CONFERENCE TO FOCUS ON KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

The ninth annual Southeast Missouri Historical Conference will focus on the Kennedy assassination.

It will be held in the University Center Ballroom at 7 p.m. on Nov. 22, the 30th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.

"The theme of the conference is `The Strange Case of Lee Harvey Oswald," said Chris Schnell, a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University who is coordinating the conference.

Oswald was the man accused of shooting Kennedy, but questions still remain about whether Oswald fired all the shots or was part of a larger conspiracy.

Highlight of the conference will be a presentation by retired Dallas police officer Maurice "Nick" McDonald. McDonald, who now lives in Hot Springs, Ark., was involved in the arrest of Oswald in a Dallas movie theater following the shooting of Kennedy.

"He (McDonald) is the one who actually manhandled Oswald and beat him up," said Schnell.

"Oswald slashed him with a pistol," said Schnell, who has actively researched the Kennedy assassination over the past 20 years.

McDonald believes that Oswald acted alone. "He says Oswald fired all the shots and that he was the only one shooting," said Schnell.

Schnell will open the conference with a brief paper on the "history and myth" of JFK.

"Then we've got a couple Kennedy assassination conspiracy people on the panel," said Schnell. Included on the panel will be Steve Richardet, a Cape Girardeau Central High School teacher who has researched the Kennedy assassination.

Local resident Victor Underwood, who has long been interested in the assassination, has a number of tapes of Dallas television coverage of the assassination. "He is going to take a look at a lot of the films and tapes," said Schnell.

Michael Brown of the criminal justice department at Southeast will discuss police procedures and how such an investigation would be conducted today.

The conference is open to the public free of charge. It's sponsored by the criminal justice and history departments at Southeast.

Schnell, who believes the Kennedy assassination "had something to do with organized crime and the anti-Castro Cubans," said the event continues to interest the public. "People want to hear about it," he said.