James Tague was an eyewitness to the assassination to President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22 in 1963. Tague is the only man in addition to President Kennedy and Texas Governor John B. Connally who was wounded by gunfire in Dallas’s Dealey plaza that day, yet he cannot get a ticket to the tightly controlled “public ceremony” in the tightly locked-down Dealey Plaza. They are turning away a witness whose testimony caused the Warren Commission members to rewrite their report.
Tague is among the handful still living who saw JFK’s murder. Tague sustained a scrape on his face from a bullet that ricocheted off a curb where Tague stood. Tague testified to the Warren Commission. But Tague can’t get into the ceremony, nor can any other citizen.
On November 22, 1963, Tague had driven to downtown Dallas to have lunch with a friend. When he got caught in the traffic jam caused by the presidential motorcade, Tague stopped his car and got out near Dealey Plaza at the south curve of Main Street only 500 feet southwest of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Standing just east of the triple underpass railroad bridge, Tague saw the presidential limousine and heard the first shot.
A Dallas Sheriff’s Office detective named Buddy Walthers noticed a small wound and blood on Tague’s right cheek. They examined the curb where Teague had been standing and concluded that a shot had hit the curb and a fragment of cement had ricocheted and hit Tague. Walthers found a fresh nick in the cement curb caused by a bullet.
Tague said he heard the first shot, which he described as deep like a cannon, followed by two swift rifle cracks, suggesting at least two shooters with different weapons.
Tague testified to the Warren Commission on July 28, 1964, that he believed he was hit by the second shot and also believed the shot originated in the area of the North pergola monument located on the grassy knoll. The Sheriff’s detective who found the nick in the curb near where Tague stood claimed the trajectory called for a shot from either the Texas School Book Depository or the neighboring Dal-Tex building.
Interestingly the FBI claimed that the chipped bullet mark on the curb contained no embedded copper metal residue meaning it could not have been fired by the same military-style full metal-jacketed bullet the Warren Commission claimed hit JFK and Gov. John Connally. This is the type of bullet found on the stretcher of Gov. Connally, which the government claims is not planted evidence. There is also controversy over the curb, which was transported to the national archives and treated with some kind of chemical to avoid future analysis.
To this day they is controversy about how Tague sustained his minor but telling wound that day. A balanced discussion is here.
The Dallas city government wants no part of any version of the Kennedy assassination other than the Warren Commission’s official conclusions, this despite the fact that the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined in 1978 that Oswald did not act alone and that JFK was likely killed as the result of a conspiracy. Not to mention it has long been established that both the CIA and the FBI withheld crucial information about their relationship with Oswald, and it is impossible to squeeze off three accurate shots in the time frame required from the cheap Mannlicher-Carcano rifle Oswald allegedly used. The best US Army marksman could not duplicate the feat.
The city has closed Dealey Plaza for one week prior to the 50th anniversary ceremony and for one week afterwards. A limited number of tickets are being given out to dignitaries who won’t disrupt a “Celebration of JFK’s Life” sponsored by the City of Dallas. Dealey Plaza won’t be open to protesters or researchers or contrarians. The media was carefully screened. Media credentials are limited .The alternative press can’t get in.
Over the years Tague has become one of the top researchers on the Kennedy assassination. Now he has written a book, LBJ and the Kennedy Killing, a story of murder and political corruption that takes the reader step by step through the sordid maze of treason.
When Jim Tague, 77, approached Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings to protest the closure of Dealey Plaza and the government’s tight control of tickets to exclude anyone who doesn’t believe the government’s version of events, Rawlings merely shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Jim Tague — like authors Barr McClellan, Phillip Nelson, and me — believes LBJ played a pivotal role in President John F. Kennedy’s murder. It’s a view the Dallas establishment doesn’t want to hear. And there will be no seat on November 22, 2013 for him.
