Transcription
The crowd bristled with excitement as the Presidential motorcade turned the corner. They pushed and strained, trying to catch a glimpse of America’s First Couple. But high above everyone else, one man had the best view of all. From his vantage point, he tracked the limousine as it coasted along the street, his crosshairs trained on his target. He steadied his nerves and exhaled. Then… he squeezed the trigger…
November 22nd, 1963, 7:23 AM – Five hours and seven minutes before the Assassination of President Kennedy. It was just another day in Dallas, Texas. At this hour, most people were only concerned with waking up and heading to work. One of them was an unassuming man heading to his job at the Texas School Book Depository. Under his arm was a long package wrapped up in paper. As he headed into the building, he was joined by a coworker named Buell Wesley Frazier. Curious as to what the brown paper-covered object was, Frazier asked him about it. “Oh, it’s just some curtains,” answered the other man; Lee Harvey Oswald. Fraizer was unaware that the ‘curtains’ were really a 6.5x52mm Carcano Model 38 infantry carbine rifle with a telescopic sight attached to it. He’d purchased the Italian-made Carcano from Klein's Sporting Goods through a mail order, for the grand total of $19.95, with the scope included. Plus a dollar and fifty for shipping. Oswald was also concealing a snub-nosed pistol purchased back in January of 1963; a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver. Later that day, he’d use the rifle to end the life of the President of the United States.
8:45 AM Around thirty miles away in Fort Worth, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, accompanied by his First Lady Jackie Kennedy, had finished delivering a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. Despite Kennedy being a Democrat, the attendees were mostly Republicans. This was part of the reason why Kennedy was in the Lone Star State. Tensions had been rising between conservative politician John Connally and local- JFK was here to help smooth things out. That was just the start, Kennedy and his wife were set to have a long day ahead of them… after they got some breakfast.
9:10 AM President Kennedy and the First Lady had been staying in Room 850 of the Hotel Texas. The President, as scheduled, delivered a speech in the hotel’s grand Crystal Ballroom… It would be his last ever public address. Around the same time, one of Kennedy’s presidential advisors, Kenny O’Donnell, spoke with Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge of keeping the President safe during the trip. There was scheduled to be a motorcade, driving President Kennedy and his wife through Dallas in the presidential limo, later that day. O’Donnell told Kellerman that, since the weather was set to be clear in Dallas, that there’d be no need for the ‘bubble top’, the protective roof of the limousine. Following his speech, President Kennedy was approached by his assistant Press Secretary, Malcom Kilduff, who had a grim omen to share with the Kennedys. It was an unpleasant advertisement placed in The Dallas Morning News titled ‘Welcome Mr Kennedy to Dallas’ attacking JFK’s foreign and domestic policies. What was perhaps the most foreboding detail about the advertisement was that it included a black border… in a style very similar to a death notice. Upon reading it, President Kennedy would turn to his wife, Jacqueline, and say to her: “We’re heading into nut country today.”
10:40 AM Kennedy’s motorcade would depart from the Hotel Texas taking the President, his wife and a handful of his staff over to Carswell Air Force Base. There, the presidential plane, Air Force One, was being readied for take off, ahead of a short flight from Fort Worth to Dallas.
11:20 AM – One hour and ten minutes before the Assassination of President Kennedy. After the short drive over, Kennedy and his entourage would board Air Force One. Meanwhile, VP Lyndon B. Johnson, and his wife, Claudia ‘Lady Bird’ Taylor, were boarding the vice presidential plane Air Force Two, and jetting out to meet the Kennedys in Dallas. Heading down the runway with JFK, Jacqueline Kennedy, as well John Connally and his family, Air Force One took flight, enroute to Love Field, in Dallas.
11:40 AM The moment the Kennedys stepped off the plane at Love Field, they were greeted by not only the media hoping for a snap for the papers, but by a massive throng of cheering Texan citizens. The press photographers managed to capture plenty of pictures of both the President and his wife as they delightedly greeted the people of Texas.
11:45 AM - Forty-five minutes before the Assassination of President Kennedy Guided away from the crowds by members of the Secret Service, JFK and Jacqueline were greeted next by Lyndon B. Johnson, and ‘Lady Bird’ Taylor who had arrived moments earlier. The motorcade cars that would be taking them all through the city of Dallas were already lined up and waiting to go, and had been since early that same morning. There was no doubting the level of careful and precise planning that had gone into ensuring the President’s safety during this visit. But the Secret Service weren’t the only ones in Dallas that day with a meticulous plan...
11:55 AM Despite the whirlwind start to the day, the warm greeting from the enthusiastic crowds had put Kennedy in good spirits as he settled into the open topped limousine; the grim, ominous newspaper advertisement was already bound to be far from Kennedy’s mind. The President and First Lady were joined by John Connally and his wife, Nellie, in one car, while Vice President Johnson, his wife were in a second. These were then accompanied by two more cars full of Secret Service agents, with the entire motorcade being flanked by Dallas police officers on motorcycles. The motorcade set off from Love Field, unaware that Kennedy was heading towards his death.
