Magic Bullet Theory Essay

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For my Kennedy, Oral History Project I decided to interview a key figure in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Hargis. Bobby Hargis was one of the Dallas Police officers that were escorting the president on that given day. He was riding next to the presidential car that he was splattered with blood from the gun shot. Bobby Hargis Before the history project, I knew very little about the assassination of the 35th president of the United States. From my prior knowledge, I knew that he was killed in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. I also watched a History Channel documentary exploring the factor of their only being one bullet that killed the president. They called it the “magic bullet” theory. This theory proposed that one bullet entered …show more content…

I thought they just interview a few people and just use that information as history, but I was wrong. After my interviewing experience, it made me realize that there is much more than that. I realize that scholars have to go through strenuous amounts of work to get the accurate information to be able to put it our textbooks. Scholars interview more than a few people to get the full accounts of the story and to fill in gaps of missing information. Scholars have to be able to distinguish between who is telling the truth and who is lying. They also must keep an impartial mind when interviewing someone, so that they can listen to a full account instead of looking for information that fits what they have previously hypothesized before coming to the interviewing process. From the Mr. Hargis said he would be interview by historians who already had a set mind about what happened and would try to twist his words to match what they had already decided. As a person who is a daily participant in American history I learned many lessons from the interview with Bobby Hargis. I learned that you do not need to try to be a big part of history because history just happens whenever and to whoever. For example, Bobby Hargis was just doing his job when a major event took place in front of him. He did not wake up that day to saying,

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