An Assassin of John F. Kennedy

An Assassin of John F. Kennedy

In another bizarre twist to a mystery that has haunted Americans for more than

a quarter century, the son of a former Dallas police officer

plans to tell the world that his father was one of the assassins

of President John F. Kennedy. Ricky White, a 29-year-old,

unemployed oil equipment salesman in Midland, says he

"had no conception of ever, ever giving this story out" but

decided to do so after FBI agents began asking questions in

May 1988. "I'm telling you a story that has touched me, not

only others, and I feel uncomfortable just telling it to

strangers," White said during a recent interview with the

Austin American-Statesman. Monday in Dallas, White is

scheduled to show reports material implicating his father,

Roscoe Anthony White, in the 1963 assassination. It

suggests that White, who died in 1971, was a member of an

assassination team of three shooters, that he fired two of the

three bullets that killed the president, and that he also killed

Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit during the manhunt for Lee

Harvey Oswald. Among the material: a rifle with telescopic

sight that uses the same kind of ammunition as Oswald's gun;

records showing that Oswald and White served together in

the Marines; three faded messages that appear to be

decoded orders to kill someone in Dallas in November

1963; and a son's recollections of his father's incriminating

diary - a document that is missing. The press conference is

being sponsored by two private groups - the JFK

Assassination Information Centre of Dallas and the

Assassination Archives and Research Centre of Washington

- and some Midland Businessmen. The possibility of Ricky

White's story being a hoax - a falsehood concocted either by

Ricky or his father - has not been dismissed by the people

urging him to publicly talk about the matter. During the last

27 years, many private researchers have claimed to have

found evidence of a conspiracy, only to be proved wrong or

deceitful. Bernard Fensterwald, executive director of the

Assassination Archives and Research Centre, says if there

was a conspiracy, Ricky White may have the key. "I think

it's our best shot," he says, "and we better take it." J. Gary

Shaw, co-director of the JFK Assassination Information

Centre, says he hopes White's story will result in an

investigation of the assassination by Texas authorities. Two

Washington-based probes - the Warren Commission in

1963-64 and the House Select Committee on

Assassinations in 1976-78 failed to resolve the enigma of the

Kennedy shooting, Shaw maintains. As with previous

conspiracy theories, White's story is tantalizing, the evidence

intriguing. Yet, as with other theories, it raises more