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. JFK Assassination: 50 Years Later – In Dealey Plaza, It Is Always Nov. 22, 1963 JFK Assassination: 50 Years Later – In Dealey Plaza, It Is Always Nov. 22, 1963 Analysis 11/01/13 AT 3:27 PM Close Prof. Josiah Thompson, an assassination researcher and author of “Six Seconds In Dallas,” said it best when he summarized the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy: “A president of the United States is shot down, at high noon, in a public square, with some 400 or 500 people looking on, with maybe at least 38 of them taking film and photos, and now over 40 years later, uh … we don’t know what happened,” Thompson said, in the 2007 documentary film “Oswald’s Ghost.” In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on Nov. 22, 1963, when he assassinated President John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, and the only Roman Catholic elected to the office. [[nid:1451588]] The commission said that at about 12:30 p.m. Central Time, Oswald fired three shots from behind the presidential motorcade on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The commission concluded the following: One shot struck Kennedy in the neck, exited through his throat and then hit Texas Gov.

John Connally, creating five wounds in Connally’s body. A shot after the aforementioned one struck Kennedy in the rear portion of his head, killing him. Another shot missed the motorcade, ricocheted and injured bystander James Tague in the cheek, 200 feet west of the motorcade at the Stemmons Freeway Overpass; the commission did not specify whether the missed shot was the first or third shot. Who Is Correct? However, rather than close the JFK assassination case, the Warren Commission’s work and conclusions did just the opposite. Questions about the commission’s failure to interview some Dealey Plaza witnesses; review the discrepancies between the conclusions of the Parkland Hospital physicians’ examination and the Bethesda [Maryland] Naval Hospital’s autopsy photos; investigate the destruction of the presidential limousine, a vital piece of forensic evidence; evaluate the Dallas Police Department’s interrogation of Oswald; and other concerns, have led many assassination researchers to reject the Warren Commission’s conclusions, either in whole or in part, and argue that more than one person fired gunshots at President Kennedy that day as part of a conspiracy. Lone-gunman supporters maintain that not enough hard evidence exists to undermine the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald acted alone.

Most assassination researchers argue that the hard evidence exists, and that the government lacks 100 percent transparency on the issue. As a result, they are seeking the full disclosure of all government records in the case. Who is correct? Of course, what you choose to believe is up to you, but consider this: For any argument to be valid for the events in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, it has to answer a lot of questions, including dozens of anomalies. Here are six anomalies, ranked from least to most important: The Anomalies 6) George de Mohrenschildt Befriends Lee Harvey Oswald Of all the anomalies in the assassination of President Kennedy -- and there are many anomalies in regard to the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald acted alone -- the friendship between George de Mohrenschildt and Lee Harvey Oswald is a glaring one, if not the most egregious. De Mohrenschildt, then age 52, was a conservative, sophisticated White Russian émigré and petroleum geologist/professor who settled in Dallas and established many contacts in the city’s oil, business and conservative circles, including the very conservative Texas Crusade for Freedom.

In 1957, De Mohrenschildt had been de-briefed by the Central Intelligence Agency after traveling to Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department, a trip that had been sponsored by the International Cooperation Administration. During the trip, de Mohrenschildt had been accused by Yugoslav authorities of making drawings of military installations and fortifications. Upon returning to the U.S., the CIA debriefed him, both in Washington, D.C., and in Dallas. De Mohrenschildt, in a summary: He was a conservative, accomplished, oil sector-based, Russian émigré who had at least one interaction with the U.S. intelligence community. In the summer of 1962, after Oswald and his wife, Marina, moved to Dallas, de Mohrenschildt and his wife, Jeanne, befriended the couple, introduced them to the Russian community in Dallas and gave Lee assistance with his Dallas-area job search. Lee had previously been employed in Fort Worth, Texas.

The anomaly is glaring: De Mohrenschildt -- why would a conservative, business-oriented, sophisticated geologist in Texas’s prime oil sector, who was active in right-wing political circles, strike up a friendship with a pro-communist, non-middle-class, malcontent outsider earning slightly more than the minimum wage? And why would this occur in the conservative, freedom-rabid, commerce-oriented hotbed that was Dallas in the early 1960s? From one perspective, the de Mohrenschildt / Oswald relationship symbolizes the essence of the United States, a place where friendships can form regardless of politics, social status or income level. Similarly, the pair’s friendship can also be seen as an example of “opposites attract.” From another perspective, the notion that de Mohrenschildt -- a conservative -- would befriend Oswald -- a Marxist drifter and malcontent -- is a contradiction: There is something about their lives intersecting that suggests de Mohrenschildt was not just trying to help Lee and Marina integrate into Dallas’ Russian community.

