November 22, 1963: Death of the President - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum November 22, 1963: Death of the President November 22, 1963: Death of the President Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. By the fall of 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign. Although he had not formally announced his candidacy, it was clear that President Kennedy was going to run and he seemed confident about his chances for re-election. At the end of September, the president traveled west, speaking in nine different states in less than a week. The trip was meant to put a spotlight on natural resources and conservation efforts. But JFK also used it to sound out themes—such as education, national security, and world peace—for his run in 1964. Campaigning in Texas A month later, the president addressed Democratic gatherings in Boston and Philadelphia.

Then, on November 12, he held the first important political planning session for the upcoming election year. At the meeting, JFK stressed the importance of winning Florida and Texas and talked about his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks. Mrs. Kennedy would accompany him on the swing through Texas, which would be her first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick, in August. On November 21, the president and first lady departed on Air Force One for the two-day, five-city tour of Texas. President Kennedy was aware that a feud among party leaders in Texas could jeopardize his chances of carrying the state in 1964, and one of his aims for the trip was to bring Democrats together. He also knew that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt—particularly in Dallas, where US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after making a speech there. Nonetheless, JFK seemed to relish the prospect of leaving Washington, getting out among the people and into the political fray. The first stop was San Antonio. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John B.

Connally, and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough led the welcoming party. They accompanied the president to Brooks Air Force Base for the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center. Continuing on to Houston, he addressed a Latin American citizens' organization and spoke at a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas before ending the day in Fort Worth. Morning in Fort Worth A light rain was falling on Friday morning, November 22, but a crowd of several thousand stood in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform was set up and the president, wearing no protection against the weather, came out to make some brief remarks. "There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth," he began, "and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it." He went on to talk about the nation's need for being "second to none" in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and "the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership." The warmth of the audience response was palpable as the president reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces.

Back inside the hotel the president spoke at a breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, focusing on military preparedness. "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." On to Dallas The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands. The first lady received a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine. Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining, the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade. The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon.

The Assassination Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was also hit in the chest. The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover. The president's body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m. Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository.

He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J. D. Tippit on a Dallas street. On Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Viewers across America watching the live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital. The President's Funer al That same day, President Kennedy's flag-draped casket was moved from the White House to the Capitol on a caisson drawn by six grey horses, accompanied by one riderless black horse. At Mrs. Kennedy's request, the cortege and other ceremonial details were modeled on the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Crowds line d Pennsylvania Avenue and many wept openly as the caisson passed. During the 21 hours that the president's body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, about 250,000 people filed by to pay their respects. On Monday, November 25, 1963 President Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

The funeral was attended by heads of state and representatives from more than 100 countries, with untold millions more watching on television. Afterward, at the grave site, Mrs. Kennedy and her husband's brothers, Robert and Edward, lit an eternal flame. Perhaps the most indelible images of the day were the salute to his father given by little John F. Kennedy Jr. (whose third birthday it was), daughter Caroline kneeling next to her mother at the president's bier, and the extraordinary grace and dignity shown by Jacqueline Kennedy. As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of a senseless act and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy's life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address: All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days, nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. The Warren Commission On November 29, 1963 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. It came to be known as the Warren Commission after its chairman, Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States.

President Johnson directed the commission to evaluate matters relating to the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin, and to report its findings and conclusions to him. The Warren Commission's report is available here . The House Select Committee on Assassinations The US House of Representatives established the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976 to reopen the investigation of the assassination in light of allegations that previous inquiries had not received the full cooperation of federal agencies. Note to the reader: Point 1B in the link below to the findings of the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations states that the committee had found "a high probability that two gunmen fired" at the president. This conclusion resulted from the last-minute “discovery” of a Dallas police radio transmission tape that allegedly provided evidence that four or more shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. After the report appeared in print, acoustic experts analyzed the tape and proved conclusively that it was completely worthless—thus negating the finding in Point 1B. The committee, which also investigated the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., issued its report on March 29, 1979. To see the report, click here . Assassination Records Collection Through the President John F.

Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, the US Congress ordered that all assassination-related material be housed together under supervision of the National Archives and Records Administration. Learn more about the collection here . Arlington National Cemetery To learn more about President Kennedy's funeral and grave site, go to the Arlington National Cemetery website. John F. Kennedy assassinated - Nov 22, 1963 - HISTORY.com John F. Kennedy assassinated Publisher A+E Networks John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy rarely accompanied her husband on political outings, but she was beside him, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, for a 10-mile motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas on November 22. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally.

Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States at 2:39 p.m. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband’s blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington. The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that Monday, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy’s body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral.

Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave. Lee Harvey Oswald, born in New Orleans in 1939, joined the U.S. Marines in 1956. He was discharged in 1959 and nine days later left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. He worked in Minsk and married a Soviet woman and in 1962 was allowed to return to the United States with his wife and infant daughter. In early 1963, he bought a .38 revolver and rifle with a telescopic sight by mail order, and on April 10 in Dallas he allegedly shot at and missed former U.S. Army general Edwin Walker, a figure known for his extreme right-wing views. Later that month, Oswald went to New Orleans and founded a branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro organization. In September 1963, he went to Mexico City, where investigators allege that he attempted to secure a visa to travel to Cuba or return to the USSR.

In October, he returned to Dallas and took a job at the Texas School Book Depository Building. Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street near his rooming house in Dallas. Thirty minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater by police responding to reports of a suspect. He was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit. On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder. Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy.

In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found Ruby guilty of “murder with malice” and sentenced him to die. In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital. The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed. Related Videos John F.

Kennedy | whitehouse.gov Air Force One John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963), the youngest man elected to the office. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, becoming also the youngest President to die. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety. Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate.

He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President. His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." As President, he set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II; before his death, he laid plans for a massive assault on persisting pockets of privation and poverty. Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation. His vision of America extended to the quality of the national culture and the central role of the arts in a vital society.

