Assassination of John F. Kennedy

This article is about the assasination of John F. Kennedy. For Robert F. Kennedy, see Robert F. Kennedy assassination.

File:JFKmotorcade.jpg

President Kennedy, with his wife, Jackie, and Texas Gov. John Connally in the Presidential limousine shortly before the assassination.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding in a presidential motorcade within Dealey Plaza. He was the fourth U.S. President to be assassinated, and the eighth to die while in office.

An official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a 10-month period and published its report in September 1964, concluding that the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. A later official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was conducted from 1976 to 1979, and concluded that Oswald probably acted with at least one other person. The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation, and has spawned a number of Kennedy assassination theories.

Background to the Texas trip

Kennedy had chosen to visit Dallas on November 20 for three main reasons: to help raise more Democratic Party presidential campaign fund contributions in advance of the November 1964 presidential election; to begin his quest for re-election; and, as the Kennedy-Johnson ticket had barely won Texas (and had lost Dallas) in 1960, to mend political fences among several leading Texas Democratic Party members who appeared to be fighting politically amongst themselves.

There were concerns about security because as recently as October 24, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been jeered, jostled, struck by a protest sign, and spat upon during a visit to Dallas. The danger from a concealed sniper on the Dallas trip was also of concern. President Kennedy himself had mentioned it the morning he was assassinated, as had the Secret Service agents when they were fixing the motorcade route.

Dallas police Sgt. Davis had prepared the most stringent security precautions in the city's history. But, then, Winston Lawson of the Secret Service who was in charge of the planning told the Dallas Police Department not to assign its usual squad of experienced homicide detectives to follow immediately behind the President's car. This police protection was routine for both visiting presidents and for motorcades of other visiting dignitaries. Police Chief Jesse Curry later testified that had his men been in place, the murder may have been prevented, because they carried submachine guns and rifles to take out any attackers, or at least they may have been able to catch the assassins at the scene. [1]

It was planned that Kennedy would travel from Love Field airport in a motorcade through downtown Dallas (including Dealey Plaza) to give a speech at the Dallas Trade Mart in suburban Dallas. The car in which he was traveling was a 1961 Lincoln Continental, open-top, modified limousine. No presidential car with a bulletproof top was yet in service in 1963, though plans for such a top were presented in October 1963.

In a November 22 Dallas newspaper there appeared a black-bordered, full-page advertisement paid for by Kennedy critics who were associated with the ultraconservative John Birch Society. Throughout Dallas, and especially along the motorcade route, several groups critical of Kennedy expressed their views and handed out flyers. A smattering of handmade protest signs were held aloft by motorcade viewers, but there were no major disturbances.

The assassination

The route taken by the motorcade within Dealey Plaza. North is towards the almost direct-left

The presidential motorcade traveled nearly its entire route without incident, stopping twice so Kennedy could shake hands with some Catholic nuns, then some school children. Shortly before the limousine turned onto Main Street, a man ran towards the limousine but was thrust to the ground by a Secret Service agent and hustled away. Just before 12:30 PM CST (18:30 UTC), Kennedy slowly approached the Texas School Book Depository head-on, then the limousine slowly turned the 120-degrees directly in front of the depository, now only 65 feet (20 m) away.

When the limousine had passed the depository, Kennedy was shot at for an estimated 6 to 9 seconds. During the shooting, the limousine is calculated to have slowed from over 13 mph (20 km/h) to only 9 mph (15 km/h).

The shooting took place in front of Abraham Zapruder who was filming the president. His testimony expresses the disbelief, and then the shock, of witnessing the assassination of a president:

Mr. Zapruder: I heard the first shot and I saw the President lean over and grab himself like this (holding his left chest area).

Examiner: Grab himself on the front of his chest?

Mr. Zapruder: Right---something like that. In other words, he was sitting like this and waving and then after the shot he just went like that.

Examiner: He was sitting upright in the car and you heard the shot and you saw the President slump over?

Mr. Zapruder: Leaning--leaning toward the side of Jacqueline. For a moment I thought it was, you know, like you say, "Oh, he got me," when you hear a shot--you've heard these expressions and then I saw---I don't believe the President is going to make jokes like this, but before I had a chance to organize my mind, I heard a second shot and then I saw his head opened up and the blood and everything came out and I started--I can hardly talk about it [ the witness crying].

