The Babushka Lady is an unidentified woman present during the 1963
assassination of US President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle wi ...
who might have photographed or filmed the events that occurred in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
's
Dealey Plaza
Dealey Plaza is a city park in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas. It is sometimes called the "birthplace of Dallas". It was also the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963; 30 minutes after the shooting ...
at the time
President John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until assassination of Joh ...
was shot. Her nickname arose from the
headscarf
A headscarf is a scarf covering most or all of the top of a person's, usually women's, hair and head, leaving the face uncovered. A headscarf is formed of a triangular cloth or a square cloth folded into a triangle, with which the head is cov ...
she wore, which was similar to scarves worn by elderly
Russian women
Women in Russian society have a rich and varied history during numerous regimes throughout the centuries. It is important to note that since Russia is a multicultural society, the experiences of women in Russia vary significantly across ethnic ...
(
бабушка – ''babushka'' – literally means "grandmother" or "old woman" in
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
).
The Babushka Lady was seen to be holding a camera by eyewitnesses and was also seen in film accounts of the assassination. She was observed standing on the grass between Elm and Main streets, standing amongst onlookers in front of the Dallas County Building, and is visible in the
Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November ...
as well as in the films of
Orville Nix
Orville Orhel Nix (April 16, 1911 – January 17, 1972) was a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. His filming of the shooting, which only captured the last few seconds of ...
,
Marie Muchmore
Marie M. Muchmore (August 5, 1909 – April 26, 1990) was one of the witnesses to the John F. Kennedy assassination, assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A color 8 mm film that Mu ...
, and Mark Bell
(44 minutes and 47 seconds into the Bell film: even though the shooting had already taken place and most of her surrounding witnesses took cover, she can be seen still standing with the camera at her face). After the shooting, she crossed Elm Street and joined the crowd that went up the
grassy knoll
Dealey Plaza is a city park in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas. It is sometimes called the "birthplace of Dallas". It was also the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963; 30 minutes after the shooting ...
. She is last seen in photographs walking east on Elm Street. Neither she, nor the film she may have taken, have ever been positively identified. Her first appearance on film chronologically is on the sidewalk in front of the Dallas County Building - visible in an image as being on JFK's right. She would have crossed Houston Street and onto Dealey Plaza in order to be visible in the Dealey Plaza images. This may imply that the images show two different women of similar appearance however it is plausible that once the motorcade passed by she was able to cross the street to catch a second motorcade drive past on Dealey Plaza where she would be on JFK's left.
Beverly Oliver's claim
In 1970, a woman named Beverly Oliver told conspiracy researcher Gary Shaw at a church
revival meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held to inspire active members of a church body to gain new converts and to call sinners to repent. Nineteenth-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "Many blessings may come ...
in
Joshua, Texas
Joshua is a city in Johnson County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,910 at the 2010 census and an estimated 7,887 in 2018.
History
Joshua is in the Cross Timbers region of Texas, on land patented by W. W. Byers in 1867. The section was ...
, that she was the Babushka Lady.
Oliver stated that she filmed the assassination with a Super 8 film
Yashica
Yashica was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, originally active from 1949 until 2005 when its then-owner, Kyocera, ceased production.
In 2008, the Yashica name reappeared on cameras produced by the Hong Kong-based MF Jebsen Group. In 2015, tr ...
and that she turned the undeveloped film over to two men who identified themselves to her as FBI agents.
According to Oliver, she obtained no receipt from the men, who told her that they would return the film to her within ten days. She did not follow up with an inquiry.
She reiterated her claims in the 1988 documentary ''
The Men Who Killed Kennedy
''The Men Who Killed Kennedy'' is a video documentary series by British television network ITV that depicts the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Originally broadcast in 1988 in two parts (with a subsequent st ...
''.
According to
Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent T. Bugliosi Jr. (; August 18, 1934 – June 6, 2015) was an American prosecutor and author who served as Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office between 1964 and 1972.
He became best known for s ...
, Oliver "has never proved to most people's satisfaction that she was in Dealey Plaza that day."
