The fundraiser is expected to raise as much as 7m In 1992, the .38-calibre Colt Cobra revolver with which Ruby killed Oswald was sold at auction for $200,000, while the new owner is now offering a so-called "limited edition" of 5,000 bullets fired from that weapon for $500 each. They can also watch the black-and-white television footage of Oswald in turn being shot and killed two days later by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.Elsewhere, self-appointed experts guide tourists around Dealey Plaza, lead them up the Grassy Knoll from where some claim the fatal shots were really fired, point out the white picket fence behind which, on photographs taken that day, a gunman can be seen standing in the shadows, if you squint and really, really imagine.There are annual conventions in Dallas where people buy everything from bumper stickers to T-shirts, and there are sales on the internet of bootlegged copies of the "Zapruder" home-movie shot by the Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder, which captured the assassination. Visitors pay $10 for a tour that takes them past the window around which Oswald build a "sniper's nest" of cardboard boxes and from where he took aim with his Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (bought by mail-order for $12.78) and squeezed off three shots. For some people, the truth remains untold; worse, it has been actively covered up. Even now, surveys show that fewer than 50 per cent of Americans believe there was just one gunman.One of the effects of this is that an entire industry has grown up surrounding the death of JFK, who was shot twice as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, his wife Jacqueline in the seat beside him and the Governor of Texas, John Connally, and his wife Nellie in the seats in front.The VIth Floor Museum, for instance, established in the Texas Book Depository from where the 24-year-old Oswald fired (or did not fire) the shots that killed the President is now Dallas's biggest tourist attraction, annually drawing up to 500,000 people fascinated by a crime that has forever tarnished the image of this sprawling city. Never mind that, as long ago as 1964, the Warren Commission - the official, government-appointed inquiry - concluded that there was no evidence of a conspiracy; never mind that in 1988 the Justice Department drew an end to further Senate inquiries; put aside the advances in scientific testing over the past 10 years that have allowed Oswald to be conclusively linked to the crime. "The funny thing is that when you start to tell people that he was not involved they can't handle it."Forty years after JFK was assassinated as he passed along Elm Street in central Dallas on a bright autumnal day, the debate as to who killed the 46-year-old President and why remains as intense, heated and bitter as ever. Lee Harvey Oswald - the man officially blamed for Kennedy's death - was not among them. The poor, hapless fool did not even know there was a plot to kill the President.That, at least, was the theory of Ron Rice, a self-confessed conspiracist and a member of staff at Dallas's Conspiracy Museum, an establishment dedicated to the promotion of unofficial theories relating to JFK's death and other government "cover-ups". "They set Oswald up, and if you look at the photographs of him, he thought [the charges] were a joke," says Rice, having outlined his theory involving three alleged gunmen who are now dead and one who may or may not be alive. On a street near Dealey Plaza, just yards from where President John F Kennedy was shot dead 40 years ago this month, I met a man who told me who really pulled the trigger. But some of his other appointments - on the environment, for example - are much more liberal.Nobody is underestimating the enormity of the task facing the new governor, not least because expectations are sky-high that he can break the gridlock in a highly polarised state legislature and get away from a style of politics dictated by lobbyists, not the public interest. Already, the criticisms have begun - over a plan to overcome the immediate budgetary problems with a $20bn (£11.8bn) bond issue, and over a lavish fundraiser in just two weeks' time to pay back campaign debts.The bond issue is controversial because it is the the sort of one-off accounting gimmick that Mr Schwarzenegger's camp spent much of the election campaign denouncing.The fundraiser is expected to raise as much as $7m.It comeson the eve of crucial budget negotiations in which many of his contributors will have a stake, and looks like rank hypocrisy from a candidate who said at every turn that he would not be financially beholden to anybody..
As promised, Mr Schwarzenegger seems intent to govern as a conservative on fiscal issues and as a moderate on everything else.His budget director, Donna Arduin, is an old friend of the Bush family known for her slash-and-burn approach to public spending. Hence their drumbeat emphasis in the weeks since his election on 7 October on work, work, work - finding ways to wipe out the state's multi-billion dollar budget deficit, reforming the burdensome workers' compensation system, and repealing a measure allowing undocumented immigrants to hold California driving licences.The film world's publicity-minded sales machinery clearly remains a major influence on the fledgling administration.Just last week, Mr Schwarzenegger was promoting the release of two new DVDs - Terminator 3 and a re-release of the old body-building documentary Pumping Iron, both of which are reporting stellar sales thanks to the canny timing on the eve of his elevation to high political office. It is a reflection of the grim budgetary problems the action star-turned-politician will have to address as soon as the hour-long ceremony is over.Mr Schwarzenegger will take the oath of office and deliver a short address, and that will be it Access to the event will be strictly by invitation only. It is expected to be attended by more than 7,500 friends, associates and political insiders as well as several hundred journalists and television crews.The new Republican governor's handlers have clearly understood that his celebrity can be a liability, as well as the tremendous asset that propelled him to power in the first place. There will be no red-carpet reception or fancy champagne after-party for Arnold Schwarzenegger - who knows a thing or two about splashy, publicity-grabbing premieres - at his inauguration as governor of California today. What's going to happen now? What about our children? What about the future?". |
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