Mr. Zapruder: Then I started yelling, "They killed him, they killed him."

See Warren Commission testimony of Zapruder.

Governor Connally was also seriously wounded by a bullet and screamed, "No, no, no. They are going to kill us all!" At the end of the shooting, the president's body bounced off the back of the rear seat and slumped lifelessly leftward towards his wife. Mrs. Kennedy cried out to her bodyguard, Clint Hill, "My God, they have shot his head off."

Clint Hill was riding in the car that was immediately behind the presidential limousine. As soon as the shooting began, Hill jumped out and began running to overtake the moving car in front of him with the plan to climb on from the rear bumper and crawl over the trunk to the back seat where the stricken President and frightened First Lady were located.

Just as Hill was grabbing the small handrail by the trunk that was used by the bodyguards to climb onto a small back platform, he heard another gunshot and saw a portion of the President’s head blown away. The driver then sped up causing the car to slip away from Hill, who was in the midst of trying to leap on to it. He somehow succeeded in regaining his footing and jumped on to the back of the quickly accelerating car.

As he got on, he saw Mrs. Kennedy, apparently in shock, crawling onto the flat trunk of the moving limousine and retrieving parts of her husband’s head that had been blown out. Agent Hill crawled to her and guided the frantic Mrs. Kennedy back into her seat and placed his body above the President and Mrs. Kennedy.

An agent in the front seat of the car gave orders, over the car’s two-way radio, to the lead of the procession "To the nearest hospital, quick." Hill was shouting as loud as he could "To the hospital, to the hospital."

As the car moved at high speed to the hospital, Hill maintained his position shielding the couple with his body, and was looking down at the mortally wounded President. Agent Hill later testified:

The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car.

Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head.

The limousine then exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital, only minutes away.

There was hardly any reaction in the crowd to the first shot, many later saying they thought they had heard a firecracker or a car's exhaust backfire.

Others wounded

Texas Governor John Bowden Connally, Sr., riding in the same limousine in a seat in front of the President, was also critically injured but survived. Doctors later stated that after the Governor was shot, Mrs. Connally pulled the Governor onto her lap, and the resulting posture helped close his front chest wound (which was causing air to be sucked directly into a collapsed lung). The action helped save his life.

James Tague, a spectator and witness to the assassination, also received a minor wound to his right cheek while standing 270 feet (82 meters) in front of where Kennedy was hit, presumably from debris that shot up when a bullet hit the curb.

Kennedy in the emergency room

Upon Kennedy's arrival at the Parkland Hospital's Trauma Room Number 1, treating staff members observed that his condition was "moribund", meaning that he had no chance of survival. This terminal condition arose out of the extensive gunshot damage done to the president's brain rather than by the other gunshot wounds suffered by the president to his back and throat.

In the emergency room, the President had been placed on his back. His face was not damaged, but some brain tissue was present near the head indicating brain damage. When the doctors arrived they quickly cut into the president's throat and inserted a small tube for breathing (a tracheotomy). But then, Dr. Jenkins, one of the five treating doctors in the emergency room, lifted Kennedy's upper half of the body, looked at the back of Kennedy's head and announced:

"Boys you better come up here and take a look at this brain before you do anything as heroic as opening the chest and massaging the heart directly."

Dr. Peters did look and observed:

"There was obviously quite a bit of brain missing."

Dr. McClellend provided this description:

"You could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out."

"We never had any hope of saving his life", one doctor said.

Roy Kellerman, a Secret Service Agent, who was in the car with the president, later testified a gunshot removed a section of the president's skull in the back right-hand side of the head measuring about five inches in diameter. See drawing by Dr. McClellend [2]

The priests who administered the last rites to Kennedy told The New York Times that the President was already dead by the time he arrived at the hospital, and he had to draw back a sheet covering the President's face to administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. It was not until 1:00 PM CST (19:00 UTC), after all heart activity had ceased and after a Roman Catholic priest administered the last rites, the president was pronounced dead. Kennedy's death was officially announced some time later, at 1:38 PM CST (19:38 UTC).