In Dallas, a very class-based city in the early 1960s (as it still is today), it’s highly unlikely that a conservative, sophisticated White Russian would welcome with open arms Marina, whom he knew nothing about, nor Lee -- an inconsequential, low-income, low-social-status loner. To use a Facebook/social media analogy, given their differences, Lee Harvey Oswald was probably the least likely person George de Mohrenschildt would have listed as a “friend” on his Facebook page. The anomaly suggests that the interactions between de Mohrenschildt and Lee Harvey Oswald were more substantive; that those interactions dealt with an aspect of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life other than finding a job; or a combination of both. There had to be a reason the accomplished de Mohrenschildt associated with the low-achieving Oswald. 5) Oswald Didn’t Fire When The Presidential Motorcade Was Close Oswald, the alleged sixth floor sniper in the Texas School Book Depository’s east window, didn’t fire the rifle when the motorcade was close.

He waited, the Warren Commission concluded, and instead of firing when the president was at point-blank range just before and just after the presidential limousine turned onto Elm Street from Houston Street -- roughly 60 feet away, unobstructed by trees -- he withheld his first shot until the president was more than 100 feet away. To repeat: Oswald had a clear, close, point-blank opportunity to shoot at the presidential limousine just before -- as it approached Elm Street -- and just after it turned from Houston Street on to Elm Street -- a more than 90-degree turn that left the president, seated in his limousine’s right rear seat, totally exposed, but he didn’t fire. How many assassins give up an easier, clearer, close shot for a much harder, and longer, shot? It doesn’t make sense – that is, if Oswald was the only shooter. Waiting did make sense, however, if the goal was the triangulation of fire. After the first rifle shot, the motorcade was more likely -- but not guaranteed -- to immediately speed away to a presumed safer location.

Hence, to ensure the maximum probability of killing the target, the initial shot would have had to have been delayed until the spot where two, three … even four gunmen from different angles could site and kill the target. And the reason triangulation makes it more likely to kill the target is obvious enough: Assuming a motorcade sped away after a first rifle shot, a target strike is more likely with three or more shooters firing at a target, as opposed to just one shooter. If the target can be killed in several spots within a zone by triangulated shooters, it’s called a kill zone. The first rifle shot occurred when the motorcade was on Elm Street, where the triangulation of fire potential was very strong: It was at the beginning of the kill zone. 4) Texas Gov. John Connally Never Heard The Shot That Injured Him Three spent cartridges -- or bullet shells -- were found in the Texas School Book Depository’s sixth floor east corner window area that the Warren Commission concluded was the sniper’s nest. The commission concluded Oswald fired three gunshots from a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which was purchased by Oswald, and which he brought to work at the TSBD that Friday.

Most Kennedy assassination researchers, but not the Warren Commission, concluded that the first shot missed the presidential motorcade (but it ricocheted and injured spectator James Tague); the second shot struck Kennedy, passed through the president’s neck and throat and also struck Texas Gov. John Connally, seated in front of him, injuring the governor in five places; the third shot struck the president in the head, killing him. In the interpretation of the commission, the three spent cartridges from the rifle, located within 10 feet of the window where the shots were fired, represented hard evidence that the shots came from the TSBD’s sixth floor and from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano. Three cartridges found: from one perspective, it’s strong evidence. Three rifle shots were fired, three shells from a rifle used that day were found, and the trajectory of the bullets, the commission concluded, fit with angle of attack in the assassination. From another perspective, the three cartridges found look like an anomaly -- too neat -- like they were planted there.

However, the biggest reason the shells are an anomaly is that although Connally reacted to a first rifle shot as the motorcade was near the beginning of Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Connally said he never heard the shot that hit him as the motorcade was in the middle of Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. (Source: Warren Commission testimony by Gov. Connally.) That’s an anomaly of the most egregious sort because it was impossible for Connally not to hear and react to the gunshot that hit him. Connally, like Kennedy, was less than 300 feet away when the rifle shots were fired, traveling in an open-top limousine, which means he would have heard the bullet’s shock wave (130 decibels) or muzzle blast (115-135 decibels), according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations’ calculation of the decibel levels for the rifle shots. Rifle shots at those decibel levels would have been heard above any car/motorcycle engine and crowd noise. But if Connally’s recollection that he never heard the shot that injured him is accurate, that suggests at least one shot was fired with a gun that used a suppresser/silencer.

And because the Warren Commission’s conclusion does not allow for “unheard shots,” but only for shots that were heard, that suggests there was a second gunman during the attack. That anomaly -- the failure to react to a loud noise when the Warren Commission concluded a rifle was fired -- technically, in ballistics/acoustics it's called an involuntary startle reaction -- is significant, according to assassination researcher Bob Harris. Connally’s statement that he never heard the shot that hit him suggests, contrary to the Warren Commission, that something in addition to a rifle shot occurred at the outset of the attack -- suggesting that at least one shot was fired by another shooter with a silencer-enhanced gun. Moreover, although it's physically possible for the Texas School Book Depository sniper to have fired a silencer-enhanced gun after the first rifle shot, no such silencer gun or silencer apparatus was found on the sixth floor by investigators. 3) Authorities Arrested Oswald In About 90 Minutes In about 90 minutes -- not, say, three days, the amount of time it took authorities to identify the April 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist bombing suspects -- the police already knew who did it.

