There was a time, as little as a few years ago, when I could believe the killing of President John F. Kennedy was the result of some sort of conspiracy. The man was one of the strongest voices of political idealism of the last century, a historical figure I admire greatly. Surely his death must have been something more than some loser with marriage and mommy issues acting on his own.

I’ve never ceased to be fascinated with JFK's life and death, but I’ve since drifted away from most of the radical assassination theories. Still, I promised myself a long time ago that no matter how I might be swayed by new evidence, speculations, or changes in my personal ideals, I wouldn’t make a final conclusion on the matter until I saw the site where it happened for myself.

I've now fulfilled that goal. Here’s what I saw at the site in Dallas, and the conclusions I've drawn from it:

The Sixth Floor Museum

“…if anybody really wanted to shoot the President of the United States, it was not a difficult job—all one had to do was get a high building…with a telescopic rifle…”

—eerily prescient JFK quote to aide Kenneth O'Donnell on November 22, 1963, prominently displayed at the Sixth Floor Museum

The entire sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository is now a museum. It describes Kennedy’s presidency and public persona up until his death, runs through the events of November 22, 1963 and the ensuing days, and explores the major details of the investigations shortly afterward and through the years. And yes, there’s a section that addresses the various conspiracy theories about the assassination. It’s a well-done exhibition at which one can spend several hours seeing everything.

The main feature is the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald fired his three shots. The area by the window has boxes stacked into a makeshift sniper’s nest, just as Oswald did to hide his location on that day in 1963. It’s also glassed off so that visitors can’t go to the window and look out, and a very conspicuous “No photography” sign is prominently placed. The late, great Bill Hicks’ joke about why they won’t let people walk up to the window briefly ran through my mind.

But, one window over, one can pretty clearly see the spot where the third and fatal shot struck Kennedy, which is marked with an X on Elm Street below. From the window above the nest on the seventh floor (where pictures are allowed), the spot is also quite visible.

View from the seventh floor.

Close-up from the seventh floor: X marks the spot

A car passes over the spot where Kennedy was hit

Dealey Plaza

The first thing you notice about Dealey Plaza is that it’s smaller than it looks in pictures or on film. A lot smaller. Film strips, photos, and recreations of the event make the area look vast and almost cavernous. It’s not. The entire site—the length of Elm Street from the Book Depository to the underpass exiting the Plaza, as well as the Bryan pergola and the famous Grassy Knoll—could fit in the Texas Rangers’ ballpark, where I attended a game later that night. Abraham Zapruder and other bystanders (as well as any shooter on the Knoll) would have only been about the length of a standard suburban driveway from the motorcade as it passed.

View from the spot where Abraham Zapruder was filming

Closeup from Zapruder's vantage point

From the curb on Elm Street, the window from which Oswald fired is already in pretty clear view, unblocked by any trees. From the X in the street, the view is even clearer. Some have insisted Oswald was only a poor or average shot during his service in the Marines, but while I’m far from an expert authority on firearms, it looks like a pretty easy shot, one that someone with military training could probably make.

View of the sniper's nest (second window from the top) from the X on Elm Street

As for the matter of a second shooter, a shot from the Grassy Knoll seems—Sorry, conspiracy theorists!—nearly impossible. In relation to the X in the street, even a very close spot on the Knoll places any figure too far in front of the motorcade. Besides the dubious laws of physics of the Grassy Knoll theory, a shot from any point on the Knoll would have struck Kennedy in the face, which contradicts the wounds shown in autopsy photos and depicted in the Zapruder film (both are readily available to find online, though a word of warning: they are graphic).

View from the grassy knoll, in front of the motorcade's spot

Closeup from the knoll

Moreover, the Grassy Knoll is much closer to the road than it looks in photos or popular depictions, and is a much more conspicuous spot than the Book Depository window. It frankly seems like a terrible place for a shooter to choose to carry out the killing. Spectators or members of the motorcade almost certainly would have seen an assassin with a rifle.

The Grassy Knoll

Lastly, I observed the X from the vantage point of the so-called “Badge Man.” For those who don’t know, “Badge Man” refers to a person supposedly visible on the edge of the pergola in a photograph taken by spectator Mary Moorman. Some proponents of the second shooter theory claim a figure is visible wearing a badge and firing a weapon at the motorcade. The supposed location of this figure, however, was well to the side of the motorcade. A shot from here would have likely struck Jackie Kennedy as well as her husband.

Alleged location of "Badge man"

View from the "Badge Man" location, to the side of where Zapruder stood

Parting Thoughts

The guest book at the end of the Sixth Floor Museum is a mix of typical visitor greetings and rambling conspiracy theory comments implicating everyone from Lyndon Johnson to the CIA (I, for one, left a note complimenting the exhibition). I imagine that visitors who already thought Oswald acted alone likely felt the museum confirmed their beliefs, and those who believe in a conspiracy didn’t have their minds changed. Like everything, people see what they want to see.

What I saw is that, despite the insistence of some to the contrary, Oswald could have plausibly made the shot from the sixth floor, while a shot from the Grassy Knoll or elsewhere to Kennedy’s right probably did not happen. Say what you want about Oswald’s alleged associations, the rifle he used, or the so-called “magic bullet,” but the official account of the assassination definitely could have happened.

I myself don’t believe there was any sort of government conspiracy behind it. I believe this both because of the facts of the case and what I saw in Dallas, but that's not my only reasoning.

You might have seen the infamous “Wanted” poster of JFK circulated by right-wing groups in Dallas before his assassination, espousing nasty, baseless attacks on the President. The museum displays a copy, though I had seen it before. A similar artifact of theirs which I hadn’t seen is this full-page newspaper ad greeting his arrival in Dallas with the same sort of inflammatory allegations. The language and claims within these documents are quite similar to today’s right-wingers’ crazy attacks on Barack Obama. Hell, the “Wanted” flier even references the rumor of Kennedy’s quickie first marriage, which is analogous to and just as ridiculous as the conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth certificate. The difference is these pieces directed at Kennedy are a historical footnote at best; today, he’s an almost universally loved and admired figure (some conservatives even try to claim him as one of their own). The same kind of unfounded venom directed at President Obama, however, has been perpetuated by the establishment right, and believed by enough people that it's entered, even dominated the national conversation and undermined his Presidency at every turn.

You don’t need to assassinate a leader to destroy them.

From the building's seventh floor