Until very recently, I had always ignored the issue of Umbrella Man. I've never written a word about him in any of my articles or books. However, now that I've done some research on the matter, I find his actions suspicious and do not believe Louie Witt's story.
Witt's story that the umbrella was intended to protest the appeasement of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain and secondarily by JFK's father is absurd on its face. For starters, the umbrella was never considered to be a symbol of Chamberlain.
What's more, Witt's descriptions of his actions do not match the actions that we see Umbrella Man doing in the Zapruder film. Witt claimed he was just fiddling with the umbrella while trying to open it, but that is not at all what we see in the Z film. In the Z film, Umbrella Man holds his umbrella in the air and pumps it.
Another odd figure on the grassy knoll was the dark complected man (DCM). As the limo passes and while Umbrella Man is pumping his umbrella, DCM thrusts his fist up into the air.
Strangely, Umbrella Man and DCM, presumably strangers, instead of reacting with apparent horror or shock, sit down together on the curb and appear to calmly survey the scene.
In addition, enlargements of footage/photos that show DCM clearly seem to show something that looks like a radio or walkie-talkie protruding from his back pocket.
There's a long documented history of Neville Chamberlain being called "umbrella man" and the umbrella being considered a symbol of his appeasement and appeasement in general. Do a simple search: "Neville Chamberlain and umbrella." You'll get lots of hits explaining the meaning.
The origins of the term apparently began with a book critical of Chamberlain and others that was published shortly after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and violated the Munich peace agreement. In 1940, a group of British writers published a book called "Guilty Men" which became a best seller and was extremely influential. The authors denounced 15 British figures - including most notably Neville Chamberlain - for their appeasement of Hitler. Chamberlain was called "Umbrella Man" in a chapter (and elsewhere) in the book. See below.
In the Robert Dallek book on JFK, he mentions that in his campaign LBJ "pilloried Joe Kennedy as a Nazi appeaser: "I wasn't any Chamberlain umbrella man policy man," he declared. "I never thought Hitler was right."
"Umbrella man policy" means appeasement.
