Frame 232 Read Online Free Page A

she could go days without the film even entering her mind, when it had become all but forgotten. She had even determined an exact date when this “era” began   —September 27, 1964. That was when the Warren Commission released their report to the public stating that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the president’s sole assassin and had not been part of a broader conspiracy. Those who believed otherwise scrutinized the evidence to the subatomic level and volubly protested the commission’s findings. But the eight-man team that produced it   —which included future president Gerald Ford   —stood their ground, and the lone-gunman theory became a matter of official record.
    Margaret had been so overwhelmed with relief that she broke down in tears and thanked God for his infinite mercy. It’s over   —at last. The verdict has been handed down and written into the ledger of history. That’s that. And thus, there was no longer any need to worry about the accursed film. It would never be needed as evidence and could be recategorized as nothing more than a personal curio. A remarkable record of a remarkable moment in history, but nothing that would send shock waves through humanity.
    She had thought again about simply throwing it away but decided instead to keep it as a family heirloom. At some point she’d tell Ron about it   —she didn’t know when because it just wasn’t that important   —then label the box and put it with all the other reels: the road trip to New Mexico, camping in Arizona, and that wild weekend in New Orleans, where they recaptured the spirited times of their premarital courtship. It was no longer radioactive, and that’s what mattered most.
    Drawing in another lungful of smoke, she moved to the next significant point on that timeline   —1969. It was a turnabout year in so many ways, with the needle swinging in a wide arc across the emotional spectrum. On the joyful side, there was Sheila Marie, born on January 15, shortly after midnight. She was pink and plump and perfect in every way, and Margaret could not have been more delighted. Thoughts of the assassination were so distant on that day that it seemed amazing to her, even a little ridiculous, that she had been worried in the first place. The conspiracy crazies still stuck their heads up from time to time, and Margaret would occasionally invest a moment or two to listen. But they never came up with anything convincing, so she dismissed them and went on with her happy life.
    Her blissful contentment was shattered just two weeks after Sheila’s birth when New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison hauled local businessman Clay Shaw into court in what would prove to be the only prosecution relating to the president’s murder. Garrison accused Shaw of working with both right-wing activists and the CIA to facilitate the killing, but he could not prove his case, and Shaw walked. While conspiracy theorists were disappointed, one aspect of the trial had such a powerful impact that it went all the way to Addison, Texas, and landed in the center of Margaret’s life   —for the first time in any public forum, the Zapruder film was shown in its entirety. This “new” evidence reignited the conspiracy frenzy, and Margaret found herself powerless to do anything except tend to the benign hope that the furor would once again die down.
    Instead, Americans began to reconsider their stance on the assassination. To Margaret’s astonishment, the people who had railed for years about the Warren Report beingthe product of a crooked government trying to cover up a brutally implemented coup now found an eager audience in the general public. New theories were being explored and new technologies utilized in private but well-funded investigations. Reenactments of the shooting were carried out, documentaries produced, and dozens of books and articles published. Some ideas were downright idiotic, but a few others seemed entirely plausible   —and from there