Assassination of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.

After the assassination, Oswald returned home to retrieve a pistol; he shot and killed a lone Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit shortly afterwards. Around 70 minutes after Kennedy and Connally were shot, Oswald was apprehended by the Dallas Police Department and charged under Texas state law with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit. Two days later, as live television cameras covered Oswald being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, he was fatally shot by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, though the decision was overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.

After a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, and that there was no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of a conspiracy. In 1967, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison brought the only trial for Kennedy's murder against businessman Clay Shaw; Shaw was acquitted. Subsequent federal investigations—such as the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee—agreed with the Warren Commission's general findings. In its 1979 report, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Kennedy was likely "assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". The HSCA did not identify possible conspirators, but concluded that there was "a high probability that two gunmen fired at [the] President". The HSCA's conclusions were largely based on a police Dictabelt recording, which was subsequently debunked by the U.S. Justice Department.

Kennedy's assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned many conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios; polls have found that a vast majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy. The assassination left a profound impact and was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s in the United States, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy's brother Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Kennedy was the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated and is the most recent to have died in office.

Background

Kennedy

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was elected the 35th president of the United States with Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice presidential running mate. Kennedy's tenure saw the height of the Cold War, and much of his foreign policy was dedicated to countering the Soviet Union and communism. As president, he authorized operations to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba, which culminated in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, during which he declined to directly involve American troops. The following year, Kennedy de-escalated the Cuban Missile Crisis, widely regarded as the closest that humanity has come to nuclear holocaust.

In 1963, Kennedy decided to travel to Texas to smooth over frictions within the state's Democratic Party between liberal U.S. senator Ralph Yarborough and conservative governor John Connally. The visit was first agreed upon by Kennedy, Johnson, and Connally during a meeting in El Paso in June. The motorcade route was finalized on November 18 and announced soon thereafter.

Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald (born 1939) was a former U.S. Marine who had served in Japan and the Philippines, and had espoused communist beliefs since reading Karl Marx aged 14. After accidentally shooting his elbow with an unauthorized handgun and fighting an officer, Oswald was court-martialed twice and demoted. A 19-year-old Oswald sailed on a freighter from New Orleans to France and then traveled to Finland, where he was issued a Soviet visa.

Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, and in January 1960 he was sent to work at a factory in Minsk, Belarus. In 1961, he met and married Marina Prusakova, with whom he had a child. In 1962, he returned to the United States with a repatriation loan from the U.S. embassy. where he socialized with Russian émigrés—notably George de Mohrenschildt, a CIA informant. In March 1963, a bullet narrowly missed General Edwin Walker at his Dallas residence; a witness observed two conspicuous men. Relying on Marina's testimony, a note left by Oswald, and ballistic evidence, the Warren Commission attributed this assassination attempt to Oswald.

In April 1963, Oswald returned to his birthplace, New Orleans, and established an independent chapter of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, of which he was the sole member. While passing out pro-Castro literature alongside unknown compatriots, Oswald was arrested after scuffling with anti-Castro Cuban exiles. In late September 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City, where, according to the Warren Commission, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies.

On October 3, Oswald returned to Dallas and found work at the Texas School Book Depository on Dealey Plaza. During the workweek he lived separately from Marina at a Dallas rooming house. On the morning of the assassination, he carried a long package (which he told coworkers contained curtain rods) into the depository; the Warren Commission concluded that this package contained Oswald's disassembled rifle.

November 22

Kennedy's arrival in Dallas and route to Dealey Plaza

On the evening of November 21, Air Force One touched down in Fort Worth, Texas at 11:07 pm. The President and First Lady arrived at the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth at 11:35 pm. The following morning, November 22, President Kennedy and the First Lady boarded a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limousine to travel to a luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. Other occupants of this vehiclethe second in the motorcade—were Secret Service Agent Bill Greer, who drove; Special Agent Roy Kellerman in the front passenger seat; and Governor Connally and his wife Nellie, who sat just forward of the Kennedys. Four Dallas police motorcycle officers accompanied the Kennedy limousine. Vice President Johnson, his wife Lady Bird, and Senator Yarborough rode in another convertible.

The motorcade's meandering route through Dallas was designed to give Kennedy maximum exposure to crowds by passing through a suburban section of Dallas,

Shooting

Kennedy's limousine entered Dealey Plaza at 12:30 pm. CST.

From Houston Street, the limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm, passing the Texas School Book Depository. As it continued down Elm Street, multiple shots were fired: about 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. The Warren Commission concluded that three shots were fired and noted that most witnesses recalled that the second and third shots were bunched together. Shortly after Kennedy began waving, some witnesses heard the first gunshot, but few in the crowd or motorcade reacted, many interpreting the sound as a firecracker or backfire.

Within one second of each other, Governor Connally and Mrs. Kennedy turned abruptly from their left to their right. Connally—an experienced hunter—immediately recognized the sound as that of a rifle and turned his head and torso rightward, noting nothing unusual behind him. he was struck in his upper right back by a shot he did not hear, then shouted, "My God. They're going to kill us all!"

