JFK MurderJFK Murder

Presented by

Sherif A. Ahmed

It was on Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12.29 P.M.

It was announce over the television at 1:40 P.M. EST CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite broke into As the World Turns with an audio announcement over a bulletin slide: "In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.The first reports said that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting." Minutes later, Cronkite appears on screen from CBS's New York newsroom to field live reports from Dallas and read news bulletins from Associated Press and CBS Radio. Eddie Barker, news director for CBS's Dallas affiliate KRLD-TV, reports live from the Trade Mart, where the president was to have attended a luncheon. As a stationary camera pans the ballroom, closing in on a black waiter who wipes tears from his face, Barker relates rumors "that the president is dead." Back in New York, a voice off camera tells Cronkite the same news, which the anchorman stresses is "totally unconfirmed." Switching back to Dallas, Barker again reports "the word we have is that the President is dead." Though he cautions "this we do not know for a fact," the visual image at the Trade Mart is ominous: workman can be seen removing the presidential seal from a podium on the dais.

How it was announced

Series of Events

1. The Flight

On November 22nd, 1963 Air Force Two, carrying Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, landed at 11:30 a.m. after the brief flight from Fort Worth.

Air Force One followed at 11:40 a.m. On board were Kennedy and his wife, Texas Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie, and U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough.

2. Airport

On hand at the airport was a small throng, including journalists and key Texas political supporters.

Kennedy greeted Texas dignitaries in a receiving line. He made certain to acknowledge well-wishers who lined fences at the airport to get a look at the president and First Lady.

3. The VehicleSixteen cars, a dozenmotorcycles and threebuses were assembled

tocarry John F. Kennedyand his entourage to theDallas Trade Mart, in theheart of downtown,Where the president wasscheduled to addresscivic leaders.

The vehicle (continued)JFK's Lincolnconvertible (GG 300)at the moment when

JFK has been first hit

The vehicle (continued)

LBJ in the convertible two cars behind, sitting between his wife Lady Bird and Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough. LBJ is wearing a dark cowboy hat (just the brim is visible below the top of windscreen).

Kennedy was devoting two days to Texas as an early campaign trip that he hoped would rally the Lone Star State's sometimes fractious Democrats around a single cause: his reelection.

Lady Kennedy

The presence of Jackie Kennedy on the trip was carefully considered. Mrs. Kennedy had become an iconic figure in America, with a celebrity that rivaled her husband's.

The president's advisors had plotted slow-rolling motorcades in the three largest Texas cities in part to allow citizen-voters a glimpse of America's elegant queen.

The Kennedys left Washington on the morning of Thursday, November 21, and flew to San Antonio. They were met there by Gov. Connally and Vice President Johnson, who joined the president in a motorcade downtown.

That afternoon the president flew to Houston, where another motorcade awaited. He spoke to a large crowd at Rice University Stadium, then attended a political dinner in Houston.

Late Thursday night, the Kennedys flew to Fort Worth, where they spent the night at the Texas Hotel. Friday morning, Kennedy attended a breakfast at the hotel and spoke to a crowd outdoors before leaving for Dallas.

At the hotel, the Kennedys and Kenneth O'Donnell, special assistant to the president, had a foreboding conversation about the potential danger of motorcades.

O'Donnell would tell the Warren Commission that the President said, "If anybody really wanted to shoot the president of the United States, it was not a very difficult job. All one had to do was get in a high building someday with a telescopic rifle, and there was nothing anybody could do to defend against such an attempt."

Kenneth O'Donnell,

The Dallas motorcade set off from the airport just 10 minutes after the president's jet landed.

The schedule allotted 45 minutes for the 10-mile trip from Love to the Trade Mart. The motorcade route had been well-publicized in the week before Kennedy's visit. The president's political handlers hoped for a huge show of support. That's why he had gone to Texas, after all.