Federal agents seize Kennedy's body

Once the president was officially pronounced dead, his murder investigation came within the jurisdiction of Texas state criminal law. The law of Texas required the Dallas County coroner to perform a forensic examination of the president. At the time no specific federal law prohibited killing a president. This set the stage for a conflict between federal and state agents.

After Kennedy was pronounced dead, a group of federal agents seized the body and attempted to remove it from the hospital. A stand-off then occurred between state officials and cursing, gun-wielding Secret Service agents that lasted for ten to fifteen minutes. Finally, a few minutes after 2:00 PM CST (20:00 UTC), the federal agents gained full control over the body, placed it in a coffin, and removed it from Parkland Hospital. An ambulance, under federal control, then took the dead president's body back to Love Field and placed the coffin aboard Air Force One.

Governor Connally, meanwhile, was soon taken to emergency surgery where he underwent two operations that day.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (who had been riding two cars behind Kennedy in the motorcade through Dallas and was not wounded) was first in line of succession to become President of the United States upon Kennedy's death. Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One at 2:38 PM CST, just before it departed Love Field.

The autopsy

After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington DC, Kennedy's body was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy for an autopsy.

The autopsy was conducted by three Navy physicians and witnessed by over thirty military officers. Many different versions of what was seen and what happened at the autopsy have been written. One military physician who participated in the autopsy destroyed his notes, and a drawing of Kennedy's head wound by another of the physicians is close to incomprehensible. [3]

Two FBI agents present at the autopsy have since revealed that Kennedy had a large wound on the back, right-hand side, of his head, another wound 5.5 inches (14 cm) below his suit jacket collar top just to the right of his spine, and a third wound centered in the front of his throat at the bottom edge of his Adam's apple. [4]

Several photos and x-rays were captured during the autopsy (several of which have disappeared from the official record). Graphic autopsy photos, along with the skull x-rays, and medical drawings prepared by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) when it took testimony from the Parkland Hospital medical witnesses, are available here and here.

The autopsy photographs of the President’s brain are apparently missing; in 1998, what appear to be photographs of another person's brain were given to the ARRB. [5] This panel was created under federal law to gather and preserve the documents relating to the assassination. [6]

Reaction to the assassination

The first hour after the shooting, before Kennedy's death was announced, was a time of great confusion. As it took place during the Cold War, some people at first wondered if the shooting were not part of a larger attack upon the USA, and there was concern about Vice-President Johnson's safety. People began to huddle around radios and TVs for the latest bulletins.

The news of Kennedy's death by assassination shocked the world. In cities around the world, people wept openly. People clustered in department stores to catch TV coverage, and others prayed. Motor traffic in some areas came to a halt as the news of Kennedy's death spread literally from car to car. Schools across the USA and Canada dismissed students early. A misguided fury against Texas and Texans was reported from some individuals. All three TV networks cancelled regular programs scheduled for the next three days in order to provide non-stop news coverage of the assassination. The television coverage of the assassination was the longest uninterrupted news coverage of one event until the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Radio stations also cancelled its regular programming; a few of which provided non-stop coverage of the assassination for days; others either went off the air or aired funeral music. Not all recreational and sporting events were cancelled that day, as well as the weekend after. Those that went on made clear the reason NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle decided to play NFL games: "It has been traditional...to perform in times of great personal tragedy." He also cited that Kennedy thrived on competition. [7]

Memorial services for Kennedy were held worldwide. The US Government declared a day of national mourning and sorrow for the day of state funeral, Monday, November 25. Many other countries did the same.

Funeral

File:JFKFuneralSt.Matthew'sCathedral.jpg

The funeral of John F. Kennedy

After the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Kennedy's body was prepared for burial and then brought back to the White House and placed in the East Room for 24 hours. The Sunday following the assassination, his flag-draped coffin was moved to the Capitol for public viewing. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands lined up to view the guarded casket.

Representatives from over 90 countries, including the Soviet Union, attended the funeral on November 25 (which was his son's third birthday). After the service, the casket was taken by caisson to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

Lee Harvey Oswald

File:Oswald-1959.jpg

Photo of Oswald taken in October 1959

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested eighty minutes after the assassination for killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit. He was charged with murders of Tippit and Kennedy later that evening. Oswald denied shooting the president and claimed he was a "patsy." Oswald's case never came to trial because two days later, while in police custody, he was shot and fatally wounded by Jack Ruby.