He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the hard reality of the Communist challenge remained. Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy permitted a band of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro was a failure. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy replied by reinforcing the Berlin garrison and increasing the Nation's military strength, including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this reaction, Moscow, after the erection of the Berlin Wall, relaxed its pressure in central Europe. Instead, the Russians now sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail.

Kennedy now contended that both sides had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race--a contention which led to the test ban treaty of 1963. The months after the Cuban crisis showed significant progress toward his goal of "a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion." His administration thus saw the beginning of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world. The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. For more information about President Kennedy, please visit BBC ON THIS DAY | 22 | 1963: Kennedy shot dead in Dallas 1963: Kennedy shot dead in Dallas The President of the United States has been assassinated by a gunman in Dallas, Texas. John F Kennedy was hit in the head and throat when three shots were fired at his open-topped car. The presidential motorcade was travelling through the main business area of the city. Texas Governor John Connally was also seriously injured when one of the unknown sniper's bullets hit him in the back.

The men were accompanied by their wives, who were both uninjured. Vice-president Lyndon Johnson - who was following in a different car - has been sworn in as the new US leader. The presidential party was driving from Dallas airport to the city centre when witnesses said shots were fired from the window of a building overlooking the road. The president collapsed into Jackie Kennedy's arms, who was heard to cry "Oh no". Seconds later Governor Connally was also hit. Dallas Times Herald photographer Bob Jackson was in the motorcade close behind the Democrat leader's car and heard the shots as it entered Dealey Plaza. "As I looked up I saw a rifle being pulled back from a window - it might have been resting on the windowsill - I didn't see a man," he said. Mr Kennedy's limousine was driven at speed to Parklands Hospital immediately after the shooting. This is terrible - I cannot find words Senator Mike Mansfield The president was alive when he was admitted, but died at 1400 local time (1900 GMT) - 35 minutes after being shot.

Police and Secret Service agents stormed the School Book Depository building moments after the shots were fired and recovered a rifle with a telescopic sight, said to be the assassination weapon. The mood of shock in the US was echoed by Senator Mike Mansfield in an emergency forum of the senate. "This is terrible - I cannot find words," he said. President Kennedy is assassinated - Nov 22, 1963 - HISTORY.com President Kennedy is assassinated Publisher A+E Networks President John F. Kennedy is shot and killed as his motorcade drives through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy’s suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was believed to have used a mail-order rifle in order to shoot the president from the sixth story window of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was a former Marine with a record of bizarre behavior. In 1959, he defected to Russia after years of obsessive interest in communism. He spent three years there before becoming disaffected and returning to the United States in 1962. Upon his return, he became involved with several political fringe groups and developed an intense interest in Cuba and Fidel Castro.

On November 22, several people claimed to have seen Oswaldnear the sixth floor of theDepository, where he was employed. From the sixth floor window, atop cartons of books assembled to make a sniper’s perch, Oswald purportedly fired three shots, the last of which killed Kennedy as his motorcade passed by the building. A gun that was later located in the Depository had a palm print that matched Oswald’s. Forty-five minutes after the assassination, Oswald was seen hurrying through the Dallas streets by police officer J.D. Tippit, who identified him as matching the description of Kennedy’s killer. When Tippit attempted to apprehend him, Oswald shot him to death with a revolver and fled. In the early afternoon, police converged on the Texas Theater, where Oswald had been spotted. Inside, Oswald punched an approaching officer and withdrew a pistol. The gun misfired and other police officers grabbed him. “I am not resisting arrest,” Oswald cried as he was dragged out in front of an angry crowd of onlookers. “Don’t hit me anymore!

I want a lawyer!” In fact, Oswald would never require the services of an attorney because he was shot and killed by Dallas restaurant owner Jack Ruby as he was being transferred fromthe police station to the county jailtwo days later. Related Videos 5 things you might not know about JFK's assassination - CNN.com 5 things you might not know about JFK's assassination By Tricia Escobedo, CNN updated 9:35 AM EDT, Mon March 31, 2014 President John F. Kennedy greets supporters during his visit to Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. This year marks 51 years since his assassination in Dallas, an event that jarred the nation and fueled a multitude of conspiracy theories about whether Kennedy was killed by a single gunman acting alone in the Texas School Book Depository. Here are some images from that fateful day as it unfolded. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy at a breakfast held by the Chamber of Commerce in Fort Worth with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, left, and Kennedy. The Kennedys arrive at Love Field in Dallas on a trip to advance the upcoming 1964 campaign.

About 11:45 a.m., Texas Gov. John B. Connally Jr., waving to the crowd, and the Kennedys depart Love Field for a 10-mile tour of Dallas. The President asked about the weather earlier in the day and opted not to have a top on the limousine. The Kennedys and Connallys leave Love Field with Secret Service Agent Bill Greer driving the presidential limousine. The motorcade is on the way to the Trade Mart, where Kennedy is to speak at a sold-out luncheon. Crowds line the street as Kennedy's motorcade heads toward downtown Dallas. A group of White House staffers follows the motorcade in a bus several vehicles behind the presidential limousine. Dallas Police Officer Bobby Hargis, background, is one of four motorcycle officers assigned to Kennedy's car, which reaches Houston Street shortly before 12:30 p.m. "I thought, 'Well, we've got it made now,' " Hargis said. "And then bam! It happens." Kennedy is seen approximately one minute before he is shot.

