Oh, I’ll take your word for all of that. I was just trying to put together what I recall of the reasons for taking that route.
I think today there is a concrete barrier separating Elm and Main where they come together, but I believe in 1963 it was just a curb between them.
ETA: I just looked on Google Street View and it’s still just a curb.
I know I have posted this before, but if you visit the 6th Floor Museum, you can’t get into the sniper’s nest proper (it’s closed off with plexiglass), but you can look out the window that is two to the right of Oswald’s window and see almost exactly the same view that he did. Look at the picture on this page and you will see what I mean.
I used to think there was an outside chance of a second shooter until I stood and looked out that window. At that moment, all doubt vanished. As I have said before, my grandmother could have made that shot. From a sniper’s perspective, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Granted, the trees have grown just a little since then, but looking down on the street, you see Xs painted on the concrete at the points of impact. They are a perfect straight line shot.
There is a webcam in the sniper’s nest. Watch when it gets onto Elm Street. You’ll see the same thing he did.
That’s one of the false claims made by Garrison in his book, though it appears he swiped it from someone else.
Here’s the tiny map image usually reproduced by conspiracymongers to prove that the “original route” did not include the turn onto Elm: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dmnmap2.gif
Here’s how that map appeared on the front page of the Dallas Morning News, fron November 22, 1963, showing how small the map was in relation to the newspaper page: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dmntot.gif
Here’s the map that the Dallas Times-Herald published the evening of the day before, November 21, 1963: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dth.jpg
Here’s a closeup of that map, clearly showing the turn onto Houston and Elm: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dthdetl.jpg
Here’s the written description of the motorcade route, published by the Dallas Morning News two days before that, on November 19, 1963, explicitly mentioning the turn onto Houston and Elm: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dmntue.gif
Here’s the written description from the Dallas Times-Herald from that same day, mentioning that same turn: http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/antpogo/jfk/dthtue.gif