In 90 minutes they arrested Oswald in the Texas Theatre in Dallas. Ninety minutes. The president of the United States is gunned down in broad daylight in a public square and 90 minutes later the authorities have their suspect. Ninety minutes -- that’s less time than it takes to see a typical American movie. Further, although Oswald did work in the Texas School Book Depository, his arrest occurred despite these facts: - Not one witness in Dealey Plaza or in the TSBD could accurately identify Oswald as the man in the sixth floor’s east corner window with a rifle. A man was seen in the sixth floor’s east corner window with a rifle, but not one witness could specifically attest that it was Oswald. - Not one witness could confirm that Oswald was on the sixth floor at 12:30 p.m. - Despite the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald left the sixth floor of the TSBD immediately after the 12:30 p.m. shooting and descended the stairs to reach a second floor room, TSBD employee Victoria Adams, "the girl on the stairs,” said she never saw Oswald when she descended the stairs at the same time.

The Warren Commission also concluded that Oswald reached the second floor room in 90 seconds after firing the final rifle shot, where he was spotted by a witness. - Not one witness who was not exposed to Oswald’s picture on a television news report was able to identify him as the man in the TSBD’s sixth floor east corner window with a rifle. From one perspective, Oswald’s presence in the TSBD and the fact he left the building is very relevant, if not hard evidence. From another perspective, the fact that no witnesses could accurately identify Oswald as the man with a rifle in the sixth floor’s east corner window, along with the fact that none could confirm that Oswald was on the sixth floor at 12:30 p.m. or even confirm that Oswald descended the stairs immediately after the shooting to reach the second floor, as the Warren Commission concluded – together, these facts comprise an anomaly. There was a man in the sixth floor’s east corner window at 12:30 p.m., but to-date there’s no hard, incontrovertible evidence that it was Oswald, and if it wasn’t, it suggests someone else may have been there. 2) After An Earlier Arrest In April 1963, Who Did Oswald Call?

After being arrested for an incident involving the Fair Play For Cuba Committee in April 1963 -- anti-Fidel Castro demonstrators had interfered with Oswald’s handing out pro-Castro leaflets in New Orleans -- Oswald was arrested and placed in jail. After being jailed, Oswald was allowed to make a phone call. Who did he call? His wife, Marina Oswald? His lawyer? No. He called none of them. Instead, he called a specific person at the FBI. The anomaly here is obvious: How many arrested individuals placed in jail would, with their free call from jail, call the Federal Bureau of Investigation? From one perspective, Oswald’s arrest amid an altercation at a pro-Castro leaflet distribution event that he led is another sign of his pro-communist beliefs. From another perspective, Oswald’s decision to call the FBI from a New Orleans jail is an anomaly of the very worst sort. Why would Lee Harvey Oswald call the FBI from jail? Did Oswald have prior contact and/or a relationship with the FBI that the Warren Commission did not thoroughly investigate or reveal in its report? 1) Two Days After Kennedy Is Killed, Jack Ruby Kills Oswald Two days after Oswald was arrested, on Sunday, Nov.

24, 1963, at 11:21 a.m. Central Time, Jacob Rubenstein, known as Jack Ruby , a Dallas nightclub/strip club operator and a person who had a significant number of direct/indirect contacts with underworld figures, broke past police lines and shot Oswald in the abdomen with a .38 revolver as Oswald was being transferred from Dallas police headquarters to a county jail. Oswald was pronounced dead from the gunshot wound about an hour later at Parkland Hospital, the same hospital that attempted to save President Kennedy’s life two days earlier. Known as “Sparky” for his impulsive behavior and violent outbursts, after his arrest, Ruby said his murder of Oswald would spare, “[President Kennedy’s wife Jacqueline] Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial” and that his act helped the city of Dallas “redeem” itself in the eyes of the public. Again, the anomaly here is obvious, and it’s even more conspicuous when one considers the Warren Commission’s subsequent action.

From one perspective, the murder of Oswald by Ruby, a person with a history of violent outbursts and physical altercations with various individuals (club patrons, strippers) at his Dallas nightclub / strip club, the Carousel Club, is just another violent act by a man prone to them, and to erratic, unpredictable, impulsive behavior. From another perspective, Ruby’s originally stated motive for the murder is an anomaly: Ruby’s murder was not spontaneous, but involved some premeditation. (Ruby’s association with many Dallas police officers -- some of whom visited Ruby’s nightclub / strip club -- meant that he could slip through police lines without drawing their concern or their knowing about his intentions.) And Ruby’s underworld ties suggest that he was told by some person or organization to murder Oswald / see that he was killed, in a classic witness elimination act of a person who was a ‘loose end’ in a conspiracy. Ruby’s elimination of Oswald suggests Oswald knew information that others did not want publicized. Moreover, Ruby’s initial statement that he murdered Oswald because he was “morally” distressed by Oswald’s alleged killing of President Kennedy strains credulity, to say the least.

