Albert González Oral History
Object number2013.001.0128
Date10/28/2013
ClassificationsOral Histories
Oral history interview subject
Albert Gonzalez
Oral history interviewer
Stephen Fagin
ObjectOral history
Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file)
DimensionsDuration: 31 Minutes
Terms
- Dallas
- Oral histories
- Exhumation
- 1960 presidential election
- Elections
- Campaign
- Funeral
- Exhumation
- Presidential campaign
- Kennedy supporter
- Oswald, Lee Harvey
- Kennedy, John F.
- Viva Kennedy
- Dallas
- 1960 Campaign (OHC)
- Lee Harvey Oswald (OHC)
- Chicano History and Culture (OHC)
- Childhood Recollections (OHC)
- Dallas and 1960s History and Culture (OHC)
Collections
DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Albert González. González's family was active in the Dallas chapter of the Viva Kennedy Club during the 1960 campaign. Later, as a local funeral home director, he was involved in the 1981 exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on October 28, 2013 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is thirty-one minutes long.
Curatorial CommentaryAnother local funeral home director involved in the exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1981, Paul Groody of Miller Funeral Home, recorded an oral history with the Museum in 2006. He passed away in 2010. In addition to newspaper articles and press photographs in various collections, the Museum's Dallas County Medical Examiner Collection (2006.042) includes documents and correspondence related to the exhumation, and the Museum's Libby Altwegg Collection (2021.023) includes more than twenty amateur color photographs of the exhumation (from a distance). - Stephen Fagin, Curator
The exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1981 was the result of efforts by the late British researcher Michael Eddowes (1903-1993), author of Khrushchev Killed Kennedy (1975) and The Oswald File (1977). Eddowes theorized that a Soviet agent impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald and that KGB involvement in the Kennedy assassination was subsequently covered up by Lyndon Johnson. With the support of Marina Oswald Porter, Eddowes brought a suit in Texas to exhume the remains of Lee Harvey Oswald to verify the body's identity. Following the exhumation on October 4, 1981, and an examination at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, pathologists "conclusively identified" the remains, based in part on dental records and a scar from a mastoid operation when Oswald was six years old. Eddowes said at the time that while "surprised" by the confirmation, he was "in no way disappointed in the apparent disproving of my evidence of imposture." - Stephen Fagin, Curator
A 1960 Viva Kennedy campaign button may be viewed here: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/35152. The Museum's Library Collection includes the book, Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot (2000), here: Bibliovation | Details for Viva Kennedy. In addition to Albert González, the Museum has recorded oral histories with Dallas chapter members Roberto and Ricardo Medrano and Mexican-American historians Dr. Jorge Leal and Dr. Ignacio Garcia (Dr. Ignacio M. Garcia Oral History – Works – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (jfk.org)). - Stephen Fagin, Curator
