19 January 2018

Vintage Everyday: JFK’s Assassination: Who Was the Mysterious Babushka Lady?

The Babushka Lady is an unknown woman present during the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy who might have photographed the events that occurred in Dallas' Dealey Plaza at the time President John F. Kennedy was shot. Her nickname arose from the headscarf she wore, which was similar to scarves worn by elderly Russian women (бабушка – babushka – literally means "grandmother" or "old woman" in Russian).  [...]

Conspiracy theories involving Babushka Lady proliferate, with some theories holding more merit than others. Some say she was a Russian spy, an assassin holding a camera gun, a secret service agent, or a man dressed as an older woman (her wide stance for example, as seen in Muchmore's film, could be viewed as a bit unusual for a woman in the 1960s—especially one dressed in a time-appropriate dress and trench).

Because it had been raining earlier that morning, some women in Dealey Plaza wore scarves on their heads; but, the rain had stopped at 10 a.m., and since the shots weren’t fired until 12:30 p.m., Babushka Lady wasn’t wearing a scarf to shield herself from active rain. Perhaps she was holding binoculars rather than a camera, which would explain why her photographic or video footage has never been found. But because she never came forward to tell law enforcement what she saw (unlike other spectators who witnessed the shots being fired), her identity (and what she may know) remains a mystery.

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