Seen through the limousine's windshield as it proceeds along Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository, Kennedy appears to raise his hand toward his head after being shot. The first lady holds Kennedy's forearm in an effort to aid him. Kennedy slumps against his wife as the bullet strikes him in the head. Connally, who is wounded in the attack, begins to turn around just to the left of Jackie Kennedy. Kennedy slumps in the back seat of the car and his wife leans over to him as Secret Service Agent Clinton Hill rides on the back of the car. The limousine carrying the mortally wounded President races toward the hospital seconds after three shots are fired. Two bullets hit Kennedy and one hit Connally. Hill rides on the back of the car as the wives cover their stricken husbands. The limousine speeds along Elm Street toward the Stemmons Freeway overpass moments after shots are fired at Dealey Plaza. Photographers are seen running shortly after the shooting. Hurchel Jacks, Vice President Johnson's driver in the motorcade, listens with others to news accounts on the car radio outside the Parkland Hospital emergency entrance.

After the shots were fired, Jacks had rerouted the vice president's car to safety. The ABC radio network broadcast the first nationwide news bulletin reporting that shots have been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. Before 1 p.m., Dr. Tom Shires, with Parkland public relations director Steve Landregan, rear, describes the President's wounds to the press. Four doctors worked on the stricken Kennedy in the emergency room. American broadcast journalist and anchorman Walter Cronkite removes his glasses and prepares to announce Kennedy's death. CBS broadcast the first nationwide TV news bulletin reporting on the shooting. A photographer captures a New Yorker's expression of shock upon hearing the news. At 1 p.m. the 46-year-old President of the United States is declared dead, becoming the fourth U.S. president killed in office. After 2 p.m., Jacqueline Kennedy leaves Parkland Hospital with her slain husband's body. She would ride in the back with the bronze casket. "I had a feeling that if somebody had literally fired a pistol in front of her face that she would just have blinked," said Dallas Police Officer James Jennings, who helped put the casket in the hearse.

The hearse carrying Kennedy's body pulls away from Parkland Hospital en route to the airport. Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old ex-Marine, is arrested in the back of a movie theater where he fled after shooting Dallas Police Patrolman J.D. Tippit. That incident occurred approximately 45 minutes after the assassination. Vice President Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of office to become the 36th president of the United States. He is sworn in by U.S. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, left, with Jacqueline Kennedy by his side on Air Force One. The casket containing the body of President Kennedy is moved to a Navy ambulance from the presidential plane. Jacqueline Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy stand behind on the elevator. Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy get into the Navy ambulance with the president's body at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington. The body of the president is taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an immediate autopsy. Police mug shot of Lee Harvey Oswald. He is arraigned in the slaying of Officer Tippit on November 22 and/or the murder of the president the next day.

As Oswald is being transferred from the Dallas city jail to the county jail, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoots and kills him, an event captured live on TV. Ruby is arrested immediately. A man holds up a copy of the New York World-Telegram featuring the news of the assassination. Major television and radio networks devote continuous news coverage to the events of the day, canceling all entertainment and all commercials. Many theaters, stores and businesses, including stock exchanges and government offices, are closed. HIDE CAPTION November 22, 1963: Death of the President - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum November 22, 1963: Death of the President November 22, 1963: Death of the President Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. By the fall of 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign. Although he had not formally announced his candidacy, it was clear that President Kennedy was going to run and he seemed confident about his chances for re-election.

At the end of September, the president traveled west, speaking in nine different states in less than a week. The trip was meant to put a spotlight on natural resources and conservation efforts. But JFK also used it to sound out themes—such as education, national security, and world peace—for his run in 1964. Campaigning in Texas A month later, the president addressed Democratic gatherings in Boston and Philadelphia. Then, on November 12, he held the first important political planning session for the upcoming election year. At the meeting, JFK stressed the importance of winning Florida and Texas and talked about his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks. Mrs. Kennedy would accompany him on the swing through Texas, which would be her first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick, in August. On November 21, the president and first lady departed on Air Force One for the two-day, five-city tour of Texas. President Kennedy was aware that a feud among party leaders in Texas could jeopardize his chances of carrying the state in 1964, and one of his aims for the trip was to bring Democrats together.

He also knew that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt—particularly in Dallas, where US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after making a speech there. Nonetheless, JFK seemed to relish the prospect of leaving Washington, getting out among the people and into the political fray. The first stop was San Antonio. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John B. Connally, and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough led the welcoming party. They accompanied the president to Brooks Air Force Base for the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center. Continuing on to Houston, he addressed a Latin American citizens' organization and spoke at a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas before ending the day in Fort Worth. Morning in Fort Worth A light rain was falling on Friday morning, November 22, but a crowd of several thousand stood in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform was set up and the president, wearing no protection against the weather, came out to make some brief remarks.

"There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth," he began, "and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it." He went on to talk about the nation's need for being "second to none" in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and "the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership." The warmth of the audience response was palpable as the president reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces. Back inside the hotel the president spoke at a breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, focusing on military preparedness. "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." On to Dallas The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands.

The first lady received a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine. Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining, the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade. The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. The Assassination Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was also hit in the chest. The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m. John F.

Kennedy was pronounced dead. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover. The president's body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m. Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J. D. Tippit on a Dallas street. On Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Viewers across America watching the live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.

The President's Funer al That same day, President Kennedy's flag-draped casket was moved from the White House to the Capitol on a caisson drawn by six grey horses, accompanied by one riderless black horse. At Mrs. Kennedy's request, the cortege and other ceremonial details were modeled on the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Crowds line d Pennsylvania Avenue and many wept openly as the caisson passed. During the 21 hours that the president's body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, about 250,000 people filed by to pay their respects. On Monday, November 25, 1963 President Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. The funeral was attended by heads of state and representatives from more than 100 countries, with untold millions more watching on television. Afterward, at the grave site, Mrs. Kennedy and her husband's brothers, Robert and Edward, lit an eternal flame. Perhaps the most indelible images of the day were the salute to his father given by little John F. Kennedy Jr.

(whose third birthday it was), daughter Caroline kneeling next to her mother at the president's bier, and the extraordinary grace and dignity shown by Jacqueline Kennedy. As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of a senseless act and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy's life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address: All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days, nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. The Warren Commission On November 29, 1963 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. It came to be known as the Warren Commission after its chairman, Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States. President Johnson directed the commission to evaluate matters relating to the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin, and to report its findings and conclusions to him. The Warren Commission's report is available here .