Ruby’s decades-long involvement with organized crime figures and management of strippers is hard to reconcile with a personal sense of morality. Further, Ruby certainly later wanted to tell the Warren Commission more. Ruby asked Commission Chairman / U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren several times to take him to Washington, D.C., saying his life was in danger in Dallas and that he wanted to tell the truth. The Warren Commission refused to bring Ruby to Washington, D.C. to testify. Anomalies Require The Making Public Of More Classified Documents -The conservative, accomplished George de Mohrenschildt befriends the communist-favoring, blue collar Lee Harvey Oswald. -Oswald didn’t fire when the presidential motorcade was close. -Three spent cartridges from rifle shots were found in the Texas School Book Depository’s sixth floor east corner window, to account for three shots fired, but Texas Gov. John Connally didn’t hear the shot that hit him, despite the fact that the bullet’s muzzle blast would have been about 130 decibels unmuzzled and the shockwave 115-135 decibels. -Authorities arrested Lee Harvey Oswald in about 90 minutes.

-After an earlier arrest in April 1963, Oswald’s first phone call from jail was to the FBI. -Two days after President Kennedy is killed, Jack Ruby kills Oswald. The Warren Commission concluded that the disgruntled, low-achieving, communist-favoring Oswald, a member of the social fringe, acted on his own, firing three shots with a rifle and murdered President John F. Kennedy to achieve historical significance and notoriety. But the aforementioned anomalies contradict that conclusion. Further, the anomalies described here and others suggest Oswald was not the person portrayed by the Warren Commission. For the above reasons, and others, the case of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy cannot be considered closed, and much more information, including all JFK assassination documents -- as well as all documents on Lee Harvey Oswald -- must be released and made public, un-redacted. These documents must include the making public of a handful of long-suppressed CIA records related to the assassination of President Kennedy: These CIA records are not scheduled to be released until 2017 at the earliest, and perhaps not even then, according to the Mary Ferrell Foundation, an assassination research center.

In other words, there must be a 100 percent transparent and honest investigation of the assassination and its aftermath -- something many argue the American people have not received to date. All documents must be made public. For the good of the democratic process. And for the good of the nation. -- Dallas to Dealey: The History of Dallas and Dealey Plaza Dallas to Dealey By Jerry Organ The city of Dallas has a curious way with landmarks. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower is its most prominent symbol; in New York, the Statue of Liberty stands proudly at the harbor entrance; in Toronto, the skyline is dominated by the CN Tower. But in Dallas, its most famous historic setting has three ordinary-but-busy city streets converging through it. But it's not to offend the memory of Camelot  long before JFK laid eyes on Dealey Plaza, traffic had superceded its most historic site. The assassination occurred just yards from where the one-room trading post cabin of the city�s founder once stood. By 1963, the only reminder of John Neely Bryan was the white concrete open-air structure overlooking Elm Street named the Bryan Colonnade.

Bryan's Bluff Dallas was founded in 1841, the same year the first President ever to die in office, William Henry Harrison, succumbed to pneumonia in the White House, 31 days after catching a cold while delivering his Inaugural Address. In November of that year, John Neely Bryan, a Tennessee-born lawyer, claimed 640 acres on a bluff overlooking the "three forks" area of the Trinity River in the 5-year-old Republic of Texas. The claim was at the narrowing of a river bend, which Bryan thought would attract settlers seeking to cross, with whom he could trade. The trading post and ferryboat crossing Bryan operated would come to symbolize Dallas' reason-for-being as a commercial, transportation and trade mecca. No one imagined a world-shattering event would also make its way there. Dallas County, created in 1846 by the Texas Legislative, was named in honor of George Mifflin Dallas, Vice-President under James K. Polk, elected in 1844. Polk was the county's first name-choice, but it was taken. Dallas town was thought named after a friend of Bryan's, Commodore Alexander Dallas, a riverboat captain.

In 1849, Byron caught the "gold fever" and headed to California for a year. Before leaving, he sold the land that would later be the site of the Texas School Book Depository. Unable to strike gold, Bryan returned to Dallas disillusioned, took to drinking and shot a man in 1855; believing the man had died, Bryan fled the town for six years. In 1877, at age 67, Bryan was admitted to the state insane asylum in Austin, where he soon passed away. Perhaps one of the city's first mysteries, Bryan's final resting place is not known. His city's most infamous citizen, Lee Harvey Oswald, arguably insane, today lies in an obscure grave in Fort Worth. An actual outpost built by the US Army, Fort Worth was founded 30 miles west of Dallas on June 6, 1849. So rapid was settlement that the fort itself was abandoned in 1853.

It was nicknamed "Cowtown" because the Chisholm Trail ran through it in trail-driving days, an event recalled in Larry McMurtry's TV classic Lonesome Dove, although that cluster of houses was actually in present-day Grapevine, now a suburb between the two cities. By 1888, Dallas had its first skyscraper and its 40,000 residents made the city the most populous in the state. A year earlier, a new residential development opened directly south of the city. Oak Cliff was named for the massive trees and cliffs on the edge of the Trinity River. One of the development's partners, Thomas L. Marsalis, had a street in Oak Cliff named after him; it was the "Marsalis Bus" that Lee Harvey Oswald boarded ten minutes after the assassination. This method to reach his rooming house in Oak Cliff was aborted when the bus became stalled in traffic let loose when the motorcade had passed. The suburb has long suffered an "across the river" inferiority complex, constantly being snubbed by fashionable North Dallas.