Confronted with the fact that the Yashica Super-8 camera was not made until 1969, she stated that she received the "experimental" camera from a friend and was not even sure the manufacturer's name was on it.
Beverly Oliver's claims were the basis for a scene in
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...
's 1991 film ''
JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
'', in which a character named "Beverly" meets
Jim Garrison
James Carothers Garrison (born Earling Carothers Garrison; November 20, 1921 – October 21, 1992) was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he ...
in a Dallas nightclub.
Played by
Lolita Davidovich
Lolita Davidovich ( sr-Latn, Lolita Davidović, italic=unset; born July 15, 1961) is a Canadian-born film and television actress, best known for portraying Blaze Starr in the 1989 film '' Blaze'', for which she received a Chicago Film Critics Ass ...
, she is depicted in the
director's cut
A director's cut is an edited version of a film (or video game, television episode, music video, or commercial) that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit in contrast to the theatrical release. "Cut" explicitly refers to the ...
as wearing a headscarf at Dealey Plaza and speaking of having given the film she shot to two men claiming to be FBI agents.
House Select Committee on Assassinations report
In March 1979, the Photographic Evidence Panel of the
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The HSCA completed its i ...
indicated that they were unable to locate any film attributed to the Babushka Lady.
According to their report: "Initially,
Robert Groden
Robert J. Groden (born November 22, 1945) is an American author who has written extensively about conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His books include ''The Killing of a President: The Complete Ph ...
, a photographic consultant to the committee advised the panel as to pertinent photographic issues and related materials. Committee investigators located many of the suggested films and photographs, however, some items were never located, i.e. the Babushka Lady film, a color photograph by Norman Similas, and the original negative of the Betzner photograph."
Public hearings of the Assassination Records Review Board
On November 18, 1994, assassination researcher Gary Mack testified before the
Assassination Records Review Board
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, or the JFK Records Act, is a public law passed by the United States Congress, effective October 26, 1992. It directed the National Archives and Records Administration (NAR ...
that he had recently been told by an executive in
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
's Dallas office that a woman in her early 30s with brunette hair brought in film purported to be of the assassination scene while they were processing the
Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November ...
.
According to Mack, the executive said the woman explained to federal investigators already at the film processing office that she ran from Main Street across the grass to Elm Street where she stopped and snapped a photo with some people in the foreground of the
presidential limousine and the
Texas School Book Depository
The Texas School Book Depository, now known as the Dallas County Administration Building, is a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The building was Lee Harvey Oswald's vantage point during the assassination of United Sta ...
.
Mack said that he was told by the Kodak executive that the photo was extremely blurry and "virtually useless" and indicated that the woman likely went home without anyone recording her identity.
After suggesting that the woman in the story may have been the Babushka Lady, Mack then told the Board: "I do not believe that Beverly Oliver is the Babushka Lady, or, let me rephrase that, she certainly could be but the rest of the story is a fabrication."
Also appearing that same day before the ARRB as "Beverly Oliver Massegee", Oliver stated that she was 17 years old at the time of the assassination.
She told the Board that she was filming with an "experimental"
8 mm movie camera approximately from Kennedy when he was shot and that the film was confiscated by a man who identified himself as an FBI agent.
According to Oliver, she handed over the camera because the man was an authority figure and because she feared being caught in possession of
marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
.
See also
*
Badge Man
The Badge Man is a figure that is purportedly present within the Mary Moorman photograph of the assassination of United States president John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that this fi ...
*
Three tramps
The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Since the mi ...
*
Umbrella man (JFK assassination)
The "umbrella man", identified by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 as Louie Steven Witt, is a name given to a figure who appears in the Zapruder film, and several other films and photographs, near the Interstate 3 ...
References
External links
Is Beverly Oliver the "Babushka Lady"?Marquette University
Marquette University () is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Henni, John Martin ...
.
*Reitzes, Dave (October 31, 2001)
The JFK 100: 100 Errors in Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's Assassination Movie: Beverly Oliver
{{DEFAULTSORT:Babushka Lady
20th-century women
Unidentified people
Witnesses to the assassination of John F. Kennedy