The House Select Committee on Assassinations The US House of Representatives established the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976 to reopen the investigation of the assassination in light of allegations that previous inquiries had not received the full cooperation of federal agencies. Note to the reader: Point 1B in the link below to the findings of the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations states that the committee had found "a high probability that two gunmen fired" at the president. This conclusion resulted from the last-minute “discovery” of a Dallas police radio transmission tape that allegedly provided evidence that four or more shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. After the report appeared in print, acoustic experts analyzed the tape and proved conclusively that it was completely worthless—thus negating the finding in Point 1B. The committee, which also investigated the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., issued its report on March 29, 1979. To see the report, click here . Assassination Records Collection Through the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, the US Congress ordered that all assassination-related material be housed together under supervision of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Learn more about the collection here . Arlington National Cemetery To learn more about President Kennedy's funeral and grave site, go to the Arlington National Cemetery website. Extremists in Dallas created volatile atmosphere before JFK’s 1963 visit | Dallas Morning News October 12, 2013 11:49 PM CDT October 13, 2013 09:26 AM CDT Extremists in Dallas created volatile atmosphere before JFK’s 1963 visit Extremists in Dallas created volatile atmosphere before JFK’s 1963 visit 1/3 File/The Associated Press U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was struck on the head by a sign wielded by a woman protesting outside Memorial Auditorium in Dallas in October 1963, one month before President John F. Kennedy's assassination. 12 October 2013 11:49 PM Updated: 13 October 2013 09:26 AM The image of Dallas as a bulwark of right-wing extremism lodged in the American mind during the early 1960s. The reality was more complicated.

Most people, here as elsewhere, were more interested in orbiting astronauts, James Bond movies and Elvis than they were in attending meetings of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society. But complexity surrendered to the image when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. Dallas became known to the world as the city of hate, the city that killed Kennedy. The negative narrative had taken root three years earlier, when U.S. Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, visited Dallas shortly before the 1960 presidential election. Johnson was a moderate Democrat and by far the state’s most powerful politician. More important, he was JFK’s running mate. A gaggle of disagreeable Kennedy detractors, mostly well-dressed women, confronted the Johnsons upon their arrival at the Adolphus Hotel. They surrounded the startled couple on the street, screaming and spitting at them. The greeting party had been organized by U.S. Rep. Bruce Alger, an archconservative Dallas Republican and a supporter of Kennedy’s election opponent, Richard Nixon.

As the Johnsons were accosted, Alger stood nearby holding a sign that said, “LBJ Sold Out to Yankee Socialists.” The confrontation drew national attention. Conservatives in other cities voiced concerns about JFK. But in Dallas they screamed them with a venom that frightened many. “You could feel it in the air,” recalled historian Darwin Payne, who was a Dallas newspaper reporter in the early 1960s. “When I hear some people express hatred for [President Barack] Obama, it feels the same. But I never have felt we are on the verge of anything like the events I witnessed back then.” John Birch Society HQ In the 1950s and early ’60s, fear of communism and of nuclear war with the Soviet Union spread across America like a political flu. The John Birch Society designated Dallas a regional headquarters and opened a bookstore here. The society preached that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower — among many others — were willing dupes of the Communist Party. Robert Welch, the retired candy manufacturer who founded the John Birch Society, was convinced that communists controlled American labor unions, the leaders of the civil rights movement — and John F. Kennedy. Bill Minutaglio and Steven L.

Davis, authors of a new book, Dallas 1963, said extremists in Dallas didn’t just criticize Kennedy; they painted him as a traitor. “There was something in Dallas that seemed to be summoning people to a raw, hard-edged resistance to JFK,” said Minutaglio, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a former staff writer at The Dallas Morning News. “We believe it was a distinct minority, but pretty powerful at the top.” And none wielded more power than H.L. Hunt. The oil titan was reputed to be the richest man in America. He wasn’t shy about spending his money to advance his political beliefs. On Feb. 15, 1960, eight months before the assault on LBJ and Lady Bird outside the Adolphus, Hunt appeared at a downtown bookstore to autograph copies of his utopian novel, Alpaca. Despite the frosty weather, hundreds of Dallas residents lined up outside the bookstore. The book, a thinly veiled political manifesto, told the story of Juan Achala, a citizen of “Alpaca” who traveled the world in search of the perfect constitution for his small nation.

Hunt the novelist revealed that Hunt the oil baron had little use for the ideal of political equality. In his perfect world, the wealthiest citizens — those paying the most taxes — would be given extra votes. Political discussion would be prohibited on television and radio, and at any meeting of more than 200 people. This was to prevent demagogues from influencing the masses. The speech restrictions were odd, given that Hunt spent the previous decade using TV and radio to push his political views through Facts Forum, a propaganda outlet masquerading as a “public service” program. Hunt was baldly pro-business and anti-regulation. He despised communism, the United Nations and John F. Kennedy. As Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was pursing the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, Hunt secretly financed the printing of 200,000 copies of an anti-Catholic sermon by the Rev. W.A. Criswell, the influential pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas. Criswell argued that if a Catholic became president, the pope would dictate American policy. Clint Murchison, another prominent Dallas oil man, opposed Kennedy’s plans for expanded federal aid to the poor.

