Former FBI analyst shares his past

By De'Borah Bankston

Students never know who they will meet at the SMU Bookstore. As they walk in the main entrance of the store and go to the circular information desk, they will probably meet a quiet, friendly man with a graying beard. His cheerful continence belies years of pain.

Farris Rookstool III, a former FBI forensics photographer and hostage negotiator, works at the bookstore on evenings and weekends. He uses his vast network of contacts to help people find books and information that they need, regardless of how arcane the data may be. On weekdays, Rookstool works with the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Foundation.

Although Rookstool may seem like a simple man, his past is very complex.

Rookstool began working as a medical photographer and illustrator at Southwestern Medical School for Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Goldstein when he was 17 years old, after graduating from Skyline High School in Dallas. Four years later, in 1981, he was responsible for taking pictures of the exhumation and the autopsy of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Rookstool later left his job at Southwestern Medical School to begin work for the FBI, where he worked for over 11 years. Since Rookstool had some knowledge of the Kennedy assassination, the FBI assigned him to read and investigate all of the materials that it possessed.

Over 500,000 pages of materials gathered by the bureau were placed in Rookstool's care. He spent nine years reading and researching the data, becoming an FBI expert on the Kennedy assassination.

As such, CBS news anchor Dan Rather and other news agencies interviewed him. Rookstool prepared the briefing papers for the 1992 disclosure act and has written various books and documents. He was also responsible for transporting all of the classified documents on the Kennedy assassination to Dallas to declassify and store.

While with the FBI, Rookstool suffered cardiac arrest, a major head injury and a ruptured appendix, was bitten by a poisonous snake and has been shot.

These events and others served to strengthen his resolve and his appreciation for life.

In 1993, Rookstool was assigned to the Branch Davidian case in Waco, Texas. He was sent in as part of the hostage negotiating team. Later, he was the forensics photographer. Rookstool was the first man to view the grisly disaster that followed the breakdown in communications between the Branch Davidians and the U.S. government.

What Rookstool witnessed as he cut apart bodies fused together by the extreme heat to bag and tag the victims still gives him extreme pain.

As Rookstool described the horrific sights of the compound, tears rolled down his bristled cheeks. The events of those days changed Rookstool forever.

"It's hard to explain how disturbing all of that was," he said. "These were people I felt I knew a little. I had heard their voices with the telephone taps and seen them on videotape.

Rookstool said that because of that, he had come to know them as real people.

"When I picked up their charred bodies, it became very personal for me," Rookstool said.

He said that the people were all huddled in a far corner of the building with blankets over the children and the mothers lying on top to protect them. As he dug through the rubble he found a woman and child whose hands had been fused together by the blaze. Rookstool helped out as the two were cut apart.

"When I lifted the child in my arms, her head came off. Then when I lifted the mother, her intestines broke out and spilled over me," Rookstool said. "There I was with her guts draped all over me."

Rookstool feels that the mistakes in the handling of the Davidian situation led directly to the Oklahoma City bombing.

"Our government is run by humans. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes. The biggest problem was the failure to admit mistakes, and this rippled," Rookstool said.

Rookstool was sent to Oklahoma to photograph and investigate the incident for the bureau. He listened to hours of tapes containing interviews with Timothy McVeigh, read transcripts and reviewed the data. The horrors he witnessed there compounded with his experiences in Waco made Rookstool feel that it was time someone spoke out against what was happening. So he did - first to the academy at Quantico, then later in a book entitled "Rules of Engagement."

Rookstool left the FBI in 1995. Rookstool was tired and angry -angry over the deaths that no one spoke about and tired of the pain. He began appearing on various news specials and documentaries, speaking out about the mistakes of Waco. He is the only former FBI member who speaks out so actively against bureau policies and procedures.

Rookstool began a job with WGBH-TV of Boston, a PBS affiliate, as a consultant. He later began the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Foundation, going back to his roots as he sorted through the tattered emotions and experiences that he had been through.

When now-retired Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., put together a special committee to put to bed the conspiracy theories behind the Kennedy assassination, Rookstool was more than ready for the job.

As Rookstool works for the foundation, he hopes to achieve the dreams of a lifetime of pain.

"I've seen enough death - I want people to see John Fitzgerald Kennedy as he was in life," Rookstool said. "He had his faults, we all do, but look at all that he achieved."

Since beginning his endeavors, Rookstool has raised $5.5 million to build a permanent museum to the late president. Texas state senator Kay Granger is sponsoring legislation that will raise $10 million in funds for the new building, which will be located in Fort Worth.

"Everyone knows the significance of the date Nov. 22, 1963, but how many people know the significance of the date, May 29, 1917?" Rookstool asked. "It was his birthday."

One day, Rookstool walked into the SMU Bookstore and was surprised by the peaceful and happy environment he found there. He loves the community relationship of the store. He believes that the bookstore is good for SMU and the community. He likes it because it's stable and easily accessible.

"If Barnes and Noble publishers are there and [so is] a Starbucks coffee shop, you know it's not going away for a long time," Rookstool said.

Now he uses his vast network of contacts to look for books for people and help them in whatever way he can.

He said that working at the store helps him deal with his past.

"The pain does dim with time," Rookstool said. "It goes away even faster when it is replaced by the joy that you can experience helping someone else."

Part of the joy Rookstool experiences comes from dressing in costume to entertain children at the bookstore. Under a Winnie the Pooh suit is someone who has seen the worst things that one man can do to another man, and he is still able to enjoy the pleasure of seeing children happy.

"The important thing to remember is that you never know whose life you'll impact as you go through your day to day experiences," Rookstool said. "Every person has it within themselves to make a difference."