With the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination barely three months away, the New York Times appears to have solved one lingering question: the provenance of a curious gravestone that appeared next to Lee Harvey Oswald’s final resting place in Ft. Worth’s Shannon Rose Hill Cemetery about 15 years ago.
The stone, in the same shape and size as Oswald’s, says only “Nick Beef.” According to the Times, the gravestone’s mysterious appearance spurred much heated speculation in the JFK assassination community.
Turns out “Nick Beef” is the nom de guerre of Patric Abedin, a Ft. Worth native who, as a 6-year-old, actually saw Kennedy when he landed in Ft. Worth the day before the assassination.
Later, young Abedin often visited the cemetery with his mother. As they gazed down at Oswald’s grave, Abedin’s mom would tell him never to forget that he’d seen the president the day before his death.
Abedin/Beef actually purchased the plot when he was 18 after reading an article that said it remained unclaimed. He didn’t put a stone there until 1997, years after he had moved to New York City and joined comedy troupe.
The motivation for Abedin/Beef’s cemetery plot purchase is not entirely clear, even to himself. Given his profession, it might appear at first to have been an exercise in black comedic performance art, but he says there were more personal reasons involved — a reminder of the fragility of life and the sense of peace he felt when visiting the location.
As for the rest of the story, the Times story offers no ambiguity on one central issue: that Oswald, a “slight, sallow” man, “killed President John F. Kennedy.”
Not a serious mystery, a distraction from more realistic roads of investigation.
I sent the following as an email to the NY Times writer, Dan Barry:
Dear sir.
Frankly, you should be ashamed to be used by the Times to equate the dampening of a “theory” about a grave site and the complexity of the major conspiracy involved in the killing of JFK. I say “used by” because there are very few writers of integrity who would write that description 50 years after it was first published in the Times as a “fact” which was told to them by the FBI (whose verdict of the shots never agreed with the Warren Commission).
As a writer, you should have used “alleged” killer in your description. As a writer, why wouldn’t you at least note the embrace of the book “JFK and the Unspeakable” by Robert Kennedy’s son? Even the most cursory reading of the literature
would show that no such absolute claim could truthfully be made about LHO.
That the Times didn’t admit error,at the the time of the MOCKINGBIRD disclosures and CHURCH hearings and the HSAC hearings means they have been less forthright than even the last pathetic “government” report that said that JFK was “probably” murdered by a shared decree.
University presses of Kansas and Harvard or indys like Trine,
and independent researchers. have done the job of the Main stream press. One cannot read BREACH OF TRUST, or the above mentioned JFK & the UNSPEAKABLE , the revised DESTINY BETRAYED or David Talbot’s BROTHERS, and speak in absolutes about LHO – or JFK.
We expected more of the Times. As a subscriber it pains me to pay. But I continue to see the misinformed as the uninformed and on their way to the truth – with or without the Times.
His (public response):http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/opinion/sunday/no-stranger-to-conspiracy.html?hp
My Journalism teacher in High School consistently instructed his class never pursue exposes that can get you imprisoned, stripped of your possessions or murdered (in or out of prison). Your expose will soon be forgotten & your murder will linger forever.
The media seem to continually use stories like this to poke fun at anyone who believes in a JFK conspiracy.
They could be asking WHY the CIA are still illegally witholding JFK assassination related records.
They might ask WHY George Joannides was put forward as the CIA contact point to the HSCA considering his role with the DRE in 1963, and why this role was not revealed to the HSCA.
I thought good journalism was about pursuing the truth.