JFK Assassination 60 years later

Nov. 22, 1963, was one of the days that changed America as shots rang out while President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade drove through Dallas, Texas.

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November 1963

The 35th president, while not officially campaigning for reelection, was getting ready for his next election, He had been hitting the stump at the end of September, speaking in nine states in less than a week to introduce his platform on education, national security and world peace in the run-up to 1964, the JFK Presidential Library said. He then made stops in Boston and Philadelphia before the fateful trip to Texas.

He wanted to use the trip to the Lone Star State to help cement the Democratic party, a party that was infighting. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, had been attacked physically after making a speech in the state.

The first stop was San Antonio, accompanied by his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, Gov. John Connally and Sen. Ralph Yarborough where he continued to Brooks Airforce Base for a health center dedication then on to Houston to appear at the League of United Latin American Citizens and another political dinner, ending the day in Fort Worth.

Before leaving the next morning for Dallas, Kennedy told the thousands of people gathered in the rain, “There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth.” He talked about the country’s defense and the space race, as well as the economic growth the country was experiencing. He continued the morning speaking at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce with a spotlight on the military, saying, “We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom,” he said. “We will continue to do…our duty, and the people of Texas will be in the lead,” the library said.

Kennedy and his wife Jackie, then left for Carswell Air Force Base for a short 13-minute flight to Dallas’ Love Field where they met supporters and then climbed into the open convertible, joining Connally and his wife. The vice president and his wife were in a separate car to drive the 10-mile route between the airport and the Trade Mart in Dallas where Kennedy was scheduled to speak.

As the car turned from Main Street at Dealey Plaza, at 12:30 p.m. local time, gunshots rang out from the Texas Book Depository. Kennedy was hit in the neck and head, slumping over his wife. The governor was also wounded. The motorcade diverted to Parkland Memorial Hospital, but nothing could be done. A half-hour later, President Kennedy was pronounced dead.

Connally would eventually recover.

Kennedy’s body was transported back to Love Field and placed on Air Force One, but prior to takeoff, Vice President Johnson took the oath to become the country’s 36 president as Jackie stood nearby, still covered in her husband’s blood and only two hours after shots rang out.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a recent hire at the book depository, was arrested about an hour before Johnson was sworn in.

Oswald, two days later on Nov. 24, would be the target of his own assassination, when Jack Ruby pulled the trigger point blank into Oswald as he was being transferred from police headquarters to county jail, live on television. He died at the same hospital that Kennedy was pronounced - Parkland Hospital - two hours after being shot.

The day that Oswald was killed, Kennedy’s body was taken from the White House to the Capitol in a funeral that emulated that of another assassinated president - Abraham Lincoln. For 21 hours, Kennedy lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda with 250,000 mourners paying their respects, the library said.

On Nov. 25, Kennedy was laid to rest and interred in Arlington National Cemetery. One most heartbreaking moments of the funeral was when John Kennedy Jr. saluted his father’s casket on what was the child’s third birthday. An eternal flame was lit by Jackie and Kenndy’s brothers Edward and Robert, who would be the target of an assassin’s bullet less than five years later in Los Angeles.

Warren Commission/House Select Committee

After the assassination, Johnson appointed the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, also known as the Warren Commission because of chairman, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. The commission conducted interviews and reviewed reports from the FBI, Secret Service, Department of State and other federal and local agencies. It also heard testimony from 552 witnesses and visited the site of Kennedy’s murder several times, the National Archives said.

The members of the commission wrote: “THE ASSASSINATION of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a nation, and against all mankind. A young and vigorous leader whose years of public and private life stretched before him was the victim of the fourth Presidential assassination in the history of a country dedicated to the concepts of reasoned argument and peaceful political change.”

The panel concluded: “The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository.” and “The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.”

However, there was a debate if Oswald could have been the lone gunman. The findings of the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations said it had found, “a high probability that two gunmen fired” saying that recordings indicate four or more shots being fired, the JFK Library said. But after the report was released, acoustic experts said the recording was worthless.

60 years later

Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023, marked 60 years since Kennedy’s assassination and according to Time magazine, the question as to why Oswald killed Kenndy still comes to the surface. There was “no evidence” that Oswald was part of a domestic conspiracy or that a foreign government was behind Kennedy’s murder. And the Warren Commission didn’t say why Oswald killed the president with Time saying in 1964, “The explanation of Oswald’s motive for killing President Kennedy was buried with him.”

Over the decades, documents from the investigations have been released, but no major revelations have come to light, Time reported.

“No new information has been revealed or exposed that really alter the course of our understanding of what happened,” Nicola Longford, CEO of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza told the publication. The museum has two exhibits — “Two Days in Texas” which looks at Kennedy’s trip in the state and “John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation,” KXAS reported.

Also, not all documents have been released. They were all supposed to be made public in 2017 but President Donald Trump’s and President Joe Biden’s administrations have both delayed the final publications, Time reported. Thousands of pages remain classified.

The National Archives told “Today” that it has released 99% of the formerly classified documents, but Biden says they should be continued to be processed and released in full or redacted versions should be released until the documents’ classification runs out.

Biden for his part released a statement on Wednesday to mark the solemn anniversary, calling Kenndey’s assassination “a defining moment of deep trauma and loss that shocked the soul of our nation.”

“In life and in death, President Kennedy changed the way we saw ourselves – a country full of youthful hopes and ambition, steeled with the seasoned strength of a people who’ve overcome profound loss by turning pain into unyielding purpose. He called us to take history into our own hands, and to never quit striving to build an America that lives up to its highest ideals.

“On this day, we remember that he saw a nation of light, not darkness; of honor, not grievance; a place where we are unwilling to postpone the work that he began and that we all must now carry forward. We remember the unfulfilled promise of his presidency – not only as a tragedy, but as an enduring call to action to each do all we can for our country.”

Parkland Health, the hospital where Kennedy was taken, dedicated the John F. Kennedy Park for Hope, Healing and Heroes, with one of the donors of the park as Dr. Ron Jones, one of the doctors who treated Kennedy 60 years ago, KXAS reported.

Dallas City Hall has put original documents, photos and other items on display from the police department’s investigation from now until Dec. 8.

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JFK assassination: Texas Gov. John Connally adjusts his tie as President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy settle into their seats as their limousine prepared to leave Love Field and motor through Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)