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Assassination of John F. Kennedy

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United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. He was on a campaign and support trip through the Southern United States in anticipation of the upcoming 1964 presidential election. Kennedy was killed by multiple gunshot wounds while riding in an open-top automobile. Then-Texas Governor John Connally was also severely injured in the same assassination attempt.

The Assassination

At 11:40 AM (U.S. Central standard time), President Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, and the rest of the presidential entourage arrived at Love Field, then Dallas's only airport, in Air Force One. The original itinerary was for the president to proceed in a motorcade from Love Field through downtown Dallas, to the Trade Mart. The president was expected there for a luncheon at 12:30 PM.

Accompanying President Kennedy in the car was First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, then Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nelly. The car was not equipped with a bulletproof top (none existed among the President's cars) - nor a covering of any kind.

An aerial view of Dealey Plaza, path of the President's Limo
An aerial view of Dealey Plaza,
path of the President's Limo
(Warren Commission Photo)
larger version

The motorcade travelled through nearly the entirety of downtown Dallas without incident. A short distance from the Trade Mart, the procession needed to travel through Dealey Plaza, and past the Texas School Book Depository.

At 12:30 PM, with the presidential limo travelling an average of 11.2 miles per hour through the plaza, at least two shots are known to have struck the occupants of the car. The Warren commission believed three were fired, all by Oswald. Two of them hit, one missed the car and its occupants. The first bullet that hit, the 'magic bullet' referenced in the Warren report, was believed to have struck Kennedy in the back to exit at his throat, then to bounce to hit Governor Connally in the back and wrist. The subsequent bullet that hit, the shot fatal to Kennedy, struck him in the back of the head. From the evidence it is unclear whether it was the first, second, or third shot that missed.

Immediately after the shots were fired and the gravity of the situation became clear to the limo driver and the Secret Service, the limo sped off out of Dealey Plaza on its way to Parkland Hospital.

No radio or television stations are known to have broadcast the assassination live, as the area the motorcade was travelling through was not considered important enough to broadcast. KBOX-AM did recreate the sounds of the shooting for an LP record it released with excerpts of news coverage of that day, but it was not an original recording. Most media crews were, in fact, waiting in anticipation at the Trade Mart. The Vice President's car actually arrived there, with the occupants not yet completely aware anything had gone wrong.

Lee Harvey Oswald left the Texas School Book Depository at approximately 12:33, through its front door. He was confronted by Dallas policeman Marrion Baker in the depository's lunchroom before, but vouched for by the superintendent of the building, Roy Truly. Meanwhile, a citywide manhunt for Kennedy's assassin began in earnest.

At approximately 1:00 PM, after a bus and taxi ride, Oswald had arrived at his boarding room and, according to his landlady, left three or four minutes after 1:00 PM. Shortly thereafter, Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit was shot less than one mile from Oswald's rooming house. The Warren Commission saw enough evidence to believe that Oswald shot Tippit at about 1:16 PM.

The situation at Parkland Hospital had deteriorated. Even as the press contingent grew, a priest had been summoned for Kennedy, as a Catholic, so that Last Rites might be performed. It had become apparent to those inside the hospital that President Kennedy was already dead. Governor Connally, meanwhile, was in emergency surgery.

According to the Warren Report, Lee Harvey Oswald had attempted to hide in the Texas Theatre at about 1:45 PM, doing so by ducking into the building without paying while the box office attendant was distracted. Police radio alerted nearby units to apprehend him as the suspected murderer of Patrolman Tippit. Fifteen officers in several patrol cars responded; when an arrest attempt was made inside the theatre, Oswald resisted arrest - in so doing assaulted and attempted to shoot Patrolman M. N. McDonald (in front of nearly a dozen witnesses).

The news of Kennedy's death was made official at 1:48 PM. Legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite passed along word of the tragedy on the CBS network, and, uncharacteristically, nearly wept on camera.

"From Dallas, Texas, the flash --- apparently official --- President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time a hour ago... ...Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly, and become the thirty-sixth President of the United States."

Cronkite remained in the network studio for another 72 hours straight after the assassination, delivering news related to the assassination. For approximately three days after November 22, all three major U.S. television networks remained fixed to news coverage. Most radio stations carried either news or 'beautiful music' in respect of the tragedy. Some have pointed to the John F. Kennedy assassination as a coming of age of sorts for television news.

Back at Air Force One, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the next president of the United States. Against common procedure (the murder of the President was still a state crime, under Texas jurisdiction) Kennedy was removed from Parkland Hospital and put directly onto Air Force One. Considerable effort was made to put his coffin into the seating area of the plane, rather than the cargo hold (as all involved concurred would be unthinkable); several seats were removed from the plane to make this possible.

