Forensic Pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht To Examine JFK Assassination At Symposium
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Next month will mark 50 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Polls will tell you the vast majority of Americans don't believe the official version of how it happened, and among the most vocal critics is Pittsburgh's own Dr. Cyril Wecht.
And you'd better believe Dr. Wecht is not letting the anniversary go unnoticed.
After all these years, former Allegheny County Coroner Wecht, America's forensic pathologist, who works in an office surrounded by images of JFK and his family is eager as ever to tell whoever's asking that the whole story of Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and firing a "magic bullet" is preposterous.
"This is a story that would be something fantastic for a fiction writer," said Dr. Wecht.
Dr. Wecht says the country's on his side, citing polls that say eight out of 10 Americans don't believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission.
Wecht will mark the approaching 50th anniversary with a JFK Assassination Symposium at Duquesne University starting Thursday. Among the speakers is filmmaker Oliver Stone.
His movie, "JFK," implied government elements were in on a plot to kill the President.
For his part, Dr. Wecht points to unnamed "super-patriots," or right-wing extremists, who he believes wouldn't tolerate Kennedy's liberal leadership and his brother, Robert's, possible ascension while the country stared down Vietnam, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.
"There was no way to beat Kennedy at the polls, his charm, his charisma, his money, his power, no way in the world do you beat him, no way in the world do you beat Bobby Kennedy," said Dr. Wecht. "There's only one way, and that is to physically eliminate, and that was what it was, the overthrow of the government and that's a coup d'état."
Dr. Wecht says his symposium will help keep alive the questions, the curiosity, the quest to find elusive and inconvenient truths.
"We realize that there's not going to be an announcement by the government next Monday that, 'Hey, Wecht's conference took place and we now know the truth and we're going to get into the JFK assassination.' It's not going to happen," said Dr. Wecht. "But one day, it will."
Registration for the symposium at Duquesne is closed, but the website says it will be available later on DVD.
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