American Conspiracies - Jesse Ventura [20]
Did you know that not a single fingerprint was found on Oswald’s alleged murder weapon? When the FBI did a nitrate test on Oswald, it came up positive for his hands but negative for his face. Which means that he maybe fired a pistol, but not a rifle, that day. After Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, the Dallas Police did come up with a palm print on the Mannlicher-Carcano—but this was after the FBI’s top fingerprint analyst had dusted the whole rifle and said he found nothing of importance.5
During my first year as governor, I caused a pretty big stir when I told an interviewer from Playboy that I did not believe the official conclusion on Oswald. I think I may have been the highest-ranking official who ever said that, at least publicly. I started by simply applying common sense. If Oswald was who they told us he was—a Marine private who gets out of the Marine Corps and decides to defect to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, then comes back home with a Russian wife and does minimum-wage jobs—why would any records need to be locked away in the National Archives because of “national security” for 75 years? As a Navy SEAL, I had to have top secret clearance. That was higher than Oswald’s, and I know a few secrets, but not enough to endanger national security. Yet in Oswald’s case, hundreds of documents were withheld.
When I was traveling around the country to promote my first book, the publisher said I could go to either Houston or Dallas. I said, “Give me Dallas.” With my apologies to readers who may already have read this story in my previous book, as well as the one about my meeting with Fidel Castro, I feel like these are too important to leave out of what I’ve learned about JFK’s killing. First a cop gave me the tour of the police headquarters basement where Jack Ruby shot Oswald. The eerie part was, there was the elevator we all saw on TV—and down on the floor, almost on the exact spot where Oswald lay dying, the tile has oil on it that still looks like blood.
From there I went to Dealey Plaza and took my time walking the picket fence on the grassy knoll, where a second gunman most likely was firing from. That was eerie, too. Then I went to what’s now the JFK Museum inside the Texas School Book Depository, where the curator, Gary Mack, met my party. The actual supposed sniper’s nest on the sixth floor is sealed off. But you can go to the next window, which would seem to be an easier shot, because you’re eight feet closer to where the president’s motorcade passed and at basically the same angle. I didn’t see how three shots could possibly have cleared the branches of an oak tree and lined up on the presidential motorcade.
After my book signing was over, we headed out to Dallas’s Love Field airport. At the time, I was smoking cigars, so they found me a restricted area outside where I could light up. I remember it was a beautiful day, and we were all laughing and making small talk. As it came time for me to put out my cigar and board the plane, the police officer who’d been our guide all day took me off to the side.
He said, “Be very careful, Governor. You are a high-profile person who might say things that certain people don’t want brought to light.”
That made my head spin a little. If there was nothing to hide about the assassination, how could my making comments about it forty years later affect anybody? In hindsight, I wish I’d canceled the flight and gone to the policeman’s home that night. I wanted to ask him, “Why are you warning me about this? What do you base it on, or won’t you tell me?” But I had the strong impression he didn’t want me to know.
Then, my last year in office, in 2002, I had an even more powerful experience when I got the opportunity to meet Fidel Castro. A few of America’s sanctions against Cuba dealing with food and agricultural products had finally been lifted, so Minnesota was able to put together a trade mission for humanitarian purposes. President Bush was very opposed to my going along, but I decided it was my right as an American citizen. We now know