In custody, Oswald was charged with single-handedly assassinating Kennedy late in the evening on November 22. He denied shooting Kennedy to reporters, stating, "I didn't shoot anyone" and, "I'm just a patsy". Two days later, long before Oswald could face trial, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald while he was being transferred to a different jail - while millions watched on national television. Investigation revealed that the attempt to move Oswald from one jail to another was done with poor security procedure and poor advance judgement. Despite appropriate plans being drawn up to a covert move of Oswald, the press was told where he would appear so the transfer could be covered on television - based on a promise the police made to the press.

A nation mourns

Across the United States, the Kennedy assassination brought normal activity to a halt. The New York Times reported on November 23 that in New York, the news spread by radio, television, even word of mouth; men and women wept openly. So many phone calls were placed in the New York phone exchange that operators were forced to refuse calls. People instinctively clustered in department stores and prayed; Broadway cancelled its Friday night shows. Traffic in some areas came to halts as the news of Kennedy's death spread literally from car to car. A small, unguided anger against 'Texas and Texans' was reported from some individuals.

Many sporting events were cancelled on that Friday and into the following weekend. NFL football was not cancelled that weekend, and then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle later called that the biggest mistake he ever made.

List of Witnesses to the Assassination

The following are some important witnesses to the assassination:

A complete list of witnesses can be found here.

Investigations into the assassination

Many people dispute the claim that Oswald was the assassin (or sole assassin), or believe that he was part of a conspiracy. The Warren Commission was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination. It eventually reported its conclusion that Oswald assassinated Kennedy and, further, that he acted alone. The theory that Oswald acted alone has been informally dubbed the Lone Nut Theory. The proceedings of the commission were secret, and some of its files have yet to be released to the public, further fuelling speculation about the assassination.

A later investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, during the late 1970s, concluded that President Kennedy had been assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. This conclusion was largely based on an analysis of a Dictabelt audio recording which was claimed to contain the sound of the shots fired at Kennedy's motorcade, as recorded by a motorcycle police officer's radio. The analysis claimed to have detected, to a near certainty, the sound of one more gunshot than would fit within the official version of the facts. This conclusion (and thus, the conclusion of the Select Committee) was later contested by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences (Ramsey Panel). The panel claimed that the suspected shot sounds really occurred about a minute after the assassination. But an analysis published in Science and Justice 2001 used a different synchrony on the police-radio audio records to show the panel may have erred.[1]

The book, Case Closed by Gerald Posner, found that the credible evidence supports an explanation that lies surprisingly close to the Warren Commission's version. A quite different slant is given in Bonar Menninger and Howard Donahue's In Mortal Error, where the various suspicious features are identified as indeed being part of a cover-up - but a cover-up of a tragic and humiliating blunder, rather than a conspiracy.

Security failures

It should be noted at this point that the Secret Service (and general security surrounding the President) as it existed in 1963 was much to blame for the possibility of the Kennedy Assassination occurring. The Warren Commission's Report, chapter 8, goes to some length to detail flaws in Secret Service security at the time of the assassination. Procedures in place and events of the day presented large holes into which Lee Harvey Oswald, or any potential assassin, could slip. These included:

  • Not telling Dallas police, specifically, who 'authorized personnel' were, to stand on bridges or overpasses
  • Not having in place the policy of searching buildings on the path of a motorcade, when said motorcade is announced 'only a few days in advance'
  • Not properly/thoroughly checking the backgrounds of those in potential close contact with the President - that program was new and undermanned in 1963
  • Assuming that security measures taken in a 1936 Roosevelt visit to Dallas could be used to model Kennedy's visit
  • Generally insufficient personnel to accomplish the task at hand of planning and executing the motorcade
  • Incomplete coordination of information with other government bodies, such as the FBI; the Secret Service had no significant information about Lee Harvey Oswald
  • Not having a car with a bulletproof top available for the president (no such car had existed for the White House since 1953 because such a car would have a top difficult to add and remove on demand)
  • Allowing the president enough leeway to plan a route which put him in harm's way
  • Letting the motorcade slow down substantially at a curve - which gave a gunman ample opportunity for a shot


In short, the ability for Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate the president may as easily be explained by massive failure of a government organization to see a problem, as by any conspiracy theory. One might draw parallels between this disaster and that of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster or the Challenger Disaster, where the disaster as it unfolded could occur with a series of failures in intelligence, security, and bureaucratic procedure, all occurring together.