The class-consciousness and low rents probably appealed to the socialist attitude of Oswald  Oak Cliff provided three residences for Oswald: 602-604 Elsbeth, 214 Neely and lastly 1026 Beckley. The flood-prone Trinity River often turned the downtown's dirt streets muddy, so in 1881 some were covered with wood-block paving, which portions of Elm Street retained until the 1930s. In 1908, the most disastrous flood in the city's history led to construction of the Houston Street Viaduct, the world's longest concrete structure when it opened in 1927. It was over this structure that Oswald, abandoning the bus, travelled by taxi to reach his rooming house. Gateway to the City The Houston & Texas Central Railroad reached a mile east of the Plaza by 1872. Mule-drawn streetcars connected the downtown to the rail depot. The following year, the Texas & Pacific Railway arrived, giving Dallas the first major rail junction in north Texas.

The enterprising town had swayed the T&P away from the town of Corsicana with a $100,000 bonus and right-of-way over a main street. Even though railtracks were removed from it in 1923, Dallas still has a street named Pacific, just a block north of Dealey Plaza. In December 1910, the Dallas Morning News began to advocate for a union station, to replace the six railroad stations and downtown maze of tracks. Urged on by publisher George Dealey, the eight railroads serving Dallas agreed in 1912 to form the Dallas Union Terminal Company, leading to the construction of the Dallas Union Terminal Building from 1914 to 1916. As well, the nearby flood-prone Trinity River was dredged, its course altered by a mile, and 19 miles of approach track were laid, which would define much of the present-day Plaza. The $6.5 million project included a powerhouse with three steam boilers, and two railyards, each with a line-switching tower with electro-pneumatic machines. The North Tower, still standing and protected by fencing, was occupied by "tower man" Lee Bowers, Jr.

on the day of the assassination. Following a major restoration, the Union Terminal Building today houses both the Amtrak station and the Dallas Visitor Information Center. The Plaza The city acquired the Plaza for construction of the Triple Underpass, which opened in 1936 and sits east of the former bed of the Trinity. Three main streets  Elm, Main and Commerce  now sloped and converged to pass beneath the wide concrete railbridge, maintained by the Union Terminal Company. A portion of Elm Street directly in front of the Depository that used to continue westward to Water Street was left as an entrance to the parking lot in the North Yard. This image, taken from the Library of Congress' American Memory collection , shows the area that is now Dealey Plaza , as viewed from Oak Cliff in 1892. Dick Elliott found this image. The open park setting was named in honor of George Bannerman Dealey (1859-1946), the Dallas Morning News publisher who had done so much to revitalize the area. A WPA project resulted in new landscaping, including the planting of Texas Oaks and construction of Art Deco concrete peristyles atop each slope that funnelled westward toward the Underpass.

The northern slope, topped by a wooden fence that hid a parking lot and the Union Terminal's North Yard, became known after the assassination as the Grassy Knoll. Across Houston from the Depository at 411 Elm is 501 Elm, known as the Dal-Tex Building. In 1963, Abraham Zapruder's "Jennifer Juniors, Inc. of Dallas," ran out of the fourth and fifth-floors of this building. It was built in 1902 for the John Deere Plow Co. who would eventually buy the Rock Island Plow Company, the original builders of the Depository; but for a while in Dallas, the two were direct competitors. Diagonally across from the Depository sits the Dallas County Records Building, built in 1922. Next door along Houston is the 1913 Dallas Criminal Courts Building. It was to this building that police took many of the assassination witnesses to give dispositions on November 22, 1963. Being conveniently located across Main Street from the "Old Red" Courthouse, it once housed the old county jail. Among its "guests" were Dallasites Bonnie and Clyde.

It was to the Criminal Courts Building that Lee Harvey Oswald was being transferred when he was slain by Jack Ruby, who himself became a "guest" at the county jail. Bounding the southern edge of Dealey Plaza, and next to the rail lines that once brought mail trains over the Triple Underpass, is the Terminal Annex Post Office building, now a Federal Building. At noon on November 1, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald walked the two blocks from the Depository to the Annex, renting box 6225. The southeast of the Plaza contains the "Old Red" Courthouse, built on a plot Byran donated. Completed in 1892, "Old Red," along with the Texas School Book Depository and 501 Elm, are all that remain of Old Dallas in Dealey Plaza. On the same block as "Old Red" is the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial, built in 1970 by the city of Dallas; the white-stone cenotaph is meant to symbolize an open tomb. The nation's official memorial to President Kennedy is the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

On November 22, 1993, Dealey Plaza  including all surrounding buildings, the Triple Underpass and parts of the North Yard  was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark District. At the ceremony, a National Park Service bronze plaque mounted on Texas pink granite was unveiled. If one were to overlook the small plaque, was unaware of the significance of the orange brick building atop Elm, and if the critic/lecturers on the Grassy Knoll took a day off, there would be little to indicate the historic significance of what occurred there in 1963. Traffic continues to funnel beneath the Triple Underpass. By luck and chance, Dealey Plaza appears much as it did when the shooting took place. The City of Hate Immediately after the Kennedy assassination, many confused the Southern White Citizen's Council with Dallas' progressive Citizen's Council. Many Dallasites were refused service in other cities when they mentioned where they were from. The stigma towards the City of Dallas would not lessen until the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King in Memphis and RFK in Los Angeles.