According to the Warren Commission and the HSCA, Kennedy was waving to the crowds on his right when a shot entered his upper back and exited his throat just beneath his larynx. He raised his elbows and clenched his fists in front of his face and neck, then leaned forward and leftward. Mrs. Kennedy, facing him, put her arms around him. Although a serious wound, it likely would have been survivable.

According to the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory—derided as the "magic bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists—Governor Connally was injured by the same bullet that exited Kennedy's neck. The bullet created an oval-shaped entry wound near Connally's shoulder, struck and destroyed several inches of his right fifth rib, and exited his chest just below his right nipple, puncturing and collapsing his lung. That same bullet then entered his arm just above his right wrist and shattered his right radius bone. The bullet exited just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm and finally lodged in his left thigh. Kennedy was struck a second time by a fatal shot to the head. The Warren Commission made no finding as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired, and concluded—as did the HSCA—that the second shot to strike Kennedy entered the rear of his head. It then passed in fragments through his skull, creating a large, "roughly ovular" hole on the rear, right side of the head, and spraying blood and fragments. His brain and blood spatter landed as far as the following Secret Service car and the motorcycle officers.

Secret Service agent Clint Hill was riding on the running board of the car immediately behind Kennedy's limousine. Hill testified to the Warren Commission that he heard one shot, jumped onto the street, and ran forward to board the limousine and protect Kennedy. Hill stated that he heard the fatal headshot as he reached the Lincoln, "approximately five seconds" after the first shot that he heard. After the headshot, Mrs. Kennedy began climbing onto the limousine's trunk, but she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she may have been reaching for a piece of Kennedy's skull.

Bystander James Tague received a minor wound to the cheek—either from a bullet or concrete curb fragments—while standing by the triple underpass. Nine months later, the FBI removed the curb, and spectrographic analysis revealed metallic residue consistent with the lead core in Oswald's ammunition. Tague testified before the Warren Commission and initially stated that he was wounded by either the second or third shot of the three shots that he remembered hearing. When the commission counsel pressed him to be more specific, Tague testified that he was wounded by the second shot.

Aftermath in Dealey Plaza

thumb|upright=1.2|alt=Witness hunker down on the grassy incline before the grassy knoll after the shooting|Civilians shielding their children after hearing shots and dropping to the grass. The grassy knoll and its picket fence are visible in the background.

As the motorcade left Dealey Plaza, some witnesses sought cover, and others joined police officers to run up the grassy knoll in search of a shooter. No shooter was found behind the knoll's picket fence. No witness ever reported seeing anyone—with or without a gun—immediately behind the knoll's picket fence at the time of the shooting. Bowers testified to the Warren Commission that "one or two" men were between him and the fence during the assassination: one was a familiar parking lot attendant, and the other wore a uniform like a county courthouse custodian. He testified seeing "some commotion" on the grassy knoll at the time of the assassination: "something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason which I could not identify".

At 12:36 pm, teenager Amos Euins approached Dallas police sergeant D.V. Harkness to report having seen a "colored man ... leaning out of the window [with] a rifle" on the sixth floor of the depository during the assassination; in response, Harkness radioed that he was sealing off the depository. Witness Howard Brennan then approached a police inspector to report seeing a shooter—a white man in khaki clothing—in the same window. Police broadcast Brennan's description of the man at 12:45 pm. Brennan testified that, after the second shot, "This man... was aiming for his last shot ... and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he had hit his mark." Witness James R. Worrell Jr. also reported seeing a gun barrel emerge from a sixth-floor depository window. Bonnie Ray Williams, who was on the fifth floor of the depository, stated that the rifle's report was so loud and near that the ceiling plaster fell onto his head.

Oswald's flight, murder of J. D. Tippit, and arrest

When searching the sixth floor of the depository, two deputies found an Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle. Oswald had purchased the used rifle the previous March under the alias "A. Hidell" and had it delivered to his Dallas P.O. box. The FBI found Oswald's partial palm print on the barrel, In D.C., FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona found the photographs and extant prints to be "insufficient" to make any conclusion. The rifle was returned to the Dallas police on November 24. Five days later, the FBI made an identification using a card from Day. and fibers on the rifle were consistent with those of Oswald's shirt. A bullet found on Governor Connally's hospital gurney and two fragments found in the limousine were ballistically matched to the Carcano.

Oswald left the depository and traveled by bus to his boarding house, where he retrieved a jacket and revolver. At 1:12 pm, police officer J. D. Tippit spotted Oswald walking in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff and called him to his patrol car. After an exchange of words, Tippit exited his vehicle; Oswald then shot Tippit three times in the chest. As Tippit lay on the ground, Oswald fired a final shot into Tippit's right temple. Oswald then calmly walked away before running as witnesses emerged.

As Dallas police officers conducted a roll call of depository employees, Oswald's supervisor, Roy Truly, realized that Oswald was absent and notified the police. Based on a false identification of Oswald, Dallas police raided a library in Oak Cliff before realizing their mistake. At 1:36 pm, the police were called after a conspicuous Oswald, tired from running, was seen sneaking into the Texas Theatre without paying. With the film War Is Hell still playing, Dallas policemen arrested Oswald after a brief struggle in which Oswald drew his fully loaded gun. He denied shooting anyone and claimed he was being made a "patsy" because he had lived in the Soviet Union.