Recordings of the assassination

No radio or television stations broadcast the assassination live, because the area through which the motorcade was traveling was not considered important enough for a live broadcast. Most media crews were not even with the motorcade but instead were waiting, at the Trade Mart, in anticipation for Kennedy's arrival. Those members of the media that were with the motorcade were riding at the rear of the procession.

However, Kennedy's last seconds of life traveling through Dealey Plaza were recorded on silent 8 mm film for the 26.6 seconds before, during, and immediately following the assassination. This famous film footage was taken by garment manufacturer and amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder, in what became known as the Zapruder Film. The 486 frames of this film have been used in many studies, but the film has not been able to settle disputes concerning whether or not Oswald was the sole assassin.

Zapruder was not the only one that either took photographs of or filmed at least part of the assassination. Those bystanders that recorded, at least part of the assassination include Robert Hughes, Orville Nix, Charles Bronson, Elsie Dorman, Tina and Jim Towner, Philip Willis and Mary Moorman.

An unknown woman, nicknamed by researchers as the Babushka Lady might have been filming the presidential motorcade during the assassination because she was seen apparently doing so on film and photographs taken by the others. Her identity is still unknown.

For several minutes around the time of the assassination, a Dallas police motorcycle man's radio microphone was stuck in the 'transmit' position and was recorded back at the police radio dispatcher's room on a Dictabelt.

A Dallas radio station KBOX-AM did recreate the sounds of the shooting on a Long playing record and it released the record album with excerpts of news coverage of that day, but it was not an original recording of the shooting.l

Sealing of assassination records

Just before the 1964 presidential election, President Johnson ordered the Warren Commission documentations to be sealed against public availability for 75 years (until 2039). However, in 1992 Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The purpose of the Act was to gather and accelerate the public release of assassination related documents.

The reason Congress believed the Act was needed to open the records is clearly stated in the law itself. Congress found, among other things, that:

"[T]he executive branch, has prevented the timely public disclosure of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy"; and "most of the records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are almost 30 years old, and only in the rarest cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection of such records."

The Act requires all documents related to the assassination that have not been destroyed to be released to the public by no later than 2017.

Though many documents since 1992 have been gathered and unsealed, until 2017, tens of thousands of pages of other documents will remain classified and sealed, away from the public's availability and research, including:

3+% of all Warren Commission documents
21+% of the House Select Committee on Assassinations documents
An undeterminable percentage of CIA, FBI, Secret Service, National Security Agency, State Department, US Marine Corps, Naval Investigative Service, Defense Investigative Service, and many other US government documents.

It is unclear why these various federal agencies believe there is any need to keep secret these public records relating to the assassination.

Additionally, several key pieces of evidence and documentation are known to have been cleaned or destroyed, or are missing from the original chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out at hospital, Connally's suit dry-cleaned, Oswald's Marine Corps service record file destroyed, President Kennedy's brain not accounted for, Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing, forensic autopsy photos missing, etc.)

On May 19, 2044, the 50th anniversary of the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, if her last child has died, the Kennedy library will release to the public a 500-page transcript of an oral history about John F. Kennedy given by Mrs. Kennedy before her death in 1994.

Official investigations

Dallas Police

After arresting Oswald and collecting physical evidence at the crime scenes, the Dallas Police held Oswald at the police headquarters for interrogation. Then, at 10:30 PM, that evening, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry was ordered by, in his words, "people in Washington" to send all of the physical evidence that had been collected, but not Oswald, to FBI headquarters in Washington.

Before Oswald himself was murdered at the police headquarters, he was interrogated, but the interrogation of him, according to Chief Curry, "was just against all principles of good interrogation practice." Chief Curry said: "Ordinarily an interrogator in interrogating a suspect will have him in a quiet room alone or perhaps with one person there," In contrast, the interrogation room of Oswald was filled with FBI agents, Secret Service Agents, agents from other federal agencies and the homicide detectives. Oswald simply denied everything. [8]

FBI investigation

On November 24, 1963, just hours after Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, said that he wanted "something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." [9] Then, the FBI completed its investigation on December 9, 1963, less than three weeks after the assassination.