Motorcade Route

Motorcade Route

Motorcade RouteThe motorcade left the

airport and traveled along Main Street toward the tall buildings of downtown Dallas, where thousands of office workers would be free on lunch hour when the motorcade

Warren Commission investigators confirmed the motorcade route was chosen to maximize "participation" from citizens

Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street

1) Secret Service Agent Sam Kinney (driver of the follow-up car behind JFK's limo)---indicates, via his report to Chief Rowley, that Greer hit the gas after the fatal head shot to JFK and after the President's slump to the left toward Jackie. From the HSCA's 2/26/78 interview of Kinney: "He also remarked that 'when Greer (the driver of the Presidential limousine) looked back, his foot must have come off the accelerator “ Kinney observed that at the time of the first shot, the speed of the motorcade was '3 to 5 miles an hour”.

2) Secret Service Agent Clint Hill (follow-up car, rear of limo)---"…I jumped from the follow-up car and ran toward the Presidential automobile. I heard a second firecracker-type noise…SA Greer had, as I jumped onto the Presidential automobile, accelerated the Presidential automobile forward." [18 H 742; Nix film; "The Secret Service" and "Inside The Secret Service" videos from 1995];

Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street

3) Secret Service Agent John Ready (follow-up car) "I heard what sounded like fire crackers going off from my post on the right front running board. The President's car slowed.

4) Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett (follow-up car)---after the fatal head shot "the President's car immediately kicked into high gear." [18 H 760; 24 H 541-542]. During his 1/30/78 HSCA interview, Bennett said the follow-up car was moving at "10-12 m.p.h.", an indication of the pace of the motorcade on Elm Street.

Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street

5) Secret Service Agent "Lem" Johns (V.P. follow-up car)---"…I felt that if there was danger [it was] due to the slow speed of the automobile." [18 H 774]. During his 8/8/78 HSCA interview, Johns said that "Our car was moving very slowly", a further indication of the pace of the motorcade on Elm Street [RIF# 180-10074-10079; Altgens photo];

6) Secret Service Agent Winston Lawson (rode in the lead car)---"…I think it [the lead car on Elm Street] was a little further ahead [of JFK's limo] than it had been in the motorcade, because when I looked back we were further ahead." [4 H 352], an indication of the lag in the limo during the assassination.;

7) Secret Service Agent William "Tim" McIntyre (follow-up car)---"He stated that Greer, driver of the Presidential limousine, accelerated after the third shot." [RIF#180-10082-10454: 1/31/78 HSCA interview];

The parade route was mobbed.

Police had manned all bridge overpasses and shooed away unauthorized individuals. But screening the crowd or searching buildings along the route for miscreants was impossible.

The convoy buzzed along Main Street at 25 to 30 miles an hour in the more sparsely populated outer reaches of Dallas. But even there a number of people waited to see the Kennedys, and the motorcade gradually slowed as it headed downtown.

The first car in the convoy, known as the "pilot car," carried Dallas police officers. It stayed a quarter-mile ahead of the political parade that followed and was assigned to report signs of trouble.

Next came six motorcycles, then the "lead car," an unmarked Dallas police vehicle driven by Police Chief Police Jesse Curry and occupied by Dallas County Sheriff J.E. Decker and Secret Service Agents Forrest Sorrels, of the White House detail, and Winston Lawson, special agent in charge of the Dallas office.

According to the Warren Commission report, "The occupants scanned the crowd and the buildings along the route. Their main function was to spot trouble in advance and to direct any necessary steps to meet the trouble.

Following normal practice, the lead automobile stayed approximately four to five car lengths ahead of the President's limousine."

The presidential car, a specially designed 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible, was fitted with a futuristic plastic bubble that could protect the occupants from rain while allowing people along the motorcade route to get a good look at their dashing president and his lovely wife.

But the weather was fair, so the bubble had been removed. The plastic was not bullet-proof, in any case.

Kennedy sat in the right rear seat with his wife to the left. John and Nellie Connally were seated in front of them in a jump seat, with Nellie on the left.

Secret Service Agent William Greer drove the car, and Agent Roy Kellerman, head of the White House detail, rode shotgun. The limousine was fitted with running boards that allowed agents to ride beside the president, but Kennedy preferred to give citizens an unobstructed view during motorcades.