More important, Kennedy seemed sympathetic to rolling back the oil depletion allowance, a tax break that helped men like Hunt and Murchison grow even wealthier. Jane Wolfe, author of The Murchisons: The Rise and Fall of a Texas Dynasty, said Murchison and other Texas oil magnates were shocked when LBJ agreed to become JFK’s running mate. “Johnson had enormous clout in the Senate,” Wolfe wrote. “And much of this power was due to these Texas oilmen.” Extreme-right general One of the right-wing, anti-communist zealots drawn to Dallas in the early 1960s was U.S. Army Gen. Edwin Walker. A veteran of World War II and the Korean conflict, Walker resigned his Army commission in November 1961, after civilian superiors in Washington admonished him for pressing John Birch Society literature on his troops. Walker openly called prominent politicians “pink,” a term for those suspected of being communist sympathizers. He even embraced the John Birch Society’s view that Eisenhower, a World War II hero before becoming president, was a communist. Most people, of course, found that notion absurd. Nonetheless, the extreme right worshiped Walker as a super-patriot.

When he moved to Dallas in December 1961, Mayor Earle Cabell greeted him with a welcoming proclamation, presented before a crowd of 5,000 well-wishers. Within days, Walker began a campaign for governor of Texas, filing as a candidate in the Democratic primary. Dallas was his campaign headquarters. With the backing of H.L. Hunt, he ran as a states’ rights segregationist dedicated to exposing communists in every walk of life. In a primary field of six Democrats, he finished sixth. Walker, however, wasn’t nearly finished carving his name into Dallas’ political history. In a bizarre twist of history, Walker would become the victim of an assassination attempt April 10, 1963, seven months before Kennedy was killed. His would-be assassin? Lee Harvey Oswald, a troubled ex-Marine and self-described communist who had defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959 before returning to the United States and settling in Dallas in the summer of 1962.

After Oswald’s arrest in connection with the Kennedy assassination, his wife, Marina, testified that her husband told her he had taken a bus to Walker’s home on Turtle Creek Boulevard and, from outside the home, fired one rifle shot at the former general, who was seated at a desk and visible through a window. The bullet struck the window frame, and Walker sustained only minor injuries. Marina Oswald said her husband told her Walker was the leader of a “fascist organization.” She could offer no logical explanation for why Lee Oswald, an avowed leftist, would target the right-wing extremist Walker and the president, who was despised by so many on the far right. Attack on U.N. envoy At his home, Walker flew an American flag upside down — a symbol of distress. Later, he would plant a billboard in his yard calling for the impeachment of Earl Warren, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who was viewed by the far right as the evil architect of school integration and the outlawing of officially sanctioned prayers in the classroom. But those symbols were mere smudges on the national snapshot of Dallas, compared with the attack on U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson II on Oct.

24, 1963, a month before Kennedy’s assassination. The story goes like this: When Walker heard that Stevenson was coming to Dallas to deliver a speech at Memorial Auditorium commemorating U.N. Day, he scheduled a “U.S. Day” celebration one day earlier at the same downtown locale. Walker, speaking to 1,000 people, called his gathering a “symbol of our sovereignty,” then added: “Tomorrow night, there will stand here a symbol of the communist conspiracy and its United Nations.” During Stevenson’s U.N. Day address, a heckler stood up in the audience and began shouting into a bullhorn. He was later identified as a founder of the National Indignation Convention, another right-wing Dallas group that had supported Walker in his failed run for governor. Police escorted the heckler from the auditorium, but the trouble had just begun. After the speech, a hostile crowd of about 100 protesters surrounded the ambassador outside the auditorium. Many carried signs denouncing the U.N. — signs that had been stored at Walker’s home, according to Payne, the Dallas historian. Stevenson tried to reason with the protesters. Suddenly, one woman conked him on the head with her sign.

A man spat on him. After police broke through the crowd to rescue him, Stevenson was heard to say, “Are these human beings or are these animals?” Once again, the spotlight shone on Dallas. “A City Disgraced,” read the headline in Time magazine. The Dallas Morning News, in an editorial headlined “Our Apologies,” defended the ambassador’s right to deliver his speech and admonished demonstrators for their crude manners. The editorial ended with words that, read today, are chilling: “The President of the United States will be here in November. We trust he will be welcomed and accorded the respect and dignity that go with the office he represents.” Newspaper’s editorials In the early 1960s, the opinion pages of The Dallas Morning News reflected the anti-Kennedy views of the newspaper’s publisher, E.M. “Ted” Dealey. Day after day, editorials and opinion columns criticized the president. He was soft on communism. He was deceitful. He was expanding the reach of the federal government at the expense of individual liberty. One of the newspaper’s prominent columnists was Robert Morris. Like Walker, he had moved to Dallas in the early 1960s.

Morris made his reputation as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on internal security. Morris had been a close associate of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin Republican who became infamous for his witch hunts against imagined communists in the State Department, the Truman White House, the U.S. Army, even the Voice of America. In a ceremonial 1961 visit to the White House, Ted Dealey decided to let the president know just what he thought of him. The occasion was a luncheon for Texas publishers. When Kennedy asked them if they had any questions, Dealey rose. Reading from a prepared text, he told Kennedy, “The general opinion of the grassroots thinking in this country is that you and your administration are weak sisters.” It got worse. “We need a man on horseback to lead this nation,” Dealey said, “and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are riding Caroline’s tricycle.” The other publishers were aghast at the rude display. Kennedy kept his cool, but later expressed anger that Dealey had derided him with a reference to his 3-year-old daughter. On Nov.

22, 1963, The News greeted the first couple with a print version of “good cop, bad cop.” The newspaper’s lead editorial expressed hope that JFK’s visit to Dallas might help “Democrats, Republicans and Independents unite today in a genuineness of welcome and cordiality.” However, a full-page advertisement on Page 14, framed by a funereal black border, carried a sarcastic headline: “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas.” It asked a series of 12 biting questions, each starting with “WHY” in bold capital letters. “WHY has Gus Hall, head of the U.S. Communist Party praised almost every one of your policies and announced that the party will endorse and support your re-election?” “WHY have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favor of the ‘Spirit of Moscow?’” And so forth. The ad was signed by “The American Fact-Finding Committee,” which listed a “Bernard Weissman” as its chairman. But these were fronts. Warren Commission investigators later determined that Joseph P.

