process...
...There never was a temporary barricade between Main and Elm that could be removed...
...my point was only that one of the buildings in the Plaza happened to have an assassin waiting in it, and so, per= force, any decision to drive past it, for whatever reason, ended up endangering the President...
...There are those, however, who think for example that being a pugnacious lesbian compensates for academic mediocrity...
...The approaching Billary Clinton administration is always a grim thought these winter evenings, until I recall that the Spectator is in Washington, D.C...
...Finally, the motorcade route through Dealey Plaza seems to have confused Mallon, as it has frequently confused earlier assassination writers...
...As for depictions of the fatal shot: all I said is that the museum does not show frame 313 of the Zapruder film...
...The essential point, on which I think Ms...
...James S. Patten Torrington, Connecticut Thomas Mallon replies: Mr...
...Mallon is correct that the purpose of the motorcade was to place the President close to a large number of people...
...the question is posed by one of the conspiracy-minded "newspaper" hawkers in Dealey Plaza...
...The motorcade went down Main Street because that street was the center of the downtown business district...
...Officials agreed on the route in mid-month...
...Susan Loeffel Hastings, Nebraska...
...As for the barrier: I have always assumed it was a "permanent divider...
...Again, it is not I who say the route was changed at the last minute: Bob Kintzle, the tour-bus operator, says that...
...The Polaroid photograph corresponds to Zapruder frame 315...
...Sadly, we must recall that presidential security in 1963 was more lax than it is today...
...The film embraces Zapruder 313 and the frames that follow...
...Hunt is talking about, which "correspond to" and "embrace" the horrific portions of the Zapruder film, are still not the Zapruder film...
...Kennedy's side of the limousine...
...What an entrepreneurial opportunity...
...The most important issue that Walker and Kennedy agreed upon, and that Oswald sought revenge for, was the opposition of both to Fidel Castro's Communist regime in Cuba...
...The Kennedy School's acceptance of Luis Carrion, the former Nicaraguan Interior Ministry deputy and Sandinista, quite possibly reflects the school's unfortunate tendency to allow ideology to overcome reason...
...I don't believe I am confused about the motorcade route...
...Such ideological favoritism and liberal elite academic incest make a mockery of an otherwise legitimate goal...
...I realize the Dominent Media Elites' curious aversion to exploring the histories of these people left the field wide open to your investigations...
Vol. 26 • March 1993 • No. 3