Despite the narrow perception of Dallas generally found in most conspiracy books, the worst injury of all came from the Kennedy family's "official" historian, William Manchester. His best-selling 1967 book, The Death of a President, callously brushed off the city with slaps like "Dallas was the one American metropolis in which incitement to violence had become respectable." This apparently referred to incidents like the attacks on the Lyndon Johnsons in 1961 and, in late October 1963, UN Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson. In anticipation of Kennedy's visit appeared in Dallas the notorious "WANTED FOR TREASON" handbill and sarcastic "WELCOME MR. KENNEDY" newspaper ad. An Eastern liberal, Manchester tried hard to paint these incidents as genuine symptoms of Dallas intolerance, rather than isolated (albeit distasteful) expressions from polarized individuals and cliques who exemplified the city's tolerance. As long as people obeyed the law, Dallas  built by transplanted people  readily absorbed individuals like Jack Ruby, far-rightist General Edwin Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald's widow, Marina Porter, still lives in the area.

Yet, if one believed Manchester, the Dallas schools were a hotbed for "incitement to violence," demonstrated by the cheering in one school over the news of Kennedy's assassination. What Manchester neglected to mention was that the "cheers" by grade-schoolers was really at the prospect of being released early. The Metroplex Dallas is still accepting of individuals, with most of its on-going growth the product of non-natives, though today the "immigrants" are likely to be laid-off workers from a Northern state looking for a new start. For a while, eccentric Illinois-born-and-raised Haroldson Lafayette Hunt was the "richest man in the world." Hunt's son Ray built the 52-story Reunion Tower, whose glass sphere overlooks Dealey Plaza. Salesman Ross Perot left IBM in 1962 and built a software empire that financed a Presidential run that again made the city seem politically far-right. Despite evangelists who use its broadcast facilities, the city is more Sun Belt than Bible Belt. The city's open-mindedness, growth and cultural offerings has earned it the scorn of the rest of Texas, who perceive it to be smug and pretentious.

It began in the 1870s with the "railhead" merchants and bankers whose vision and entrepreneurship would turn the country market town into a metropolis. The city's financial core was largely built by merchants, many of whom came from Europe to contribute a strong capitalist desire, immigrant determination and old-world culture. The Dallasite whose name became forever associated with the graphic 8mm movie of the assassination, Abraham Zapruder, was born in Czarist Russia, and choose Dallas to build up a successful clothing firm. Oswald's "best friend" in Dallas was a White Russian petroleum engineer named George de Mohrenschildt. Today, the area between Dallas and Fort Worth has become so urbanized and developed  including the country's largest airport in Grapevine, Ranger Stadium and the third-largest film production center in the nation  that the two cities have taken to calling themselves the "Metroplex." Tourism is a major industry for the state's most-visited area. It started in 1886 when the Texas State Fair was conceived; today, it is the largest of its kind in the US. Taft was the first President to visit the fair, in 1909.

Vice-President Nixon opened the 1959 State Fair and rode atop a convertible in the opening day parade through Dallas. In 1961, the movie State Fair starring Pat Boone, Ann Margaret and Bobby Darin filmed during the fair's run. Dallas secured the 1936 Texas Centennial Exhibition, a six-month exposition at the State Fair grounds that attracted ten million visitors, including President Franklin Roosevelt who attended on June 12, a week after it opened. The night before his visit to the Exposition, Roosevelt's train made a stop at Austin. During a ceremony, FDR pressed a button at the station to set off a charge of dynamite three miles away that broke ground for new construction at the University of Texas to commemorate the Centennial. The 307-foot Texas Tower was completed in 1937, but became infamous on August 1, 1966 when "Texas Sniper" Charles Whitman climbed to the top and began a 90-minute shooting spree. Whitman killed 16 and wounded 31. Though more deadly and non-political, the "Texas Sniper" was Oswald's first copy-cat.

Whether it's at the American workplace, restaurant or school, there have been many since. � copyright 2000 Jerry Organ. All rights reserved. Dealey Plaza & Sixth Floor Museum - Trueblood: Dallas Trueblood: Dallas Dealey Plaza & Sixth Floor Museum Statistics MUSEUM GALLERY QUOTES "History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future." — Pres. John F. Kennedy "If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president's." — Pres. John F. Kennedy DEALEY PLAZA Plaza Description Named for George B. Dealey, the Plaza was known as the Gateway to Dallas from the west. Dealey Plaza's beautiful lawns are divided into three basically triangular areas by city streets. Live oaks stand in small clumps, or line the roads, providing shade from the harsh Texas sun.