12:00 PM. Noon Making their way downtown, the motorcade passed hundreds of thousands of people, a massive celebratory turnout, most there to cheer on the President as he cruised through Dallas. The crowds were estimated to be well over 150,000 people that day, flying both USA and Texas flags. The atmosphere was jubilant; nobody knew that, as the motorcade gradually approached Dealey Plaza, things were about to take a turn for the worse.
12:29 PM – One minute before the Assassination of President Kennedy. As the motorcade reached the Plaza, they made a sharp, 130 degree left turn that put them on a road called Elm Street - where there was about to be a different kind of nightmare. Elm Street was flanked either side by green grass, and was on a slight downward incline. It just so happened that, right at the corner where the motorcade turned onto Elm, was the Texas Book Depository. In response to the huge crowds, it was around this minute that Nellie Connally turned to JFK and said to him: “Mr President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you!” Over near the grassy side of Elm Street, a man named Abraham Zapruder was standing on a concrete pedestal, hoping to get a better vantage point. In his hand, was a Model 414 PD Bell and Howell home movie camera, with a reel of eight millimeter film inside. It could only shoot silently, at just over eighteen frames per second, but Zapruder was eager to capture even just a few seconds of JFK waving at the crowds… What he’d end up recording instead would be a piece of footage that would be examined and scrutinised over and over again, frame by frame, for decades to come. On top of the Texas Book Depository building was a giant clock advertising Hertz Rent a Car. As the presidential limousine turned into Elm Street, the clock changed to half past on the dot. President Kennedy raised his right hand to wave at the crowds…
12:30 PM Bang. A gunshot rang out. A bullet had been fired and struck President Kennedy. Over on his elevated position, Abraham Zapruder is still rolling, and catches the whole thing. His film would later show that, after the initial injury, Kennedy had disappeared, ducking out of view behind the backseats of the limo, just as the car passed a nearby road sign for the Stemmons Freeway. The footage shows that JFK’s mouth was wide open, his face locked in an anguished expression… It’s likely he was screaming. The bullet went through his throat, causing what was undoubtedly an excruciating wound. Kennedy’s hands were balled into fists, arms raised in front of his face and throat, trying to protect himself. Sitting in the car alongside him, John Connally had also been hit, yelling out: “My God, they’re going to kill us all!” Looking down, Connally realised he was covered in blood, unsure how much of it was his, and how much was the President’s. Connally thought he’d been fatally shot as well as JFK. In the same instant the first shot was fired, a Secret Service Agent named Clinton Hill reacted. He’d initially thought the gunshot was a firecracker, until he saw the President lurching out of view. Hill leapt off the running board from the car directly behind the presidential limo and rushed towards JFK but it was too late… Bang. Another shot. Some witnesses would later report hearing a third shot too, but what’s not up for debate is that a second bullet struck Kennedy. It hit him with such force that his skull practically exploded. This was also caught on the Zapruder film. Just before he lost consciousness, John Connally saw what he believed to be a chunk of JFK’s brain fall onto his trousers.
12:31 PM – One minute after the Assassination of President Kennedy. The limousine began to speed up. Agent Hill jumped onto the back of the open topped car moments after the second bullet hit Kennedy. He gripped the rapidly accelerating limo, as Jacqueline Kennedy let out a scream. The First Lady scrambled to the rear of the limo… reaching for the pieces of her husband’s skull that were scattered across the trunk. Agent Hill clung to the limo, using his body to shield JFK and Jacqueline as she crawled back to her seat. The Connallys would later recall hearing Jacqueline Kennedy screaming these chilling words in that moment: “I have his brains on my hand!”
12:33 PM Immediately after shooting the President in the head, Lee Harvey Oswald departed his sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, which had given him an clear, unobstructed view of the motorcade as it drove by. Reaching the second floor cafeteria, he found himself confronted by a police patrolman, Marrion Baker. The only thing stopping him from being caught was the superintendent of the depository, Roy Truly, who vouched for Oswald, telling the patrolman he was an employee there, causing Baker to let the man pass. Heading downstairs, Oswald passed the secretary at the depository’s front desk, then exited the building through the front door, just three minutes after killing the President. He would then walk seven city blocks, and hop aboard a Dallas city bus...
12:34 PM In a press car closely following the motorcade, a reporter for United Press International, Merriman Smith, reached for a radio telephone, and told his employers what had just happened: “Three shots were fired today at the president's motorcade in downtown Dallas.” Smith was punched repeatedly by Jack Bell, a reporter from the Associated Press, who was also in the car at the time. Bell yelled at Smith to hand over the phone. But Smith refused, and stayed on the line with United Press International. He later won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the JFK assassination.