Four more motorcycles flanked the president's car to keep the crowd back. Again, Kennedy had asked that the cycles lag back to give people a good view.

Behind the presidential limo was a 1955 Cadillac that carried eight armed agents—four inside, four on the running boards. O'Donnell and another aide rode in that car, as well. The agents on the running boards were assigned to hurry up to the presidential car any time it slowed to a stop or a walking pace.

Next in line was the vice president's car, a four-door Lincoln convertible that carried the Johnsons, Sen. Yarborough and a Secret Service agent. A Texas highway patrolman drove.

Behind Johnson's Lincoln was a car driven by a Dallas cop that carried three more agents and Clifton Garter, assistant to Johnson.

And this was followed by the rest of the motorcade, including five cars with the Dallas mayor and other Texas politicians; the president's physician, Admiral George Burkley; telephone and Western Union vehicles; a White House communications car; three cars of press photographers; a bus for White House staffers, and two press buses.

A Dallas police car and three more motorcycles brought up the rear.

In downtown Dallas, the motorcade slowed to 10 mph as the Kennedys and Connallys smiled and waved to the masses lining the route, a crowd estimated at a quarter-million. At Houston St., the motorcade turned right off Main, then left onto Elm to allow quick passage through Dealey Plaza to the Stemmons Freeway for the final leg of the trip.

At the corner of Houston and Elm stood a seven-story building leased to the Texas School Book Depository, which shipped schoolbooks in the southwest.

As the motorcade moved toward the Book Depository, Nellie Connally turned and remarked about the greeting that the Kennedys were receiving.

The governor's wife said, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you."

Kennedy replied, "That is very obvious."

These were John Kennedy's last words.

The Shooting

The motorcade was running a few minutes late. As he was prone to do, Kennedy had twice

ordered his limo to stop—once when he saw a man holding a sign inviting the president to shake his hand, and a second time to greet a Catholic nun and a group of schoolchildren.

• Secret service standown

The dense crowds downtown had also slowed the pace of the motorcade.

The president's car was crawling at 11 mph past the Texas School Book Depository at precisely 12:30 p.m., the hour the president was due at the Trade Mart.

Rifle shots rang out.

The Magic Bullet

The Magic Bullet

The Magic Bullet was fired from the far east-end window

of the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository building,entered JFK's back;exited from his throat;entered Connally's back; exited his chest near the right nipple;went through his right wrist shattering the radius bone; entered his left leg embedding itself in his thigh bone*, then dropped out later, in pristine condition,on his stretcher in Parkland Hospital.synopsis of the Sep 27, 1964 Warren Report

No real bullet could do that. It defies the laws of physics. We all know that 2 + 2 = 4. And no real man could go from the front east corner to the back east corner of the

sixth floor - stash a rifle behind some boxes - then cross to the west side and down four flights of stairs to the lunchroom on the second floor in ninety seconds to be seen there - sipping a Coke - by his boss and a police officer as they ran passed on their way upstairs. But that's what the government says Lee Harvey Oswald did.

Those are a couple of reasons why some people - so called "conspiracy theorists" - don't believe the "official" version of the JFK assassination.

The Magic Bullet

One slug passed through the president's neck, according to the Warren Commission. A second, subsequent, lethal bullet shattered the right side of his skull. Connally was wounded in his back, the right side of his chest, right wrist and left thigh.

Secret Service agents rushed to the limousine.

Jackie Kennedy cried out, "Oh, my God, they have shot my husband. I love you, Jack."

Agent Kellerman, in the president's car, radioed ahead to Police Chief Curry, who led a high-speed dash to Parkland Hospital, 4 miles away.

There was no saving the president, of course. He was declared dead 30 minutes after the shooting. An emergency operation was conducted on Connally; he would survive.

By 2:15 p.m., Kennedy's body was in a casket and loaded on Air Force One for the return flight to Washington.

But the takeoff was delayed while aides arranged an urgent ceremony to ensure continuity of government.

Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, appointed by Kennedy in 1961 as the first female U.S. District Court judge in Texas, hurried to Love Field.

