American Tragedy: The Kennedy Assassination

"American Tragedy: The Kennedy Assassination"

Where were you November 22, 1963? Any and every American old enough to mourn, to feel sorrow remember where they were and what they were doing when they received the news that President John F. Kennedy had been murdered. My mother was only three and she remembers the day. She was in the living room of her childhood home when a weeping neighbor called my Grandmother and broke the news. The telephone call was the beginning of a chain reaction that sent the entire house into uncontrollable sobbing. The event had that effect on the entire nation. Men and women, Democrats and Republicans, adults and children mourned the loss of their fallen leader.

President Johnson, the Warren Commission, and every fascinated watcher-on in the world would closely scrutinize that day and the following events. The facts of the day are still hotly contested even now. Politicians have made their careers on the case. Conspiracy theorists have had a field day writing books, accusing anyone and everyone of planing the assassination. This paper’s purpose is to inform you on the known facts of the event, including the reason for President Kennedy’s visit, the parade through down-town Dallas, and the emergency trip to the hospital. The Warren Commission’s report to the President will be summarized and many conspiracy theories will be established.

President and Mrs. Kennedy arrived in Dallas at 11:40AM CST on Friday, November 22, 1963. The couple had been in San Antonio, the first leg of a two day trip through the state, where they met with Vice-president Johnson and Texas Governor Connally. The Texas trip was planned in hopes of reviving the President’s popularity in Texas after it was hurt during the election of 1960. Until midmorning, cloudy skies had threatened to cancel the motorcade-style parade that was planned for the day. The motorcade would travel from Love Field, where the President’s plane had landed, through Dallas on a previously publicized route to the Trade Mart where a luncheon in honor of the President had been planned, (The Warren Commission, pg. 2). The motorcade consisted of the president’s car, followed by a car designate the “Presidential follow-up” which carried secret service members. Behind that was another open roofed car carrying Vice-president Lyndon Johnson and Texas Governor Connally and their wives. Following the vice-president’s car was another follow-up car and several cars and buses with dignitaries and press representatives.

The motorcade followed its designated route, first passing through a residential area of Dallas, and then making its way through the middle of the downtown area. The parade traveled west on Main Street and then made a right on Houston. The motorcade went one block and then made a left-turn on Elm. On the corner of Elm and Houston was the large, ominous Texas School Book Depository, where the fatal shots were later accused of being fired from. When the President’s car turned west on Elm and crossed the Depository, three shots were fired at the motorcade. The President was struck by a bullet that entered at the base of his neck, just right of his spine and exited under the lower left portion of the knot in the President’s tie. A second bullet struck Kennedy in the rear base of his head, causing the fatal wound. Texas Governor Connally, riding two cars behind the President, was also hit. The bullet hit the Governor on the extreme right side of his back, just below the armpit. The bullet exited below his left nipple and hit him again on the left wrist. Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman saw that the President had been hit and instructed the driver to get the President to a hospital immediately. Parlkand Memorial Hospital was the closest hospital, just 4 miles away.

Awaiting Doctors met the presidential car and immediately began an attempt to resuscitate the dying President. At 1:00PM, just 30 minutes after the President had been shot, Kennedy’s heart had stopped and was pronounced dead. Vice-president Johnson left Parkland Hospital after being notified of the President’s death and traveled back to the Presidential Plane at Love Field under close guard. Mrs. Kennedy and the President’s body followed and boarded the plane shortly after Johnson. At 2:38PM, with the plane on it’s way back to Washington, DC, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.

On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson created an investigation commission to “evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin and to report its findings to him,” (Warren Commission Foreword). Chief Justice Earl Warren headed the commission that consisted of six other members including two senators and two