The FBI report was issued and given to the Warren Commission while the FBI remained the primary investigating authority for the commission. The FBI stated that only three bullets were fired during the assassination. This contrasts with the conclusion of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which concluded that four shots had been fired during the assassination of the president.

The Warren Commission agreed with the FBI investigation that only three shots were fired, but disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit Kennedy and which hit Governor Connally. The FBI report claimed that the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. The Warren Commission concluded that one of the three shots missed, one of the shots hit Kennedy and then struck Connally, and a third shot struck Kennedy in the head, killing him. The FBI report was consistent with the later Warren Commission Report stating that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three shots.

The destruction of evidence

The FBI's role in the murder investigation has come under criticism for destroying evidence.

Shortly before the assassination, an FBI agent named James Hosty talked to Oswald's wife on how to get in touch with him. When Oswald heard about the visit he went to the FBI office in Dallas, to see Hosty. When Oswald was told that Hosty was not in, Oswald left him a message in an envelope. The contents of the envelope have remained a mystery, because soon after Oswald was murdered Hosty was called into the office of his superior, Gordon Shanklin and ordered to destroy Oswald's letter, which he did.

The FBI then discovered that Hosty's name and phone number appeared in Oswald's address book. Instead of turning Oswald's address book over to the Warren Commission, the FBI provided a typewritten transcription of the document in which Hosty's name and phone number were deleted (without reporting they had done so). Hosty then misled the Warren Commission about his contacts with Oswald when he testified, and this information only became public much later. [10]

The Warren Commission

The first official investigation of the assassination was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29 1963, a week after the assassination. The commission was headed by Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States and became universally (but unofficially) known as the Warren Commission.

In late September 1964, after a 10 month investigation, the Warren Commission Report was published. The Commission reported that it could not find any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies), and that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The theory that Oswald acted alone is also informally called the Lone Gunman Theory.

The commission also concluded that only three shots were fired during the assassination, and that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three of these shots from the Texas School Book Depository building behind the motorcade. The commission's determination was that:

one shot likely missed the motorcade (it could not determine which of the three),
the first shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the upper back, exited near the front of his neck and likely continued on to cause all of Governor Connally's numerous injuries, and
the last shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the head, fatally wounding him.

The Warren Commission never showed the witnesses who testified the rifle purportedly found on the sixth floor near the "Snipers' Nest." This failure by the Commission occurred despite the fact the rifle was first identified in the police report as a Mauser, by a law enforcement officer who had considerable experience with rifles,[11] and the Commission knew a Mauser was seen in the building two days before. Instead, the Commission simply accepted the FBI report that the rifle used in the shooting was one purportedly owned by Oswald. This was an Italian military surplus 6.5x52 mm Model 91/38 Carcano that someone who didn't find it claimed was hidden nearby along with three spent cartridge cases. No chain of custody was established on either the three empty shells or the rifle. Why normal criminal investigation procedures were not used to identify and preserve the evidence is unknown.

The Commission offered as a likely explanation that the same bullet that wounded Kennedy also caused all of Governor Connally's wounds. This theory has become known as the "Single Bullet Theory" or the "magic bullet theory" as it is commonly referred to by its critics and detractors.

The commission's finding that Oswald was the lone gunman, has not gained widespread acceptance from the general American public. Most polls show that (1) most people do not agree with the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but (2) no single alternative suspect or theory is accepted either.

The Commission also looked into other matters beside who killed the president, and criticized weaknesses in security, which has resulted in greatly increased security whenever the President travels. The supporting documents for the Warren Commission Report are not all due to be released until 2017.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations

Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued its report, a congressional committee, named the House Select Committee on Assassinations reviewed the Warren Commission report and the underlying FBI report on which the Commission heavily relied. The Committee criticized the performance of both the Warren Commission and the FBI for failing to investigate whether other people conspired with Oswald to murder President Kennedy. [12] The Committee Report concluded that:

