One of the most intense, dedicated and inspired group of people I have watched and associated with since prior to my first day of high school is what has been called the “Assassination Community.” Those who research all topics, read books, watch documentaries and enjoy time-to-time the Hollywood-created dramas on the events that took place in Dallas in November of 1963.
While so many people have come and gone, there are a select few who are known to everyone who has spent at least some time buried in the topic of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
From Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg who were among the first to build an opposition to the Warren Report. Robert Groden who is responsible for the first-ever national broadcast of Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of the assassination which eventually led to the creation of Congress’ House Select Committee on Assassinations. Jim Garrison, Gerald Posner, Vincent Bugliosi, Oliver Stone. The list goes on.
And of course, Gary Mack. A man who found himself in Dallas meeting many in the so-called conspiracy world asking the same question: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?
Mack later backed away from the conspiracy movement and took a more historical look at all things assassination-related.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza spawned from an idea that perhaps it was then okay in the late 1980s to have an exhibit on the floor the Warren Commission said the shots were fired from that took the life of President Kennedy.
Originally brought on as a consultant and later the museum’s archivist then curator, Mack saw the museum from its infancy through the popularity explosion brought on by Hollywood’s 3-1/2 hour blockbuster ‘JFK’ to today: An institution of research and artifacts dedicated to Dallas’ most tragic weekend.
Mack once told me, “I just wish there were a way to at least establish a point where everything that is known or was known is out there for evaluation.”
While many in the so-called “Assassination Community” gain friends and lose friends, emphatically agree on subjects and emphatically disagree, argue over timelines and why certain events happened I do not think one can argue against a statement that there are important voices that have come and gone over the years.
Gary’s voice came and is now gone and it is one that will be missed.
-Eric Bushman