A small, grassy knoll to the north was made famous by JFK Assassination conspiracy theorists, and still stands much as it was then, at one end of white marble colonnades built in the 1930s during Roosevelt's "New Deal" public works program. Tall buildings now surround Dealey Plaza on three sides, with the fourth a triple overpass from which some people watched the Presidential motorcade on that fateful day. There are flowers beneath the oaks, and it was declared a National Historical Landmark District in 1993. Even today, thousands of people flock to Dealey Plaza on the anniversary of the assassination to pay their respects to Pres. Kennedy. Most of the time, however, the Plaza is almost eerily quiet with only the sound of traffic to disturb the silence. DEALEY PLAZA HISTORY Dealey Plaza is a significant part of Dallas history. The site marks the birthplace of the city, originally founded by John Neely Bryan in the 1840s. Almost a century later, during Pres. Franklin Roosevelt's “New Deal,” the familiar concrete colonnades and triple underpass were constructed, making this vehicular park an example of successful city planning.

These projects were spearheaded by civic leader George Bannerman Dealey. After G.B. Dealey died in 1946, a bronze statue to honor him was installed in the park that already bore his name. Hailed as "The Front Door of Dallas," Dealey Plaza served as the major gateway to the city from the west and, equally important, as a symbol of civic pride. In November 1963, Dealey Plaza’s image changed when Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in the heart of the plaza. Instantly, the cradle of Dallas history became known as an internationally recognized murder site. Grief-stricken citizens brought flowers and mementos to Dealey Plaza the day after the assassination. These were the first acts in the transformation of the area into an unofficial memorial site to honor the slain president. In October 1993, three decades after that tragic event, the Secretary of the Interior designated Dealey Plaza a National Historical Landmark District. This status acknowledges the spot where JFK died is a place of importance in U.S. history. Today, thousands of tourists flock to the Plaza each year, many of them wanting to see the “grassy knoll” so prevalent in JFK Assassination conspiracy theories.

6TH & 7TH FLOOR MUSEUM 6th Floor Description Located in the Dallas County Administration Building, the 6th Floor Museum opened on President's Day in 1989 and is dedicated to the life, legacy and death of America's 35th president, John F. Kennedy. Extensive restoration was needed on the former Texas State School Book depository from which alleged "lone assassin" Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shots. The floor is divided into sections, each one documenting a specific aspect of the tragic event. From the elevator, visitors step into a foyer where "Memory Books" are located. To the left is a display of the rifle allegedly used by Oswald. Other sections have movies and TV video interviews with on-scene reporters and witnesses to the terrible event. There's even a copy of the (in)famous Zapruder film which graphically depicts the fatal head shot. Farther into the museum are sections showing how the Nation and the World responded to Kennedy's death. Newspaper photographs, network television newscasts and even personal photos and home movies are on display.

The opposing side also gets its say in hard to find documents denouncing Kennedy as a "traitor," and "Hands Off Cuba" handbills allegedly passed out by Oswald in New Orleans. Information on Oswald, Jack Ruby (who killed Oswald on national TV) and other persons of interest fill other displays. Windows on the south wall let guests look down on the street below. In the southeastern corner, the window from which the fatal shots were fired has been restored to how it appeared 1963. Known as the "Sniper's Nest," it is the most popular exhibit in the museum. Directions are given to the Gift Shop & Cafe at nearby 501 Elm St. 7th Floor Description Unlike the floor below, the 7th Floor is virtually empty. It is reserved for large gatherings, educational programs and guest speakers. Several free-standing walls house collections of hard-to-find photographs, articles and eye-witness accounts. The museum has the single largest library of JFK Assassination-related books, periodicals and documents in the world. Notice is required to use the "Reading Room," but researchers find the quality and quantity of information amazing. Museum Curator, Mr.

Gary Mack, is well-versed in the legend, myth and conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK's death, and sometimes gives lucky visitors his own account of the event. The 7th Floor houses a diverse, actively growing collection of over 35,000 items, some of which have never been seen before. This collection is one of the world's most important sources for visual, audio documentary and artifactual documentation of the Kennedy assassination. The Oral History Collection includes personal memories about the life, death and legacy of Pres. Kennedy, and provides insight into the history and culture of Dallas in the 60s. More than 600 interviews with a variety of participants have been recorded since 1989. The collections on the 7th Floor reinforce the museum's mission through identification, acquisition and preservation of documentary, photographic and artifactual records of the event and its continuing impact. The museum actively strives to continue collecting related research materials for study and interpretation in order to provide a foundation for its educational and public programming, as well as its exhibitions. BUILDING & MUSEUM HISTORY The site of the Texas School Book Depository at the corner of Houston and Elm Streets was originally owned by John Neely Bryan.