12:36 PM The presidential limo screeched to a halt outside Parkland Memorial Hospital, where President Kennedy was hurriedly admitted for urgent treatment, as was the injured John Connally. Vascular surgeon Doctor Malcolm Perry was the first person to treat President Kennedy. He performed a tracheotomy and then a cardiopulmonary resuscitation alongside multiple other doctors and surgeons, who frantically tried to save JFK’s life. But the President’s injuries were ultimately fatal.
12:40 PM CBS viewers across America who had been tuned into As the World Turns, a live soap opera, suddenly found the program interrupted by an urgent broadcast. CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite delivered the breaking news that shots had been fired at the presidential motorcade in Dallas, and that JFK was currently in the hospital.
12:45 PM Dan Rather, a Texas journalist working for CBS, made a call to Parkland Memorial Hospital, hoping to gather some further details on the situation, and maybe even be the first to get the scoop about Kennedy’s condition. One of the doctors tells him that he believes the President might be dead…
12:50 PM The police finished sealing off the Texas Book Depository, believing the fateful gunshots targeting the President were fired from the building. The manhunt has begun.
1:00 PM – Thirty minutes after the Assassination of President Kennedy. With the doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital unable to save his life, President Kennedy is officially pronounced dead. His condition had been ‘moribund’, meaning he had next to no chance of survival from the moment the limousine had arrived at the hospital. Tom Shires, the Chief of Surgery at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School was quoted as saying: “I am absolutely sure he never knew what hit him.” Father Oscar Huber, of Holy Trinity Catholic Church of Dallas, was permitted to see the president’s body and perform his last rites. The First Lady reportedly held her deceased husband’s hand as the rites were administered, and then placed one of her rings on his finger. Elsewhere in the hospital, John Connally was rushed into emergency surgery, and underwent surgery to treat the injuries he’d sustained while riding alongside the president. Having now received word of the president’s condition, Malcolm Kilduff entered the hospital room where Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Taylor were sitting. With JFK dead, that left his vice president Johnson as next in line to the presidency, and now the de facto leader of the United States. Kilduff spoke with LBJ, asking him: “Mr. President, I have to announce the death of President Kennedy. Is it okay with you that the announcement be made now?” Johnson ordered Kilduff to hold off until he and his wife were able to leave the hospital; LBJ was worried that the assassin, who was still out there, could target him next now that he was taking over from the recently deceased Kennedy. Meanwhile, Oswald was still attempting to make his escape. The bus he had caught was stuck in traffic thanks to all the commotion around Dallas, and the police shutting off streets. Oswald got off the bus, walked to a nearby depot and hailed a taxi. He was heading back to his rooming house, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue, but instructed the driver to stop a few blocks past. Getting out of the car, Oswald then walked back to the rooming house, arriving there exactly as President Kennedy’s death was officially announced. Once inside, he changed his jacket for a darker one, expecting that by now his description had already been given to police, and that everyone would be on the lookout for him. The building’s housekeeper, one Earlene Roberts, saw Oswald departing again around four minutes after returning to the rooming house, then witnessed him head to a bus stop outside.
1:15 PM Officer JD Tippit had been having an otherwise ordinary day. Earlier he’d visited his sister, shared coffee with a fellow officer, even managed to sneak in a quick break from his police duties to have lunch at home with his wife, Marie. Then, someone had shot and killed the president, and this otherwise normal day had been turned on its head. Tippit was told to patrol the Oak Cliff neighbourhood of Dallas, and to be on the lookout for the suspected assassin. An eye witness had given a description to police of the man he thought had shot Kennedy; he was thin, around thirty years old, five feet and ten inches tall. Officer Tippit was driving his patrol car through the area, when he spotted someone who matched that description, near the intersection of Tenth Street and Patton Avenue. Pulling his car up to the street, Tippit rolled down his window and got the man’s attention. The two had a brief exchange, before Officer JD Tippit stepped out of the patrol car. Lee Harvey Oswald quickly drew his snub nosed revolver, and shot Tippit multiple times. Three bullets struck the officer in the chest, and a fourth in his temple. He was killed instantly.
1:22 PM Over by Dealey Plaza, on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, police searching through the rooms came across what appeared to be the room used by Oswald to carry out the assassination. They found the Carcano Model 38 rifle hidden behind a stack of books. In the same room, they realized the window offered the exact vantage point over Elm Street that Oswald would need to shoot the President.
1:30 PM – Sixty minutes after the Assassination of President Kennedy. By this time, Lyndon B Johnson had already left Parkland Memorial Hospital, and was driven back to Love Field. Shortly after Johnson and the rest of the entourage boarded Air Force One, Malcolm Kilduff took that as his sign to go ahead and tell the world. He made an address to the press outside Parkland Memorial Hospital: the President was dead. “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock Central Standard Time today, here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.”