Grinnan, an oil broker and local leader of the John Birch Society, had paid for the ad with “around $1,500” donated by three men: H. R. “Bum” Bright, an oil man who later became owner of the Dallas Cowboys; Nelson Bunker Hunt, a son of H.L. Hunt; and Edgar Crissey, an insurance company executive. Ted Dealey acknowledged approving the ad in advance because it lined up with the editorial opinions of The News. Stanley Marcus, the head of Neiman Marcus and a Kennedy supporter, reflecting on those times, later said: “The News, in my opinion, was almost single-handedly responsible for the prevailing state of mind in Dallas at the time of the assassination.” Police chief’s fears The news that JFK would visit Dallas broke on Sept. 25, 1963. The attack on Stevenson came a month later. Civic leaders and Dallas police were determined to prevent anything similar from happening when the president and the first lady were in town. The city had been embarrassed enough.

“As the tension mounted, the small and violent minority were in danger of upsetting the stability of the entire city,” Jesse Curry, the police chief at the time of the assassination, wrote in a 1969 memoir. Curry was riding in the presidential motorcade on Nov. 22. Cheering crowds lined the route between Love Field and downtown. People waved and strained to catch a glimpse of the president and his wife in their big Lincoln limousine. The atmosphere contradicted the image of Dallas as a city that hated the president. “The people of Dallas had turned out in overwhelming numbers and had given the President a vibrant and warm welcome,” Curry recalled. “For a brief moment, I almost started to relax.” COMMEMORATING JFK Nov. 2 symposium Tickets are on sale for the Nov. 2 symposium, “Understanding Tragedy: The Impact of the JFK Assassination on Dallas,” presented by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture in partnership withThe Dallas Morning News and other organizations. The symposium will take place from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

at The South Side Ballroom in Dallas and will feature more than a dozen high-profile speakers, including Jim Lehrer, Stephen Carter, Nikky Finney, Richard Rodriguez and Lawrence Wright. The event will explore how President John F. Kennedy’s death affected Dallas from four perspectives: Journalism, Politics, Art & the Humanities, and Religion. Tickets range from $25 to $300 and are available at . More information is also available at JFK50.com. editor picks by L. Fletcher Prouty On Nov 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson became President of the United States of America. On that same date, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. On Nov 26, 1963, President Johnson signed a National Security Action Memorandum #273, the highest level national security document, as guidance for future Vietnam plans and policy. This brief directive most significantly initiated changes reversing Kennedy's Vietnam policy of NSAM #263, Oct 11, 1963. Kennedy had decreed then that "the bulk of U.S.

personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965." Strangely, this NSAM #273, which began the change in Kennedy's policy toward Vietnam, was drafted on Nov 21, 1963...the day before Kennedy died. It was not Kennedy's policy. He would not have requested it, and would not have signed it. Why would it have been drafted for his signature on the day before he died; and why would it have been given to Johnson so quickly? Johnson had not asked for it. On Nov 21, 1963 Johnson had no expectation whatsoever of being President on Nov 26th. On Nov 29, 1963, President Johnson met with J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, to discuss the list of names compiled for the commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These men were: Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mi; Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La; Sen. Richard B. Russell, D-Ga.; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky.; John J.

McCloy, New York banker; Allen W. Dulles, formerly Director of Central Intelligence, Sen. Jacob Javits, D-NY; and General Lauris Norstad, U.S. Air Force. All were approved to serve on the Commission, except the last two, who for reasons unknown did not serve with that body. Johnson and Hoover were old friends who had lived across the street from each other in Washington for the past 19 years. They understood each other. They needed each other. As recorded in a Memorandum for the Record, written by Hoover on that date and copied for eight of his senior FBI deputies, Lyndon Johnson, who had been in the third car behind Kennedy in the Dallas motorcade, took advantage of this first White House meeting to ask his old friend some personal questions that had caused him great concern since the assassination. He asked, "How many shots were fired?" Hoover told him, "Three." Then Johnson asked, if any had been fired at him? Hoover replied, "No, three shots were fired at the President and we have them. The President was hit by the first and third bullets and the second hit the Governor (Connally)." (This statement was wrong, e.g.

one stray bullet hit a curbstone one and one - half blocks away and a fragment wounded a bystander. That bullet was a missed shot: therefore it was either number four, or the cause of the contrived theory about the "Magic" bullet that allegedly hit both men.) This discussion, between the two old friends, which took place on Nov 29, 1963 one week after President Kennedy's assassination, Most important. It reveals the deep concern of President Johnson. He heard bullets pass over-head. He never forgot that sound and its significance. He had been educated at Dealey Plaza. In early June 1971, a few days after the Pentagon Papers appeared in The New York Times, Leo Janos, formerly of the Johnson white House staff, attended a luncheon in the private dining room of the Johnson Library with the ailing ex-President and other friends. As Janos reported later, in the ATLANTIC Monthly Magazine of July 1973: "During coffee, the talk turned to President Kennedy, and Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy.

Be never believed that Oswald acted alone, although he could accept that he pulled a trigger." Johnson followed that with a statement that had the megaton force of a full size hydrogen bomb. He said, and Janos wrote: "We had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean." That was June of 1971. Lyndon Johnson died in January 1973, and this Janos article appeared in July 1973. Since that date, with those words of, (1) the man who had established the Warren Commission itself, (2) the man who was in the motorcade behind Kennedy, and (3) the man who, as President, became privy to the darkest secrets of the government, ...it should have become clear to everyone by now that Kennedy was killed as a result of a massive conspiracy by a team of professional killers following a consensual decision from the highest levels of power in the country, perhaps in the more modern sense...in the world.

