moment of shooting. An idea speculated by the HSCA is that the umbrella may have been held as a symbol of protest regarding the US government's failure to provide an "umbrella" of air support during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The peculiar behaviour of the Dark Complected Man standing (and later sitting) next to him has raised speculation about their roles that day. Identification After an appeal to the public by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Louie Steven Witt came forward in 1978 and claimed to be the "umbrella man". He claimed to still have the umbrella and did not know he had been the subject of controversy. He said that he brought the umbrella simply to heckle Kennedy, whose father, Joseph, had been a supporter of the Nazi-appeasing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. By waving a black umbrella, Chamberlain's trademark fashion accessory, Witt said he was protesting the Kennedy family appeasing Adolf Hitler before World War II. An umbrella had been used in cartoons in the 1930s to symbolize such appeasement, and Chamberlain often carried an umbrella. Kennedy, who wrote a thesis on appeasement while at Harvard, Why England Slept, might have recognized the symbolism of the umbrella. Black umbrellas had been used in connection with protests against the President before; at the time of the construction of the Berlin Wall, a group of schoolchildren from Bonn sent the White House an umbrella labeled Chamberlain. Testifying before the HSCA, Witt said "I think if the Guinness Book of World Records had a category for people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, I would be No. 1 in that position, without even a close runner-up." Witt died on November 17, 2014. See also Dark Complected Man Black dog man Badge Man Three tramps Babushka Lady Notes External links The JFK 100: The Umbrella Man JFK Assassination Home Page: The Umbrella Man in Dealey Plaza JFK Assassination Home Page: The Umbrella Man Shooting Darts in Dealey Plaza Witnesses to the assassination of John F. Kennedy 1924 births 2014 deaths