Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
The assumption that only three shots were fired at Kennedy's limousine is factually dubious. Yes, many eyewitnesses heard three shots, but almost as many heard four. Two people in the line of fire, John and Nellie Connally, refused to subscribe to Specter's single-bullet theory. Both of the Connallys were experienced hunters familiar with the sight and sounds of rifles. Both said they were certain that a first bullet struck Kennedy in the back, a second bullet struck Connally, and a third shot hit Kennedy in the head. Since a bystander was hit by a chip of concrete from an errant shot that hit a sidewalk curb, the Connallys' testimony (buttressed by a variety of other evidence) indicates there were a total of four shots.
The stubborn implications of this evidence are known to all careful students of Dealey Plaza, even if not all care to acknowledge them. The famous home movie of the assassination made by dressmaker Abraham Zapruder shows Kennedy's limousine was only in view of Oswald's perch for about six seconds. Firearms experts agree that the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that Oswald allegedly used could only have fired three, but not four, shots in that time.
"JFK Reloaded" does not offer the player the opportunity to fire four shots at the presidential limousine because then there would be no game. To fire four shots and cause all those wounds to Kennedy and Connally, the shooter would have to fire once through tree branches (why?) and then reload faster than is physically possible to get off three more rounds. Nobody would ever win. Not only would such an exercise suggest that Oswald's alleged deed was impossible, but it would undermine the creators' anti-conspiratorial convictions. And there would be nothing to sell on the Internet.
Of course, as a docu-game "JFK Reloaded" appeals to both emotion and evidence. That is its strength and also the core of the public's queasy reaction. The game posits the player, presumably a young person, as the assassin. It invites you to reenact Kennedy's assassination, not merely as a marksman, but as Oswald himself as he is often portrayed, a cold-blooded killer without a motive. Thus, the game makes the player seem complicit in the re-creation of the crime. Somehow the antisocial pleasure aspect seems part of its appeal.
And when you actually play the game, the appeal is undeniable. The thought, I would like to kill the president of the United States, if expressed in print or in words, can land you in jail. "JFK Reloaded" allows you to indulge this horrible thought without fear. Indeed, it invites the player to supply his or her own motive for trying to gun down the president of the United States.
When I downloaded the game, I first pretended to be the lonely and unaided Oswald. Then I pretended to be a mysterious Corsican hit man who elbows Oswald out of the way and ices the treacherous commander in chief in service of the Mossad, the Masons and Aristotle Onassis. Then I tried out a couple of my other pet conspiracy theories. After those guilty pleasures, I decided I was merely endeavoring to understand the finer points of the JFK forensics evidence.
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