At 2:38 p.m., just before the jet departed for Washington, Hughes swore in Lyndon Johnson as the 36th President. He was flanked by his wife and Mrs. Kennedy during the brief, solemn ceremony.

Judge Hughes later said, "I thought she (Jackie Kennedy) showed remarkable poise. She didn't weep. She didn't say a word. Her poise was outstanding. Her courage was outstanding."

Within minutes of the assassination, several eyewitnesses had pointed to the Book Depository building as the source of the gunshots.

One witness, Howard Brennan, said he noticed a man at a window of the building several times just before the motorcade passed. Brennan said he looked up after hearing the first shot and saw the same man fire a rifle, then disappear. Based on Brennan's account, police at 12:45 p.m. broadcast a description: white male, slender, 165 pounds, 5-foot-10.

Cops flooded the building, and near a sixth-floor window they found three shell casings and a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight.

At 1:15 p.m., Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit noticed a man near 10th and Patton streets, a couple of miles from the assassination scene, who matched the suspect's description. Tippit called the man to his patrol car. After a brief exchange through the window, the cop got out, apparently to question the man more closely.

The man pulled a pistol and fired four shots that struck and killed Tippit.

A dozen people witnessed the shooting. Someone called police, and heads turned to watch as radio cars raced to the location with sirens crying.

News of the president's shooting had Dallas residents on high alert, and several people noticed a suspicious man duck into a doorway eight blocks from the shooting scene as cop cars passed.

One such witness was Johnny Brewer, a shoe store manager, who saw the man slip into the Texas Theater.

Bullets

Bullets• Shot #1. Approximate firing time:  Zapruder frame 188. • Hit Kennedy in back around 190, fell out in limousine. (Possibly a

hand-loaded bullet.)• From:  the sixth floor window of the TSBD.• Heard by:  pretty much everyone in Dealey Plaza between the time

of the shot and 10 frames afterwards.• Shot or shots #2. Approximate firing time:   Zapruder frame 222.• Hit Kennedy in hairline at frame 224, exited his throat. Connally

wounded in his chest, wrist, and thigh.  Wounds seem instantaneous, but most probably came from separate bullets fired from an automatic weapon.

• From: most likely the upper floors of the Dal-Tex Building.• Heard by:  a few near Houston and Elm, perhaps a few on the

railroad bridge.• Shot #3. Approximate firing time:  Zapruder frame 310-311.• Hit Kennedy near the temple at frame 313.  Bullet fragmented.  One

piece of its core may have continued on to cause the wound to Tague around 319.

• From:  the sixth floor window of the TSBD• Heard by:  everyone in Dealey Plaza from the time of the shot up to

10 frames afterwards.  Tague would have heard this shot around 319 or 320.

• Sound or Shot #4. Approximate firing time:  Zapruder frame 320-327.

• Missed or possibly not even a shot.  Quite possibly a loud firecracker used as a diversion device.

• From:  somewhere west of the Texas School Book Depository, possibly the railroad yards..

• Heard by:  everyone in Dealey Plaza from the time of the explosion to 10 frames afterwards.

"He just looked funny to me," Brewer told the Warren Commission. "His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny."

Brewer spoke with the theater's box office clerk, Julia Postal. He told her, "I don't know if this is the man they want...but he is running from them for some reason."

Postal called police.

More than a dozen officers converged on the theater. They ordered the house lights turned up, and Brewer pointed out the suspicious character. As cops moved in, the man brandished his pistol but was subdued before firing a shot, although some officers said they heard the "click" of a misfire.

Eyewitness Brewer said fists flew while the suspect was being arrested. He heard one cop say, "Kill the president, will you?"

An officer later said the suspect was "cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality."

The suspect was 24 years old, 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds. His name was Lee Harvey Oswald

A misfit Marine Corps vet, the native of New Orleans had been hired as a $1.25-an-hour order-filler at the Texas School Book Depository six weeks earlier.

En route to the police station, Oswald asked over and over, "Why am I being arrested?"

Oswald was taken to the Dallas Police and Courts Building downtown.