Kennedy declared dead; Johnson sworn in

thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Lyndon B. Johnson raises his hand above an outstretched Bible as he is sworn in as President as [[VC-137C SAM 26000|Air Force One prepares to depart Love Field in Dallas. Jacqueline Kennedy, still in her blood-spattered clothes (not visible), looks on.|Cecil W. Stoughton's photograph of Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as President as Air Force One prepares to depart Love Field in Dallas. Jacqueline Kennedy, still in her Chanel suit (the blood spatters not visible here), looks on.]]

At 12:38 pm, Kennedy arrived in the emergency room of Parkland Memorial Hospital. Although Kennedy was still breathing after the shooting, his personal physician, George Burkley, immediately saw that survival was impossible. After Parkland surgeons performed futile cardiac massage, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 pm, 30 minutes after the shooting. CBS host Walter Cronkite broke the news on live television.

The Secret Service was concerned about the possibility of a larger plot and urged Johnson to leave Dallas and return to the White House, but Johnson refused to do so without any proof of Kennedy's death. Johnson returned to Air Force One around 1:30p.m, and shortly thereafter, he received telephone calls from advisors McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins advising him to depart for Washington, D.C., immediately. He replied that he would not leave Dallas without Jacqueline Kennedy and that she would not leave without Kennedy's body. A heated exchange between Kennedy's aides and Dallas officials nearly erupted into a fistfight before the Texans yielded and allowed Kennedy's body to be transported to Air Force One. At 2:38 pm, with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side, Johnson was administered the oath of office by federal judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes aboard Air Force One, shortly before departing for Washington with Kennedy's coffin.

Immediate aftermath

Autopsy

President Kennedy's autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland on the night of November 22. Jacqueline Kennedy had selected a naval hospital as the postmortem site, as President Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II. The autopsy was conducted by three physicians: naval commanders James Humes and J. Thornton Boswell, with assistance from ballistics wound expert Pierre A. Finck; Humes led the procedure. Under pressure from the Kennedy family and White House staffers to expedite the procedure, the physicians conducted a "rushed" and incomplete autopsy. Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley, signed a death certificate on November 23 and recorded that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the skull.

Three years after the autopsy, Kennedy's brain—which had been removed and preserved for later analysis—was found to be missing when the Kennedy family transferred material to the National Archives. Some autopsy X-rays and photographs have also been lost.

Most historians regard the autopsy as the "most botched" segment of the government's investigation. The panel further concluded that the two doctors were not qualified to have conducted a forensic autopsy. Panel member Milton Helpern—Chief Medical Examiner for New York City—said that selecting Humes (who had only taken a single course on forensic pathology) to lead the autopsy was "like sending a seven-year-old boy who has taken three lessons on the violin over to the New York Philharmonic and expecting him to perform a Tchaikovsky symphony".

Funeral

thumb|alt=Kennedy's coffin in front of the US Capitol|Kennedy's coffin is carried from the [[United States Capitol|Capitol, November 25]]

Following the autopsy, Kennedy lay in repose in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours. President Johnson issued Presidential Proclamation 3561, declaring November 25 to be a national day of mourning, and that only essential emergency workers be at their posts. The coffin was then carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol to lie in state. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined up to view the guarded casket, with a quarter million passing through the rotunda during the 18 hours of lying in state.

Kennedy's funeral service was held on November 25, at St. Matthew's Cathedral, with the Requiem Mass led by Cardinal Richard Cushing. Although there was no formal eulogy, Auxiliary Bishop Philip M. Hannan read excerpts from Kennedy's speeches and writings. An eternal flame was lit at his burial site in 1967.

Murder of Oswald

thumb|upright=1.35|alt=Photograph of the moment Jack Ruby shot Oswald|[[Robert H. Jackson (photographer)|Robert H. Jackson's photograph Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was being escorted by police detective Jim Leavelle (tan suit) for the transfer from the city jail to the county jail. Ruby died in prison in 1967.]]

On Sunday, November 24, at 11:21 am, as Oswald was being escorted to a car in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters for the transfer from the city jail to the county jail, he was shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The shooting was broadcast live on television.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Oswald was taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital; he was treated by the same surgeons who had tried to save Kennedy. The bullet had entered his lower left chest but had not exited; major heart blood vessels such as the aorta and inferior vena cava were severed, and the spleen, kidney, and liver were hit. Despite surgical intervention and defibrillation, Oswald died at 1:07 pm.

Arrested immediately after the shooting, Ruby testified to the Warren Commission that he had been distraught by Kennedy's death and that killing Oswald would spare "Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial". He also stated he shot Oswald on the spur of the moment when the opportunity presented itself, without considering any reason for doing so. Initially, Ruby wished to represent himself in his trial until his lawyer Melvin Belli dissuaded him: Belli argued that Ruby had an episode of psychomotor epilepsy and was thus not responsible. Ruby was convicted, but the decision was overturned on appeal. While awaiting retrial in 1967, Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism, secondary to cancer. Like Oswald and Kennedy, Ruby was declared dead at Parkland Hospital.