Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A DARK DAY IN NOVEMBER: THE JFK ASSASSINATION
In the early 1960s the USA was fascinated with its young president, his little children at play in the Oval Office
and his regal wife. They seemed the perfect family, and the USA - still awash in postwar prosperity - considered
itself a place where justice and amity prevailed.
But beneath the glossy surface, the USA was heading into its most divisive decade since the Civil War. By no
means universally popular, Kennedy had won the election over Richard Nixon by fewer than 120,000 votes from
among 69 million cast. His 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was a foreign-policy disaster.
In the eyes of many, Kennedy redeemed his presidency in the fall of 1962, when he stood up to Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev after US intelligence services discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba. Yet in the
nine months prior to his Dallas appearance, Kennedy had received more than 400 death threats, from critics on
both the left, who felt him guilty of warmongering during the Cuban missile crisis, and the right, who felt him
soft on communism. The president's advisers were seriously concerned about the trip to Dallas, where right-wing
groups, including the John Birch Society and the Indignant White Citizens Council, held powerful sway. Yet
nearly a quarter-million people lined the streets on November 23, 1963, to greet him.
Shots Ring Out
What happened next has been endlessly debated and dissected by conspiracy theorists, but the events as officially
recorded took place like this: Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally and the rest of the mo-
torcade left Love Field at 11:50am and arrived downtown under sunny skies. Kennedy's open-air limousine made
its way down Main St to Dealey Plaza, where three streets - Main in the middle, Commerce to the south and Elm
to the north - converged under a railroad bridge known as the triple underpass.
The limo made a one-block jog on Houston St, turning onto Elm St beneath the Texas School Book Depository
building. Just as the limousine completed its turn at 12:30pm, one shot rang out, then another. Both Kennedy and
Connally appeared wounded, and then a third shot was heard, and part of the president's head exploded. Jac-
queline Kennedy cradled her husband's body as the limo raced up the Stemmons Fwy toward Parkland Memorial
Hospital. They arrived at 12:36pm, but doctors could not save Kennedy, who had a bullet wound in his neck in
addition to the massive head wound. He was pronounced dead at 1pm.
Manhunt & Murder
Even before the announcement, Dallas and the nation were thrown into turmoil. Dallas police officer Marrion
Baker, who had seen pigeons fly off the Book Depository roof as the shots were fired, entered the building and
found a man in the employee lunchroom at 12:32pm. Depository superintendent Roy Truly identified the suspect
as Lee Harvey Oswald - an employee hired five weeks earlier - so Baker let him go. Soon after, police found the
sniper's perch on the 6th floor, together with spent cartridges, and finger- and palm prints later identified as
Oswald's. Meanwhile, Oswald was arrested at 1:50pm in the Oak Cliff section of town as a suspect in the shoot-
ing of Dallas police officer JD Tippit. He was later charged with the murder of Kennedy, but denied both
murders. The next morning, as Oswald was being transferred to the county jail pending trial, Dallas nightclub
owner Jack Ruby shot him in the basement of Dallas police headquarters. Kennedy was buried the following day
at Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington, DC.
Amid a country in mourning, the phrase 'Where were you the moment you found out that JFK had been shot?'
became a touchstone question for an entire generation. And debate over what may have really happened that day
has never stopped.
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