PSC482G, Spring 1999
Assignment 15, due Wednesday 3 March 1999
Marrs’s "Crossfire"—Kill Zone

 

Read:
Jim Marrs’s Crossfire: Part I, The Kill Zone, pp. 1–89.

Answer these questions (briefly):
1. Overall, what kind of evidence does Marrs stress in "The Kill Zone"? What kinds of opportunities does this approach offer him?

2. On page 14, Marrs refers to the "first burst of firing." On page 15, he refers to "the third and final shot, or volley of shots, that killed President John F. Kennedy." What does he mean by the terms "burst" and "volley," and why do you think he chose them?

3. On pages 20–26, Marrs recounts several reports of films and eyewitnesses who provided evidence for one or two men at the windows of the sixth floor of the TSBD. Compare how he treats the reports of multiple men vs reports of only one man.

4. Near the bottom of page 24, Marrs briefly discusses the single-bullet theory. How much credence does he give bystander Phil Willis relative to the Warren Commission? Marrs also notes that the WC identified the single bullet as coming from the first shot. Right or wrong?

5. On page 28, Marrs says that witness A.J. Millican provided "perhaps one of the clearest descriptions of the firing sequence and the location of the shots…" How does Marrs seem to justify this claim?

6. On pages 14 and 50, Marrs refers to Oswald as "calmly standing" in the second-floor lunchroom when Officer Marrion Baker spotted him. Is this description accurate? Why do you think Marrs describes Oswald this way?

7. On page 52, Marrs writes, "It strains one’s imagination to believe that anyone could fire on the president of the United States, then run to the opposite corner of the sixth floor—where the rifle was discovered a short time later—stash the weapon, race down five flights of stairs, and show no sign of exertion or anxiety when confronted by a policeman with a drawn pistol." How do you think the Warren Commission would respond to this comment?

8. On page 67, Marrs refers to "the final, gory head shot followed instantaneously by Kennedy’s violent fall rearward." How does this passage compare to Marrs’s other mentions of the same event?

9. On page 80, Marrs writes this passage about Badgeman: "Whatever the end result of a scientific study of the blowup [of Mary Moorman’s Polaroid photo] may be, the collection of supporting evidence indicates that the "badge man" may indeed have been the Grassy Knoll gunman whom many witnesses in Dealey Plaza reported sighting on November 22, 1963." Analyze this statement in the light of what we learned earlier about strong and weak evidence.

10. In Marrs’s Summary that begins on page 86, whose testimony about the number of men spotted in the sixth-floor windows is omitted? What kinds of evidence does Marrs emphasize in this summary?

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