Dallas, Texas. A lot of people talk about conspiracy theories in Dallas, Texas-the home of where American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But for researcher and former congressional video expert Robert Groden, conspiracy did not end in 1963.
The question has always been why. Why did the city of Dallas carry out a decades-long manifestly illegal campaign of persecution against a Dallas author?
Now that author, a Kennedy assassination expert whose theories differ from what he says is an official city doctrine, has agreed to a modest out-of-court settlement. But a City Council member is still intent on finding out what was behind the campaign to make Robert Groden disappear.
Kennedy assassination expert Robert Groden has been issued 82 tickets by the city of Dallas and arrested twice. His offense? Running a table in Dealey Plaza on weekends offering passerbys an interpretation of the JFK assassination that conflicts with what Groden calls “the official fiction.”
Groden’s attorney, Brad Kizzia, uncovered emails between the Dallas City Council and an institution called the Sixth Floor Museum that references “how to deal with the vendor problem in Dealey Plaza.”
The attorney has proved that the Sixth Floor Museum, an institution dedicated to telling the official story of the JFK asssassination, who sees Groden as a nuissance and was conspiring with the city to have him removed.
Two years ago when Groden sued the city in federal court for civil rights violations, the city argued that he didn’t have a case because he couldn’t name an official city policy or a specific city official or person responsible for launching a campaign against him. A federal appeals court threw all of that out last year, ruling basically that the city did it and the city was responsible for what it did, whether Groden could name anybody or not.
Groden previously filed a federal lawsuit on the grounds that the city and the Sixth Floor Museum were trying to suppress his First Amendment rights. Last month, after six years of litigation, Groden settled with the city and the Sixth Floor Museum for $47,500.
“I feel it’s important that people know the truth,” says Groden, who served as chief photographic consultant for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He was also the first person to get a copy of the famous Zapruder film, a home movie that captures the events of that day.
“John Kennedy was our president, he died for what he believed in,” Groden says. “And I felt we had no right to turn our back on his memory. We can’t bring him back. It’s too late for Justice in this case, but it’s never too late for the truth.”