1:35 PM After he’d shot Officer Tippit, Lee Harvey Oswald was spotted by witnesses heading towards the Texas Theatre on foot. At approximately this time, the manager of Hardy’s Shoe Store, a man named Johnny Calvin Brewer, spotted the assassin ducking into the entrance of his store and turning his face away from the street as police cars passed, their sirens wailing. Once they had gone, Oswald left the store, and Brewer followed him, until he entered the theatre on West Jefferson Boulevard, sneaking in without paying for a ticket while the attendant, Julie Postal, was distracted. Three minutes later, on CBS News, Walter Cronkite would report that President John F. Kennedy had been killed, and that Lyndon B. Johnson was soon to be sworn in as the thirty sixth President of the United States.
1:45 PM Lyndon Johnson made a phone call to JFK’s brother, the United States Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy. Johnson offered his condolences and asked his advice on where to take the oath of office of the president of the United States when he was sworn in. At exactly the same time, Johnny Brewer told Juile Postal that Oswald had just crept past her and was now in the theatre. Juile called the police immediately.
1:45 PM Within five minutes, there are fifteen police officers surrounding the Texas Theater. Upon entering, they found Oswald sitting inside. It would take four of them to subdue the assassin, and as he resisted arrest, he would attempt to shoot one of the patrolmen, yelling: “Well, it's all over now!” By 1:51 PM, Lee Harvey Oswald was in police custody.
2:00 PM Paraffin tests conducted by police confirmed that Oswald had fired a gun recently, though the results were not entirely conclusive. Nevertheless his own wife would later confirm that the rifle police had recovered from the Texas Book Depository was the same one owned by her husband. While his assassin was being arrested, John F. Kennedy’s body was being taken from Parkland Hospital to Air Force One inside a bronze coffin. His wife sat alongside him as the hearse brought the body to Love Field. Ten minutes later, Abraham Zapruder arrived at local television station WFAA TV, with his firsthand footage of the President’s assassination.
2:30 PM – Two hours after the Assassination of President Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald would be interrogated by police for almost twelve long hours, during which time he denied having anything to do with JFK’s death, or the murder of Officer JD Tippit. Oswald insisted the entire time that he was a patsy, and when the police presented photographs of him holding the same rifle and revolver he’d used, he sneered at them and claimed they were fakes. Eventually, he’d stop answering all questions put to him by the police.
2:38 PM Inside the cramped confines of Air Force One, Lydon B Johnson was sworn in as the next President of the United States, with his wife and Jacqueline Kennedy beside him, and one hand on a Catholic missal that had belonged to his predecessor, as a Bible was not immediately available. The presidential plane would then depart from Love Fields, leaving Dallas for Washington DC. Jacqueline made funeral plans for her husband, while Johnson consulted his advisers. Lady Bird Taylor, noticing that Jacqueline Kennedy’s dress still had blood stains on it, suggested that the now-former First Lady should go and change her clothes. Mrs. Kennedy replied by saying: “Oh no, that’s all right. I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”
7:00 PM – Six hours and thirty minutes after the Assassination of President Kennedy. After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Lyndon B. Johnson was met by a gathering of the press, giving his first statements as President: “I will do my best. That's all I can do. I ask for your help and God’s.” Robert F. Kennedy accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where JFK’s body received an autopsy and was prepared for the imminent funeral.
7:05 PM Minutes later, back in Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the killing of Officer Tippit, the crime being described as a ‘murder of malice’. It would take a further four hours and twenty minutes for Oswald to also be charged with the assassination of President Kennedy. During the early hours of the next morning, the body of John Fitzgerald Kennedy was laid in repose. His coffin, draped in an American flag, was placed in the East Room of the White House. Later that same day, newly sworn in President Lyndon B. Johnson would issue Presidential Proclamation 3561, declaring November 23rd, 1963, a national day of mourning. Over a quarter of a million people, including representatives from over ninety countries, would attend Kennedy’s funeral two days later. But in between, on November 24th, 1963, around forty six hours and fifty one minutes after the assassination took place, Lee Harvey Oswald was also shot Live news cameras had been trained on the Dallas Police headquarters where he was being held, when he was mortally wounded by a local nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, a man thought to have ties with the Mafia. Unconscious, Lee Harvey Oswald would be bundled into an ambulance and taken to… Parkland Memorial Hospital – the very same hospital where doctors had attempted to save JFK from the wounds Oswald inflicted on him. Unfortunately for the presidential assassin, he was to face the same outcome: Lee Harvey Oswald was declared dead at 1:07 PM that afternoon… forty eight hours and thirty seven minutes after he shot and killed President Kennedy. Now check out “How JFK Almost Died The First Time.” Or watch this instead!