As one might imagine, significant changes occurred within the Secret Service organization as a direct result of the Kennedy Assassination and the Warren Commission's report, such that a recurrence was much less likely.

The Zapruder Film

Kennedy's motorcade trip through Dealey Plaza was recorded on silent 8mm film before, during, and immediately following the assassination by amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder, in what became known as the Zapruder film. Officially, Kennedy was shot by Oswald alone from a building known as the Texas School Book Depository, which was positioned behind the motorcade at the time of the assassination. Many witnesses reported hearing almost simultaneous additional shots and seeing smoke from another location, called "the grassy knoll", positioned in front of the motorcade at the time of the assassination. Many feel the Zapruder film supports this theory, as it shows Kennedy first slumping forward in his seat, as though he were shot from behind, and then being flung backward in his seat, as though shot from the front. The Nobel-prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez has demonstrated, however, that the motions of Kennedy's body may well be consistent with shots fired solely from the Texas School Book Depository. Others have observed that contrary to movie special effects, bullets do not convey enough momentum to throw a human body about; violent movements of persons who have been shot are largely due to nerve damage.

Conspiracy Theories

The security around Kennedy's motorcade was not sufficient - a conclusion that the Warren Commission and other investigations confirm. Some believe that the lack of security suggests that the CIA, Secret Service or some other agent or agencies were actively involved in the assassination, rather than simply negligent.

Many people have pointed to the Warren Commission's 'magic bullet' as unlikely. Some ballistic evidence has suggested that such a bullet trajectory was possible, but this particular point is a source of much contention and disagreement, and a reason by some to discredit this portion (or other portions) of the Warren report. There are also objections to the Posner analysis. [2]

The presidential limo was immediately cleaned and repaired instead of being secured as possible ballistic evidence. Kennedy's body was also immediately taken to Washington, rather than examined by the local coroner first.

These events can be interpreted as negligent or malicious, but no confirmed evidence has emerged and withstood scrutiny, that actually confirms a conspiracy. There are as many conspiracy theories about how and why Kennedy was killed as there are groups or individuals with the motive to do so.

Just a sampling of these conspiracy theories follows:

  • John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy (who was also later assassinated) were killed by the Mafia in retaliation for their increasing crackdowns on organized crime; Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, and Santo Trafficante Jr. seem to "top the list" of the House Assassination Committee[3]. The family of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana claim the Kennedys doublecrossed him[4]
  • Kennedy was going to drop Vice President Lyndon Johnson next election, so Johnson had motive[5].
  • Or, Johnson was simply power-hungry (logically, he would gain the most from Kennedy's death), or was himself an agent of the mob with his own criminal entanglements[6]
  • The CIA killed Kennedy for not backing the Bay of Pigs Invasion and vowing to break the Agency "into a thousand pieces"[7]
  • The Cabell brothers (General Charles Cabell, fired by Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Earle Cabell, mayor of Dallas) played in as key figures in the assassination
  • Cuban President Fidel Castro's agents killed Kennedy in retaliation for the many times the CIA and the mob had tried to kill him[8]
  • Angry Cuban exiles killed Kennedy for his failure to overthrow Castro's dictatorship
  • The KGB carried out the assassination because Kennedy was too aggressively anti-Communist, or to demoralize America
  • The Israeli government was displeased with Kennedy for his pressure over their (then) top-secret nuclear program (see Dimona) - thus had motive to kill him
  • Or, the Israelis were angry over Kennedy's employment of Nazis such as Wernher von Braun[9]
  • The Federal Reserve (and the powerful foreign interests that supposedly own it) were threatened by Kennedy's moves to restore precious-metals backing to US currency.[10]
  • Even that the Greys had him killed for planning to expose the alien conspiracy.[11]

Disproving (to absolute certainty) any given conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination (or, conversely, proving that the Warren Commission's findings were 100% correct) may never be possible. Doing either would require 'evidence' that hasn't emerged in 40 years and is somehow so compelling that all sides can agree to agree upon it. Given the realistic likelihood of this, the real motive behind Kennedy's death (and to a lesser extent, how the murder was accomplished) may never be agreed upon.

KGB disinformation

After the end of the Cold War, KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin revealed that the KGB had fabricated evidence as part of a disinformation campaign designed to generate distrust of the CIA and US Government among the American people. In his book The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (co-authored with Christopher Andrew) he claims the KGB forged a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald in an attempt to implicate the CIA in the assassination of JFK.

See also: Jim Garrison, JFK (movie)

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