With the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22,
publishers are commemorating the event with enough books to fill a presidential library.
Texas journalists Bill Minutaglio and Steven Davis wisely steer clear of the vast array of conspiracy theories. Instead, they focus on the forces that made Dallas a hotbed of toxic emotions and argue persuasively that Kennedy probably would have been safer in Moscow's Red Square than Dealey Plaza.
"It is unlike anything in the history of the country: A handful of people in a seemingly staid city begin to set the stage for one of the greatest tragedies in American history," they write. "'Dallas 1963' is not meant to address the many conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of President Kennedy. Our aim is to introduce and then connect the outsize characters and the singular climate in a city that many blamed for killing a president."
"Outsize" is an understatement. The array of Kennedy opponents includes H.L. Hunt, a reclusive billionaire and, at that time, reputedly the richest man in the world; Dallas Morning News publisher Ted Dealey, after whose father the plaza was named; conservative Congressman Bruce Alger; and the Rev. W.A. Criswell, leader of one of the largest churches in the country, who denounced Kennedy's Catholicism. But without question the most fascinating character is Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, a World War II hero with a penchant for violence and espousing racist views.
Kennedy supporters include NAACP supporter and grandmother Juanita Craft, who became the first African-American woman elected to the Dallas City Council; the Rev. Rhett James; and Stanley Marcus, co-founder of Neiman Marcus, an "international symbol of opulence" whose Christmas suggestions included "His and Her airplanes." Marcus, a Jewish businessman who barred African-Americans from eating in his store's restaurant, believed that common sense and good business practices would prevail in his beloved home city.
"Dallas 1963" is not without flaws. Lee Harvey Oswald is
largely a bit player in the book, and the authors don't even attempt to explain how Oswald, who was pro-communist,
went from unsuccessfully trying to kill Walker at his home to the window in the
School Book Depository on Nov. 22.
And by focusing on the extremists, Minutaglio and Davis largely ignore the tens of thousands of people who welcomed Kennedy's visit and the even greater number of residents who, no matter their political bent, would never have dreamed of picking up a rifle.
During their account of the four years leading up to the assassination, Minutaglio and Davis include such noted events as the "mink coat mob" of women who, whipped up by Alger, attacked Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson before the 1960 election, and the attack on Adlai Stevenson one month before the assassination, when he was spat on by bystanders and hit by a placard-wielding woman.
"They wondered whether the President should go to Dallas," Stevenson said after the attack, discussing his conversations with moderates like Marcus. "And so do I."