[T]he FBI's investigation of whether there had been a conspiracy in President Kennedy's assassination was seriously flawed. The conspiracy aspects of the investigation were characterized by a limited approach and an inadequate application and use of available resource.(footnote 12)

The Committee found the Warren Commission's investigation equally flawed:

[T]he subject that should have received the Commission's most probing analysis--whether Oswald acted in concert with or on behalf of unidentified co-conspirators the Commission's performance, in the view of the committee, was in fact flawed.(13)

The Committee believed another primary cause of the Warren Commission's failure to adequately probe and analyze whether or not Oswald acted alone arose out of the lack of cooperation by the CIA. Finally, the Committee found that the Warren Commission inadequately investigated for a conspiracy because of:

[T]ime pressures and the desire of national leaders to allay public fears of a conspiracy.

It remains unclear why President Johnson and the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, wanted to establish Oswald as the Lone Gunman.

The transcripts of the Warren Commission's private sessions reveal the members of the commission were aware of the FBI's refusal to investigate the possibility that more than just Oswald were involved in the murder, but were at a loss at what to do about it, and seemed fearful that the FBI's premature conclusion of the lone gunman theory would leak out.[13]

This official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded

that the scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. Other scientific evidence did not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President, but it did negate some specific conspiracy allegations.

Their conclusion, based primarily on dictabelt evidence, was that four shots had been fired during the assassination and that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The HSCA concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the first, second, and fourth bullets, and that (based on the acoustic evidence) there was a high probability that an unnamed second assassin fired the third bullet (but missed) from President Kennedy's right front from a location concealed behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence, nine feet (approximately 3 meters) to the west of the picket fence east corner (exactly where an image is seen in the Moorman #5 Polaroid photo captured at Zf-315 to 316, but not seen seconds later). The HSCA's test firings within Dealey Plaza in 1978 also acoustically matched this same Grassy Knoll fence location nine feet (3m) to the west of the picket fence east corner where several witnesses claimed to observe small puffs of gunpowder smoke.

Summary of other evidence

The President's bodyguard and other eye witnesses to the shooting itself

Roy Kellerman had been the President's personal bodyguard for three years, and knew the President well-and could easily recognize his voice. Kellerman was in the front seat of the presidential limousine, with the driver, when the gunfire broke out. His riveting testimony before the Warren Commission remained secret for many years. [14]

At first, he heard the popping sound of a firecracker. He then testified "I heard, what I firmly believe was the President's voice" say, "My God, I'm hit!" and these were the last words Kellerman would ever hear the President utter.

When Kellerman looked back, he saw the President with both hands to his neck.

Kellerman turned right back to the driver and yelled "Step on it, we're hit!" And, as Kellerman then turned back again, towards the President, he heard a "flurry of shots" that to him "was like a double bang--bang, bang" and when asked: "You mean now two shots in addition to the first noise?" he said: "Yes, sir; yes, sir; at least."

And then Kellerman saw President Kennedy slumped over to his left against the First Lady who screamed "What are they doing to you?"

The First Lady's bodyguard, Clint Hill, was just then climbing onto the trunk of the limousine, and she called out to him that they had blown her husband's brains out, and in a state of apparent shock, the First Lady climbed onto the trunk [15] to apparently recover the pieces of brain tissue and bone strewn behind her.

Both on the day of the assassination, November 22, and in the following months and years, many other eye witnesses have come forward and recounted what they saw and heard during the crucial seconds of the attack. Many witnesses were identified by, or otherwise known to, investigators. Some of these eyewitnesses were never called upon by the investigators to describe what they observed. Many witnesses who were photographed at the scene (including several photographers and film-makers) are still unknown and have chosen to not come forward.

In many respects, the details of the events described by the identified witnesses match, but there are also conflicting details between information described by the witnesses. Some witnesses have also described details that no other witness has yet described. One researcher has identified 216 witnesses to the assassination, shows on a map where they were located, and describes what they saw and heard regarding the gunshots. [16]

For a criminal investigation, important witness testimony would, among other things, focus on:

The reactions to the gunshots of all limousine occupants relative to each other and relative to what each limousine occupant testified they saw, heard, and felt during the assassination.
How many muzzle blasts a witness remembered hearing.
The origin of the muzzle blasts a witness remembered hearing.
The identities of two armed men and at least one other man seen on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
The identities of other potential witnesses, photographers, filmers and/or other located assassins and/or co-conspirators.