At 7:10 that evening, a justice of the peace visited to arraign Oswald on charges that he killed Patrolman Tippit. Six hours later, at 1:30 a.m. November 23, he was arraigned by the same justice in the murder of Kennedy.

Oswald was questioned at Dallas police headquarters for some 12 cumulative hours over the two days following his arrest. Capt. J.W. Fritz of the Dallas police homicide bureau conducted most of the interrogation.

FBI and Secret Service agents often were present and sometimes asked questions of Oswald.

The Warren Commission said, "Throughout this interrogation he denied that he had anything to do either with the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit."

Nonetheless, Oswald faced a daunting catalogue of evidence:

The Smith & Wesson .38 Special used to shoot Tippet was wrested from Oswald during his arrest.

Nine witnesses identified Oswald as the cop's killer—six in person, three by photographs.

He had access to the sixth floor of the Book Depository building, and witnesses saw him there prior to the shooting of Kennedy.

Forensic evidence indicated he had been at the window where the shell casings were found, and his palm print and clothing fibers were found on the rifle used to shoot Kennedy and Connally. (The purity of this evidence has been the source of great debate.)

The gun had been purchased by someone using the name A. Hidell, an alias that Lee Oswald had used frequently.

Investigators found two photographs showing Oswald holding the rifle and the pistol.

At about 11 a.m. Sunday, November 24, Oswald was to be transferred from the Police and Courts Building to the Dallas County Jail—standard procedure once a crime suspect had been charged with a felony.

But the transfer was anything but routine. Anonymous threats against the accused assassin

had been phoned in to authorities, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover later said that he had sent a message to Police Chief Curry asking that Oswald "be afforded the utmost security."

Curry would claim he never got the message. Just the same, it surely had occurred to Dallas

cops that Oswald might be endangered. He was being moved, after all, in an armored truck.

Curry decided to make the move of Oswald a media event by staging a photo opportunity in the basement of police headquarters.

He indicated to reporters that the transfer would happen after 10 a.m. Sunday, November 24.

A crew of 14 cops cleared the basement of all but police personnel at 9 a.m. Sentries were placed at the six doors to the basement area and at the tops of two auto ramps connecting the basement to streets above.

After the basement was secure, cops allowed journalists to re-enter. The scribes and shutterbugs were positioned opposite the door through which Oswald and his escorts would emerge. Uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives also poured into the basement for a glimpse at the accused assassin.

Jack Ruby By 11:20 a.m., an estimated 50 newsmen

and 75 cops were assembled waiting for Oswald.

Oswald shot by Jack Ruby  On live national television, Oswald walked

through the doors surrounded by lawmen. After he had walked perhaps 10 feet, a stout man stepped between newsman at the edge of the crowd. He extended his right hand, which gripped a Colt .38-caliber revolver, and fired "a single fatal bullet into Oswald's abdomen," as the Warren Commission report put it.

The man was soon identified as Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner who had many friends in the city's police department.

But he claimed he hadn't been tipped off to the transfer or given special access by a friendly cop. He said he simply walked down the auto ramp from Main Street.

As the Warren report said, "The Dallas Police Department, concerned at the failure of its security measures, conducted an extensive investigation that revealed no information indicating complicity between any police officer and Jack Ruby. Ruby denied to the Commission that he received any form of assistance."

Further investigation would reveal that Ruby didn't really need one cop's help. He had been given the run of police headquarters simply by showing up.

The Warren Commission determined that Ruby, known to act impulsively, closed his nightclub on the night of Kennedy's assassination and attended a memorial service at his Dallas synagogue. Driven to contribute in some way to the investigation, he stopped at a deli and bought sandwiches and sodas for cops.

He then went to police headquarters, where he left the food in his car and walked into the building alongside two news reporters, then rode an elevator to the third-floor pressroom, down the hall from where Oswald was being grilled.

Although he had no press credential, Ruby told anyone who asked that he was a translator for the Israeli media. Film of a press conference late Friday night at which Oswald was presented to the media showed Ruby standing on a table beside reporters.