Clearly, by late 1963, the decision had been made that: "Kennedy had to be deprived of re-election." "Kennedy had to go." "A Kennedy dynasty had to be thwarted." The fact of conspiracy, underscored by President Johnson himself, makes it clear that the Report of the Warren Commission, which maintains that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, with one "mail order" rifle and three bullets killed John F. Kennedy and severely wounded Governor John B. Connally at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, is totally false and contrived. The Report of the Warren Commission has been used to provide the life blood of a massive cover-story that has been kept alive for decades to brainwash generations of Americans and others around the world. It perpetuates the American coup d'etat. A case can be made for no conspiracy, when it can be proved that one man acted alone. As soon as more than one man is involved, the senseless act of a "lone nut" can no longer be used. A conspiracy is evidence of malice and of an evil plan to obtain an objective. This is the great significance of Johnson's statements. He confirms the conspiracy.

These points are topped by his belief that "We had been operating a dammed Murder Inc." This fact defines the nature of the crime. Note Johnson's choice of words. "We had been operating�" The "We" has to mean the United States Government, or at least an agency or instrumentality of the government. Further, Johnson underscores that "We had been operating" this murder capability over time. He does not limit its work to a single event, i.e. the Kennedy murder. He remembers back through the years to the close of the WW II, at least, to the uncounted times when enemies of the government had been killed by this "Murder Inc." quickly, cleanly and with precision...and without their apprehension and prosecution by anyone. This is the nature of a government sponsored "Hit Man" professional operation. Johnson chose the Mafia term "Murder Inc." to describe what he meant. This choice of words has great significance. Teams of professional "hit men" are recruited, trained, equipped and provided with a complex of "real life" identities, by this government, in order that they may live this strange existence as normal individuals. They are always available for these special duties any where and against any target.

They are skilled automatons who are set in motion by a code system that does not require the identities of those who have made the "Decision." Johnson goes one step further. He calls this unit "Murder Inc." As we know, a corporate body is eternal, if desired. These murder teams belong to an organization that is, in a special sense, timeless. Such murders are not arranged and carried out on an "ad hoc" basis. These teams are always ready. With the above in mind, let me go a step farther. I don't know whether or not you saw the Oliver Stone film "JFK." I don't know what you thought about it, if you did. I do know that for the tens of millions around the world who did see the movie, that "Man X - Garrison" scene on the Mall, near the Vietnam Memorial, was the climax, the awakening. Those audiences in those packed theaters began to see, and to believe that the lies and mythology they had been spoon-fed for decades by the government's Report of the Warren Commission, and by our subservient media was, and still is, false. With this in mind, it is time to face reality.

What caught their attention was the simple question, "Why?...Why was President John F. Kennedy killed? To understand the reasons why this decision had been made, we need to take a penetrating look at the Kennedy era. So much has taken place since then. So much has happened to each one of us since then. We don't remember the details. We have been misled by the media and by a flood of books that are not true history. Perhaps, we just never knew. At the time Kennedy was elected, Nov 1960, I was an Air Force Colonel assigned to the immediate office of the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Gates. I had been in the Pentagon for six consecutive years. All had been spent as Chief of Special Operations that, in military terminology, meant, "The support of the clandestine operations of the CIA." I was with Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, 1955-1960, the Secretary of Defense, 1960-1962 and with the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1962-1963.

The Eisenhower period, 1953-1960, was one of prosperity and featured the build-up of the massive military industrial complex as one of the greatest concentrations of raw power and enormous wealth in the history of the world. We should all know Eisenhower's "Farewell Address" of January 17, 1961, wherein he documented the concentration of power in the Military-Industrial complex: "The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government. In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted..." Like Lyndon Johnson, General Eisenhower was a man who knew. He was telling the American public about things the way they are. The United States had been involved, covertly, in the warfare in Southeast Asia since September 1945.

We had been involved in Korea since 1945 and in warfare there during the early fifties. By the end of the eight-year Eisenhower era the great powers within and outside the federal government had arranged for the certain transfer of leadership from Eisenhower to Richard Nixon. They had miscalculated. Everything had been prepared for an uninterrupted transfer of that great power to the Nixon era. This "Power Elite" was so certain of electoral success that major programs such as the make-war Vietnamese operations, the TFX fighter plane procurement project (at an estimated $6.5 billion it was the largest aircraft procurement project ever devised) and many projects of a similar nature were poised to come into fruition early in the planned Nixon period in order to continue the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to those industries. Clandestine operations that are employed to create "make-war" situations wherever planned had increased in size and frequency during the last years of the Eisenhower terms under the direction of John Foster Dulles, the Sec. of State and his brother Allen the Director of Central Intelligence.

At the time of the election, there was the "on-the-shelf" Cuban/Castro matter, there was the Chinese encroachment in Tibet with the impending threat to India, there was active trouble in Laos and Vietnam, and the biggest of them all, the rebellion in Indonesia that had failed in 1958 (in which a Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald had been involved) lay in waiting for another flare-up at the proper time. These plans, worth hundreds of billions of dollars in military expenditures were set. They had been prepared for a pliant Nixon, and the experienced administration he planned to inherit. Then came the campaign of 1960. Up from no where came this impossibly youthful, Democratic, Catholic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy. Yet when the 66,000,000 ballots had been counted, Kennedy had won by a margin of less than 1/2 of one percent. As an old-timer in the Pentagon, I sensed the disappointment and the fury of the incumbents. It happened that on the day before the Kennedy inauguration, while Washington was being blanketed by a raging blizzard, I was directed to go to Secretary Gates' office just before 5 P.M.

with a last minute item involving the Cuban Exile Training Program (the Bay of Pigs "ZAPATA" project). My office was a few doors down the hall. I arrived at Mr. Gates' office around five to find an enormous crowd of "well wishers" flooding his office to say "good-bye." His outer office and the corridor were jammed. His secretary smiled as I mentioned my appointment, looked at the huge crowd in the Secretary's office, and pointed to the door of the deputy's office. He was alone. I walked in to find an old friend Jim Douglas. I had been through countless meetings with him over the past years. He smiled as I came in, rose from his desk and leaned against the window sill looking toward me. Over his shoulders I could barely see the city of Washington through the swirling snowflakes. Within a few minutes I had covered the subject of my business: and then asked permission to add a question. He smiled. I said, "Mr. Douglas, ever since the Cuban exile program began earlier this year ~ have briefed you, or Mr. Gates day to day.