Shot sequencing and origins

Probably no single issue has attracted more discussion over the years than the areas where the gunfire originated. One sizable group of witnesses heard gunfire coming from in front of the President and another sizable group of witnesses heard gunfire coming from behind the President. Both groups of witnesses acted on these perceptions with one group of police officers and others witnesses running up to the "Grassy Knoll" area in front of the President, and at least one policeman running into the Texas Book Depository where he believed shots were fired.

The fact that witnesses, numbering more than one hundred persons, fall into one or another of these two groups is well researched.

One researcher went through the newly released Warren Commission transcripts and found that slightly more than half of the witnesses (52%) who identified where the gunshots originated, believed the gunfire came from the an area commonly called the "Grassy Knoll" (in front of the President), and slightly less than half 48% believed gunfire came from the Book Depository (in back of the President), and where Lee Harvey Oswald worked. [17]

Another researcher, who argues there was only one gunman, came to the same basic conclusion except he believes that some of the witness testimony is a little ambiguous, and reads it to mean that slightly more than half of the witnesses (53.8 percent) heard gunfire from the Texas Schoolbook Depository, and he put the percentage of witnesses who heard shots from the Grassy Knoll or elsewhere at slightly less than half the witnesses(46.2 pecent). [18]

Therefore, even by the the lowest count, well over forty witnesses of the murder heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll; and some of these witnesses even heard shots from both the Grassy Knoll and the Book Depository where Oswald worked. This is consistent with two shooters; one in front and one in back.

There is evidence that at least one shot was fired from behind the motorcade. Also, several witnesses saw at least one shooter, or at least a gun, in the sixth floor sniper's nest window. The medical evidence is clear that Connally was hit from behind (regardless of whether Kennedy was hit from the front).

The emergency room doctors at Parkland Hospital also noted a bullet wound that appeared to enter the front of the President's neck, and at the autopsy later on, there was found what appeared to be an entry wound caused by a bullet in the President's back.

One researcher went through the Warren Commission transcripts and found that 91.3% of the witnesses who identified the number of gunshots believed that there were three or less shots fired at the President. [19].

However, some contend that multiple assassins could have arranged to shoot simultaneously. Agent Kellerman's testimony of almost a simultaneous flurry of shots would support such a contention. The Secret Service Agent, William Greer, was sitting next to Kellerman driving the presidential limousine. He also testified that "the last two shots seemed to be just simultaneously, one behind the other." Agent Hickey also gave a similar statement:

At the moment [Kennedy] was almost sitting erect I heard two reports which I thought were shots and that appeared to me completely different in sound than the first report and were in such rapid succession that there seemed to be practically no time element between them.

[20]

More witnesses thought the final two shots were closer together than thought all the shots were evenly spaced, or that the first two were closer together.

Regarding both the number of shots and other pertinent matters, at least some of the witness statements appear to have been influenced by the investigators. [21] One of the witnesses standing closest to the president [22]was Mrs. Jeane Hill, a local schoolteacher. She testified, in secret, to the Warren Commission:

I talked with this man, a Secret Service man, and I said, "Am I a kook or what's wrong with me?" I said, "They keep saying three shots---three shots," and I said, "I know I heard more. I heard from four to six shots anyway." He said, "Mrs. Hill, we were standing at the window and we heard more shots also, but we have three wounds and we have three bullets, three shots is all that we are willing to say right now."'

In a filmed television interview with NBC affiliate WBAP, conducted shortly after the assassination, Hill was asked if she saw anyone fire at the President, and she responded, "No . . . I didn't see any person fire the weapon." "You only heard it," the reporter prompted. "I only heard it," she affirmed. [23]

Mrs. Hill later testified that she saw a man running from the grassy knoll area, where she believed the shots originated:

'"I was told not to say--was to not mention the man running," and [an attorney hired by Oswald's mother] said, "And why?" And I said, "Well, it was an FBI or Secret Service that told me not to, but they came in to me just right after I was taken-I was in there in the pressroom . . . [a newsman] Featherstone that told me [not to]. He said, "You know you were wrong about seeing a man running." He said, "You didn't." Mr. Featherstone had told me that, and I said, "But I did," and he said, "No; don't say that any more on the air.'"

