Who Died and Made the Sixth Floor Museum the King of Dealey Plaza?

[Peter Lemkin]

Get Off My Lawn:By Jim Schutze Thu., May 16 2013Who Died and Made the Sixth Floor Museum the King of Dealey Plaza?http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpa...de_the_sixth_fl.phporhttp://tinyurl.com/a2lztfxLast night the history group called Preservation Dallas gave a special awardto Lindalyn Adams, one of the people who created The Sixth Floor, theKennedy assassination museum downtown.That's great. She deserves it. Now I want to know why The Sixth Floor gotRobert Groden thrown in the slammer.Groden is a best-selling author whose books argue that the killing of thepresident in Dallas a half century ago was a conspiracy. On weekends, whentourists, including plenty of assassination buffs, flock to downtown tovisit Dealey Plaza where it happened, Groden sets up a table there andlectures and sells books and videos. After ticketing, arresting and jailinghim on multiple occasions over the years, the city of Dallas has backed off,apparently agreeing with Groden's lawyers that he was never breaking the lawin the first place.But Groden still has a federal civil rights lawsuit against the cityplodding its way slowly through the court system. I hope someday the lawsuitwill answer my question.In today's Dallas Morning News story about the award for Adams, theexecutive director of the museum, Nicola Longford, makes a statement that isquite telling, if you're as close to this stuff as I have been.It's your typical Morning News party-pix happy-talkeverybody's-just-GRAND-GRAND story, in which Longford says, "The Sixth Floorhas a collective responsibility to maintain the landmark district site."Oh, is that right? When exactly did that duty get assigned to the museum? Isthat responsibility the reason security personnel from the museum asked theDallas PD to go arrest Groden on June 10, 2010? That was the city's versionlater, under oath, when they responded to Groden's lawsuit. The cops toldthe court they popped Groden and threw him in the Lew Sterrett jail becausea security guard from the museum told them to. This is after Longford toldme the museum had nothing to do with it -- apparently not a truthfulstatement, if the city is to be believed.Listen: Adams and curator/designer Connover Hunt did the city a huge solidby saving the School Book Depository Building and turning the sixth-floor"sniper's nest" into a museum. Had it been up to the usual powers that be inDallas, the building would have been imploded and the site turned into ananimatronic Biblical theme park.But the mission of the museum has been perverted in recent years. It hasbecome a kind of enforcement arm for the ilk of people in Dallas who can'tstand controversy about the assassination. Their official line, as purveyedby the museum, is that some lone nut named Oswald did it, that's it, forgetabout it, it wasn't Dallas' fault.For all I know that's true. But it's also true that a whole bunch of peopledisagree, and the intensity of that debate is higher this year because ofthe impending 50th anniversary of the event. The city has gone to absurdlengths to control that anniversary, giving itself permits that willeffectively lock down Dealey Plaza and bar the general public during theentire week of the event.Why? Who? Who wants this done? Who is afraid of what being said? And why isthe museum, which touts itself as a center for scholarly research, out therein the plaza with the gendarmes getting somebody who disagrees with themabout history hauled off to the slammer? Who told Longford it was any of herdamn business what goes on in Dealey Plaza?Right now, as the anniversary approaches, the fact that somebody in Dallasis still this touchy about it is the most interesting thing about theanniversary. Otherwise I'm not sure many people would pay attention.But apparently somebody with a lot of stroke in this city wants the boltsscrewed down tight on free speech in Dealey Plaza that week. Why?