Tomorrow when I come in with a similar briefing, may I expect that the new Kennedy men will have been made aware of this subject, or do I have to read them into the program?" Mr. Douglas turned slowly and looked toward the Potomac River and the White House obscured by snow, then turned to me and said, "Prouty, I'll be damned if know. We haven't met the bastards." This may have been no more than an emotional response. I expect it was true. It accurately reflected the feelings of the long term Eisenhower loyalists who were being removed from their offices by the new Kennedy up-starts...the "Whiz Kids." Both sides had no desire to meet. Such feelings give birth to pressures at the highest levels that smoldered into flame as the years rolled by. Shortly after Kennedy took office, the Bay of Pigs program became a disaster. At the same time he was faced with a major decision concerning Vietnam, and, following a lengthy and detailed Bay of Pigs investigation by the Cuban Study Group, Kennedy signed one of the most significant policy directives of his 1,000 day tenure. Yet, it is surprising how few people know about it and how little has been written about it.

How little it is known. We have all heard that Kennedy had vowed to break the CIA into 1,000 pieces. But how many have ever heard how he planned to do it, and what policy he had established to achieve that goal? In brief, on June 28, 1961, President Kennedy himself signed National Security Action Memorandum #55. This important order was directed solely to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff who at that time was General Lyman Lemnitzer. Its subject, clearly stated, was "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations." In layman's terminology "Cold War Operations" meant "Clandestine Operations." Kennedy opened that directive with memorable words: "I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in Cold War Operations: a) I regard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military advisor responsible both for initiating advice to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their advice to come to me direct and unfiltered.

b) The Joint Chiefs of Staff have a responsibility for the defense of the notion in the Cold War similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities..." I was the officer instructed to staff this paper, and two others, MSAM 156 and #57; and to brief the Chairman and the Chiefs at their next meeting. First they were surprised to discover that : this order had been addressed directly to them and was signed by the President. It had not come through the Secretary of Defense, and had not been sent to other top-level addressees such as the Secretary of State and the Director of Central Intelligence. This procedure was rare, and meaningful. Next, they were amazed to hear that the limits of their lawful function were being broadened to include "Cold War Operations." Needless to say these policy statements created a great discussion, and then were sealed in TOP SECRET files for further analysis and study. Interpreted as the President intended, this policy, if carried to its conclusion and not interrupted by his death, would have brought about an enormous change in the way the Vietnam situation, that from 1945 to 1963, had been under "operational control" of the CIA, would have been pursued.

Without question this new policy was the major stepping stone on the way to Kennedy's promise that "the bulk of all U.S. personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965." This blunt statement of the Kennedy policy may well have been the ultimate pressure point that created the climate in which the decision was reached to do away with the President. Another example highlights how his changes impacted on the military industrial complex where they were the most sensitive. During the last years of the Eisenhower era, the Air Force and Navy were deep in plans for new fighter aircraft. The Air Force proposal was for a swing-wing fighter designated the TFX. The processing of this procurement program had been all but completed during 1960; but the budget people bowed to Eisenhower's request to stay within the scope of his budget. They moved the project into the expected Nixon term. Everyone concerned knew that this project was a natural for the Boeing Company and that it would begin at a 44 billion figure and rise from there. The TFX was on the threshold, along with Castro and Vietnam as the election came . But...Kennedy won.

McNamara entered the office of the Secretary of Defense and Arthur Goldberg, a brilliant political strategist, became the Secretary of Labor. Between them they came up with a procurement philosophy that would allocate that enormous sum offer money in procurement to areas that were the most sensitive on the political map a. determined by the Labor Dept'. voting patterns. McNamara announced a new round of studies and the bidders wore signaled that their production projects and sub-contractors physical plant locations should be spread over the most desirable array of county voting districts. Finally, in November 1962, after delaying for nearly two years, ~ McNamara announced the TFX award, which by that time included the Navy and its funding, to the General Dynamics-Grumman team of bidders. Their proposal had been structured to approximate the Goldberg plan. The shock of that award, for the reasons mentioned, was terrific. The TFX battle wan fought in Congress well into 1963. This gambit, along with other changes brought about during the Kennedy, years, created the kind of opposition that is beyond control.

Increasingly, in the Clubs and Boardrooms of the wealthy, the powerful, the munitions makers...augmented by their bankers and their lawyers, voices began to rise as they mentioned that "God Damned" Kennedy, and worse. In the halls of the Pentagon, in the CIA and other centrally effected areas tensions rose. Finally a consensus coalesced and from that impersonal initiative a decision was reached. Those few, who knew the methodology and the codes that activated what Lyndon Johnson called "Murder Inc." pushed the button. The deadly system was set in motion. Like the deadly Ghurka scimitar, it is never extracted from its sheath without drawing blood. The time and place was decided. The intricate and detailed cover story was outlined and made ready, not only for the day of the crime; but for the years to follow. The site was selected and prepared. The professional team moved into place. The elements of the plan went into effect, the carefully manipulated motorcade moved into position, and the shots were fired.

The news media, interrupted ongoing programs to announce: "President Kennedy has been shot dead, gunned down during drive through Dallas." "Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard." (Except for these first moments, this type of gunfire was never repeated. ) "Secret Service men immediately unslung their automatic weapons and pistols." (Also an incorrect statement. ) These same words were flashed around the world. The Thousand Days of the Kennedy era had come to an end. The great American coup d'etat had taken place. It was November 22, 1963.

Question: In which city was US president John F Kennedy assassinated on 22 November 1963?
Answer: Dallas, Texas