Riding in the car immediately behind the President, with Clint Hill, the First Lady's bodyguard, was David Powers. He was a personal assistant to the President. He gave a sworn statement that he had two "impressions" on the direction of the shots:

"My first impression was that the shots came from the right and overhead, but I also had a fleeting impression that the noise appeared to come from the front in the area of the triple overpass. This may have resulted from my feeling, when I looked forward toward the overpass, that we might have ridden into an ambush.[24]

The President's motorcade

The motorcade consisted of numerous cars and police motorcycles.

The lead car, an unmarked white Ford: Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry (driver), Secret Service Agent Winston Lawson (right front), Sheriff Bill Decker (left rear), Agent Forrest Sorrels (right rear)

SS 100 X, a 1961 Lincoln Continental: Agent Bill Greer (driver), Agent Roy Kellerman (right front), Nellie Connally (left middle), Texas Governor John Connally (right middle), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (left rear), President Kennedy (right rear)

Halfback, a convertible: Agent Sam Kinney (driver), Agent Emory Roberts (right front), Agent Clint Hill (left front running board), Agent Bill McIntyre (left rear running board), Agent John Ready (right front running board), Agent Paul Landis (right rear running board), Presidential aide Kenneth O'Donnell (left middle), Presidential aide David Powers (right middle), Agent George Hickey (left rear), Agent Glen Bennett (right rear)

1964 Lincoln 4 door convertible: State highway patrol officer Hurchel Jacks (driver), Agent Wayne Youngblood (right front), Senator Ralph Yarborough (left rear), Mrs. Lyndon Johnson (center rear), Vice-President Lyndon Johnson (right rear).

Varsity, a hardtop: a Texas state policeman (driver), Vice Presidential aide Cliff Carter (front middle), Agent Jerry Kivett (right front), Agent Woody Taylor (left rear), Agent Lem Johns (right rear)

Press pool car, (on loan from the phone company): telephone company driver, Malcolm Kilduff, UPI (middle front), Merriman Smith, UPI (right front), Jack Bell, AP, Robert Baskin, Dallas News, Bob Clark, ABC (rear)

Press Car: Bob Jackson, The Dallas Times Herald, Tom Dillard, The Dallas Morning News, Mal Couch, WFAA-TV/ABC [25]

Assassination theories

An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. This conclusion of a conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman.

Many not only dispute the conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin (claiming that there was a conspiracy), but also claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy." Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination, and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody.

Investigations, scientific testing, and re-creations of the circumstances of Kennedy's death have not, in the American public's view, settled the question of who plotted to kill him. A 2003 ABC TV News poll showed that only 32% (plus or minus 3 %) of Americans who expressed a view believe that Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination [26]; a Discovery Channel poll revealed that only 21% believe Oswald acted alone. [27]; a History Channel poll gave a figure of 17%. [28]. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved.

Similarities to other Presidential deaths in office

Every United States president elected or reelected in 20-year intervals beginning with 1840 (beginning with William Henry Harrison) had died in office (Harrison 1840, Lincoln 1860, Garfield 1880, McKinley 1900, Harding 1920, Roosevelt 1940). John F. Kennedy's assassination continued this pattern. It ultimately broke with Ronald Reagan who, elected in 1980, survived being shot in a March 1981 assassination attempt. This pattern of Presidential deaths has been referred to as Tecumseh's curse or the "zero factor".

After JFK's assassination, numerous similarities between Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln were noted.

Film portrayals

Kennedy's life and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding his death have been the topic for many films, including Mark Lane's 1966 Rush to Judgment, Executive Action (movie) in 1973, ABC TV's 1983 mini series Kennedy, Nigel Turner's 1988, 1991, 1995, and 2003's continuing documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Oliver Stone's 1991 JFK, and the 1993 JFK: Reckless Youth (which looked at Kennedy's early years).

External links

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=filmNews&storyID=2006-01-04T161257Z_01_ARM458299_RTRIDST_0_FILM-USA-KENNEDY-FILM-DC.XML