The Crime Book

318

A

t 12:30pm on 22 November

1963, President John

Fitzgerald Kennedy rode

through Dallas’s Dealey Plaza in

an open-topped limousine with the

First Lady, Texas Governor John

Connally, and Connally’s wife,

Nellie. Rumblings of hostility

towards the president in Texas

made his two-day visit important,

and Kennedy was keen to allay as

many fears as possible. As his

motorcade crawled down Elm

Street, shots rang out. One bullet

struck Kennedy in the neck, then

another blasted open his skull.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at

1pm at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Although millions later witnessed

the shocking events – thanks to

Abraham Zapruder’s home movie

footage – rumours and speculation

still surround Kennedy’s death.

Authorized account

The official narrative is that

Howard Brennan, a witness seated

across from the Texas Schoolbook

Depository, noticed a man with a

rifle firing from the building’s sixth-

floor corner window. Within

minutes of the shooting, Brennan

approached police officers to inform

them of what he had seen. He was

joined by fifth-floor Depository

employee Harold Norman, who had

heard gunshots and cartridges

being ejected from the floor above.

The sixth floor was unoccupied, as

new flooring was being laid.

These tips led the Dallas Police

Department to seal off the building

some time between 12:30 and

12:50pm. At around 1:03pm, a

roll call of Depository employees

was taken. This revealed that

temporary employee Lee Harvey

Oswald – a former defector to the

Soviet Union, who had last been

seen in the building as late as

12:33pm – was absent. Nine

Lee Harvey Oswald Depending on who you ask, Lee

Harvey Oswald was a naive fall

guy, a psychologically disturbed

attention-seeker, or a secret

operative carrying out a plot by a

government agency. Oswald was

born on 18 October 1939, in New

Orleans. Between his birth and

the age of 17, Oswald lived in 22

different locations and changed

schools 11 times.

At 17, Oswald joined the

Marine Corps, where he worked

as a radar operator. His childhood

had been unhappy, but life in the

Marines was no better; he was

court-martialled twice and

demoted for accidentally

wounding himself with an

unauthorized .22 pistol.

In October 1959, Oswald

arrived in the Soviet Union. He

hoped to get a warm welcome in

return for secrets he had learned

as a Marine. However, he soon

tired of his marginalized life in

Moscow, and returned to the US

in 1962. In 1963, he allegedly

decided to express his Marxist

political views by shooting

right-wing General Edwin

Walker. This assassination

attempt failed – but his attempt

on the president did not.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Dallas, Texas, US

THEME

Shootings of US presidents

BEFORE

1881 Four months after taking

office, President James A.

Garfield is shot dead by

Charles J. Guiteau, a writer

and lawyer from Illinois.

1901 Leon Czolgosz, a former

steel worker from Michigan,

shoots and kills President

William McKinley. He is

executed later the same year.

1912 While campaigning for a

second term, former president

Theodore Roosevelt is shot by

saloon-keeper John F. Schrank.

The campaign speech notes in

his pocket save his life.

AFTER

1975 Sara Jane Moore fires a

shot at President Gerald Ford,

but narrowly misses due to a

faulty sight on her new gun.

My God, they’re

trying to kill

us all!

Governor Connally

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319

Classic footage from the Zapruder

home movie of the killing, shows

Jackie Kennedy, in pink, tending to her

mortally wounded husband in the back

of the presidential limousine.

minutes after the roll call,

investigators discovered three

empty cartridge cases near the

southeast window on the sixth

floor. At 1:22pm, Carl Day noticed

a Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action

rifle hidden among some boxes.

In the meantime, at 1:15pm,

Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit

was shot dead on East 10th Street

in the Oak Cliff neighbourhood.

Witnesses observed the gunman

fleeing the crime scene and

ducking into the Texas Theater

without stopping to buy a ticket.

Acting on a tip, police entered

the theatre, where they found a

man who fitted the suspect’s

description sitting in one of the

back rows. When Officer McDonald

drew near, the suspect leapt up and

struck him, then attempted to draw

a pistol. He was unsuccessful:

Officer Bentley grappled him from

behind and the police officers

managed to restrain and handcuff

the suspect. The contents of his

wallet identified him as Lee Harvey

Oswald – the employee who had

been conspicuously absent from

the Schoolbook Depository a

little earlier that day.

Fatal ambush

Oswald was immediately arrested

and formally charged at 7:10pm

for the murder of Officer Tippit.

By 1am the following day, he was

also charged with killing President

John F. Kennedy. On the morning

of 24 November, Oswald was

ambushed in the underground

parking lot of the Dallas Police

Department headquarters, as he

was being transferred to the ❯❯

See also: Daniel M’Naghten 204–05 ■ The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln 306–09 ■ The Assassination of Rasputin

312–15 ■ The Abduction of Aldo Moro 322–23

ASSASSINATIONS AND POLITICAL PLOTS

They’ve killed Jack!

They’ve killed my

husband!

Jackie Kennedy

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