A Dallas detective, Augustus Eberhardt, recalled having a brief conversation with Ruby, who commented that it was "hard to realize that a complete nothing, a zero like that, could kill a man like President Kennedy."After the press conference, Ruby buttonholed District Attorney Henry Wade and Justice of the Peace David Johnson, who had arraigned Oswald. He introduced himself as a nightclub owner, and later helped arrange a phone interview with Wade for KLIF radio in Dallas.

Ruby then drove to the KLIF studio, distributed his sandwiches to staffers and hung out for a couple of hours. He later stopped at the Dallas Times-Herald building, where he spoke with several composing room employees about seeing Oswald—"a little weasel of a guy," as he put it—at the press conference.

On Sunday morning, November 24, Ruby showed up in downtown Dallas just before the Oswald transfer.

He parked his car near police headquarters and opened the trunk, where he left his billfold and the car's ignition key. He then tucked into his suit pocket the revolver he normally kept in a bank moneybag in the trunk.

He walked down the block to a Western Union office and sent a $25 wire transfer to one of his nightclub's dancer's, who was stranded in Fort Worth.

Ruby claimed he then saw a bustle at police headquarters and wandered over to see what was happening.

Perhaps his timing was an educated guess. More likely, he had been tipped off to the time of the suspect's transfer; some have claimed the tipster was his pal W.J. "Blackie" Harrison, a Dallas police officer.

he apparently managed to walk down the auto ramp into the basement of the law enforcement building, where he shot Oswald.

He gave several explanations of why he did it: He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to prove that "Jews have guts." He wanted to spare Jackie Kennedy the heartache of

returning to Dallas for legal proceedings against Oswald.

He told the Warren Commission he was overwhelmed by "the emotional feeling...that someone owed this debt to our beloved President to save her the ordeal of coming back. I don't know why that came through my mind." Ruby swore he was not part of a conspiracy to silence Oswald.

Ruby was charged with murder and stood trial in February and March 1964. His attorney, Melvin Belli, argued for an insanity verdict, but the jury convicted Ruby and condemned him to die.

Ruby won an appeal on grounds of fairness because he had been denied  a change of venue. A Texas court ordered a new trial, but Ruby died of cancer on January 3, 1967, before it could be held.

The Warren Commission report featured a 15,000-word biographical portrait of Jack Ruby that is remarkable for its detail—some of it remarkably peculiar.

One brief section cogitates over whether Ruby was a homosexual—apparently based on anonymous "statements" of acquaintances that he spoke with a lisp, "acted effeminately" and "sometimes spoke in a high-pitched voice when angry."

What happened?

President John F Kennedy was killedJohn F Kennedy was hit in the head and throat

when three shots were fired at his open-topped car.

Where Did It Happen? (A through F)

A. on Elm Street in downtown Dallas, Texas

Where Did It Happen?

JFK has been shot from the corner window of 6th floor ( last but one floor) Museum located in that 6th Floor only.

B. The building he was shot from

Where Did It Happen?

D. Where another one of JFK's killers may have been standing on the Grassy Nole

The Blue "X" is where JFK was shot

C. The two spots where the killer was standing, and JFK was at

How Did It Happen?

The president was riding in his open limousine, his back to the Texas School Book Depository, where, on the sixth floor, Oswald was said to have been perched. His rifle, propped up by book cartons, was aimed directly at the back of the president's head.

How Did It Happen?

Ahead and to the right of the president's motorcade was the grassy knoll. There many spectators stood, ready to cheer the president as he passed by.

Oswald was accused of firing several shots from his position in the Texas School Book Depository.

Two of the bullets struck the president in the back of the head. But a third shot is said to have entered the president's throat, just above his Adam's apple.

How Did It Happen? Cause of death

X ray

The Warren Commission came to the conclusion that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. This theory has been supported by several other investigators including Arlen Specter, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Hugh Aynesworth, Gerald Posner, John McAdams and Kenneth A. Rahn.

1. Lee Harvey Oswald

presidential commission appointed a week after the assassination. Headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren

the commission announced its Oswald-acted-alone findings on September 24, 1964.

On that date, vigorous conspiracy theories commenced, and the whodunit debate has roiled ever since.