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Sept. 6, 1998
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Warren welder spots problem of pipe's bend in JFK museum

By ALYSSA LENHOFF and GUY VOGRIN

WARREN - It has been called the Crime of the Century.

Almost 3« decades since the act that changed the course of a nation, many Americans are caught in the grips of the mystery.

Who killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

Scandals, wars and other events have passed through the American psyche: Vietnam, Watergate, Iran hostages, the Contras, Desert Storm, the death of a princess ...

But nothing has fascinated America like the murky details of the Nov. 22, 1963, death of the young, vigorous president, the symbol of a mythic Camelot.

Virtually any baby boomer can recite the horrific details of that dark day in Dallas when a nation lost its innocence.

And today, a whole army of Web surfers is adding to the theories of what happened that afternoon in Dealey Plaza.

The thunder from the shots that killed Kennedy now reverberate in the Mahoning Valley with a Warren man's discovery that 3 million people who have passed through what is recognized as one of the nation's most complete museums about the life and death of John F. Kennedy have seen a flawed view of history.

James Olmstead, who likes to refer to himself as a JFK researcher and not a buff, said he has determined that the museum has pipes in the wrong position on the sixth floor of a book depository Ï the perch from where Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly shot the wildly popular president on Nov. 22, 1963.

Officials at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas agree with Olmstead and are beginning the tedious process of determining how and when the mistake was made, trying to correct it and, more importantly, analyzing what it means.

The museum's archivist said one pipe, which has a bend, is positioned several inches higher than it was when Oswald allegedly fired the fatal shots.

The museum, which opened in 1988, is located in the notorious sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and the window area is one of its key exhibits.

So far, Olmstead is not willing to offer his beliefs about what significance the positioning of the pipes may play in the still raging debate of who shot JFK and whether or not Oswald acted alone.

Olmstead said he has to do more research to see if the pipes were moved before or after the FBI investigation of the assassination.

Using information compiled by the FBI, the Warren Commission Ï under attack for decades Ï concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

The FBI took several re-enactment photos from the window to determine whether Oswald would have been able to hit the president from that location.

Olmstead said he questions how the pipes were positioned when those photos were taken.

But he said he still believes Oswald would have had room to shoot Kennedy even if the pipes butted out farther into the room than the way in which they are portrayed in various pictures published by the Warren Commission.

Sixth Floor Museum officials, who keep hushed their opinions about whether or not they believe there was a conspiracy, said they believe only one of two pipes near the wall is out of whack Ï the ``east pipe'' which has a bend in it.

Sixth Floor Museum Archivist Gary Mack said the mistake was made by those creating the museum and probably has little to do with the facts of the assassination. But Mack acknowledged that he has no real idea yet why the pipe is out of place.

Photos taken in 1975 show the bend in the pipe starts 14 inches from the ground and runs for 14 inches. But the museum has the bend starting at 32 inches from the ground and running for 14 inches.

Mack said he does not know if the pipes in the museum are the original pipes, whether the pipes were moved by the FBI or what may have happened to the sixth-floor area between 1963 and 1988, when the museum was taken over by Dallas County.

``It really appears to be relatively insignificant,'' Mack said in a recent telephone interview. ``But we want our exhibit to be as accurate as possible. We'll correct it at some point.''

It will be the first time in the museum's 10-year history that an actual part of an exhibit had to be redone. Mack said other minor modifications have been made to captions under pictures to correct misspellings or other minor problems. ``This isn't that big, though,'' he said.

But Olmstead and other JFK assassination researchers, who engage in sparring sessions over the Internet for hours each night, argue there is no such thing as a small detail.

From the color of the leaves on the trees outside the book depository to the location of a man holding an umbrella in the crowd, the researchers argue about all details dealing with what happened in Dallas in the days, hours and minutes before and after Kennedy was shot.

``It's the only way you can understand. If you're wrong, you have to be able to understand that another person is right,'' Olmstead said. ``I have been quick with a temper at times, but I try to stay away from the name-calling and the sarcasm.''

Olmstead spends his days as a welder at Riverside Steel in Vienna and nights deep in JFK research. Also a photographer, he confirmed the problem a few weeks ago when studying pictures of the so-called ``sniper's nest.'' Last month, he received a copy of a 1991 Life Magazine story and pictures about the Sixth Floor Museum and minutes after looking at it, he knew he was onto something.

The pipes in the picture are clearly in a different position than how they were portrayed in photographs taken by the FBI just after the assassination and published as part of the controversial Warren Commission Report on JFK's assassination.

So which photographs are correct?

Without speaking, Olmstead sprung out of his chair and paced around the room, his eyes darting from window to door to wall. With his stare fixed on a door, he fell to one knee and braced himself against a nearby wall.

He squinted an eye and stretched his arms out as if handling a long rifle.

He moved a few inches to his left and bent his forefinger around an imaginary trigger.

Finally, he spoke: ``This was the position.''

And he kept on speaking: ``This is where the pipes had to be. If this image is incorrect, we as a nation have to start over again. Anyone who has published anything using these dimensions is wrong.''

For Olmstead, it's common sense.

Evidence and facts belong in an investigation, not opinion.

Just about two weeks ago, Olmstead began discussing his findings with researchers on the Internet. Some aren't interested. Some agree. Some are now using his discovery to further their own theories of what happened.

Jack White, a Fort Worth, Texas, commercial artist who has been following the assassination since 1963 and who has taken several photographs of the sniper's nest, said he never believed that Oswald had enough room in the depository area to position a rifle and fire the shots. Although they do talk over the Internet, White and Olmstead have radically different views of why and how JFK was killed.

White, in a recent e-mail message to the Tribune Chronicle, wrote, ``The position of the pipes plus the positions of the book cartons make it highly unlikely that an assassin could have knelt in the corner and had a good shot.''

White and many of the others mince few words when criticizing each others' theories. About Olmstead's belief in the single-gunman theory, White wrote: ``He is wrong. There were two Lee Harvey Oswalds who were part of an intelligence operation.''

White, like most Americans today, is baffled by hundreds of inconsistencies and contradictions that have plagued the investigation since the beginning.

Several JFK assassination scenarios Ï now bandied about the Internet Ï deal with some of the shots coming from other locations in Dealey Plaza, including the grassy knoll.

The theorists also summarize that the shooters were hired by Ï among others Ï pro-Castro Cubans, anti-Castro Freedom Fighters, Mafia bosses, communists, rogue CIA elements, supporters of the military-industrial complex and/or right-wing Texas oilmen. Other buffs point to hoboes milling around the nearby railroad tracks and the sinister ``Umbrella Man,'' who Abraham Zapruder's film of the assassination captures just as the first shots ring out.

Thoughts as large as that are too sobering for much of the public. While most Americans now believe there was a conspiracy to kill the handsome president, most leave the front-lines research to those like Olmstead, White and a few hundred others who each year publish new articles or books on the assassination.

Mack said a study of the researchers is fascinating in itself. ``Sometimes, they create things that don't exist.''

Mack said he does not know Olmstead well, trading e-mails only a few times and only talking on the phone once. ``He seems like a sincere man. He's right about this and we're glad he pointed it out.''


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