During the 1880s, Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop on the property In 1984, the Rock Island Plow Company bought the land, and four years later constructed a five story buildong for the Southern Rock Island Plow Company. In 1901, the building was hit by lightning and nearly burned to the ground. It was rebuilt in 1903 in the Commercial Romanesque Revival Style, and expanded to the seven stories it is today. The land was bought in 1937 by D. H. Byrd, who by 1963 had leased it to the Texas School Book Depository. By the early-60s, the red brick building was in use as a multi-floor warehouse for the storage of school textbooks and related materials, and an order fulfillment center by a private business of the same name. On November 22, 1963, the Depository became the focus of shock, grief and outrage as a 24-year old temporary employee, Lee Harvey Oswald, allegedly fired rifle shots from the sixth floor into the motorcade of (then) President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

The mortally wounded President was rushed to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The overall conclusion by law enforcement of the time, including the FBI and the Presidentially appointed Warren Commission, was that Oswald acted alone. A second major government sponsored investigation — the House Select Committee on Assassinations — nearly 30 years later concluded there was a probability of conspiracy in the murder of the 35th President of the United States on 11.22.63 in Dallas. After the Texas School Book Depository Company moved out in 1970, the seven story building remained a painful reminder of what happened in 1963. The building was sold at auction to Aubrey Mayhew, a Nashville, TN music producer and collector of Kennedy memorabilia. In 1972, ownership reverted to D. H. Byrd, and the building was subsequently purchased in 1977 by the government of Dallas County. After extensive renovation on the lower five floors, the Dallas County Administration Building was dedicated on 29 March 1981. The two top floors of the former Depository — including the (in)famous sixth floor, remained empty.

On President's Day in 1989, the "6th Floor Museum" opened as a response to the many visitors who came to Dealey Plaza to learn more about the assassination. The historical exhibition highlights the impact of Kennedy's death on the nation and world. Two key evidential areas on the sixth floor have been restored to their 1963 appearance, including the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired the fatal shots. Again, thirteen years later, on President's Day 2002, the museum opened a "Seventh Floor Gallery," which provides additional space for assassination-related exhibits, special events and other public programming. It also houses the museum's extensive library with over 4,000 books, photographs and documents pertaining to the events of November 1963. In 1992, the former Texas School Book Depository was used in the filming of Oliver Stone's film, "JFK." Since its opening in 1989, the museum has been visited by over six-million guests, and provided many never seen before artifacts relating to the Kenney Assassination.

It has become a tourist destination for visitors from around the world who want a glimpse at events which took place 42 years ago in Dallas. EMPLOYEES Jack Ruby | 11-22-1963: New Evidence 9 Feb Ask people what mystery they would most like to solve and you’re likely to get a wide range of answers. However, if you ask more than a few, solving the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is likely to be included on the list. Why? Because for many, some key facets behind the JFK assassination remain largely unsolved. For example, was there a second gunman? Did Lee Harvey Oswald pull the trigger? Was there a shooter behind the ‘Grassy Knoll’ fence? Was Russia, the CIA, the Mafia, the Military-Industrial Complex or Fidel Castro involved? Why was alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald killed by Mob afffiliate Jack Ruby before Oswald could fully talk? The list of never fully answered questions is long, indeed. As one would expect, many approaches to solving this mystery have been considered. Of them all, there is one approach that is unlikely to provide answers. There is also one that is considerably more likely to provide answers. Let’s look a both.

Time Travel While time travel is not considered a deus ex machina method to solving seemingly intractable dilemmas, it shares some similarity with that ancient Greek approach of bringing in a hitherto-unknown force to provide a tidy ending. Unlike deus ex machina , which injects a most unlikely story resolution late in the story, time travel usually involves the necessary suspension of reality earlier on, in order to utilize unrealistic options that are not otherwise available. This is not to belittle time travel. Time travel is a terrific format for entertainment, as witnessed by some outstanding films like ‘ Somewhere in Time .’ So for escapist entertainment, if one suspends disbelief , time travel can be uniquely exciting. Yet if we’re intent on moving a step closer to actually solving the mystery of an event like the assassination of our 35th president, there is another option, which to many is far more exciting. New Evidence The use of new evidence is an approach that could actually advance the resolution of the thorniest problems…including the assassination of President Kennedy. Think of it this way.

If a homicide detective truly wishes to solve a murder, time and again it is good detective work, including a hunt for all available new evidence, that is the proven recipe for success. Consider the uncovering of many noteworthy clues since the JFK assassination, like the discovery of never-seen movies taken in Dallas that day on November 22, 1963. Bottom Line 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. Project MUSE - Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza by Stephen Fagin (review) Sarah Dziedzic Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. By Stephen Fagin. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. 238 pp. Hardbound, $29.95. For those of us whose careers are dedicated to preserving memory and documenting experience, creating a permanent public space at a site so integrally connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy would appear an unquestionable path. For the residents of Dallas, Texas, however, where JFK was fatally shot on November 22, 1963, the path was much more complicated. Stephen Fagin’s Assassination and Commemoration provides a detailed and well-researched account of the decades-long debate in Dallas over whether to remember, or strive to forget, this violent event.

Fagin begins his book by recounting the years leading up to JFK’s arrival in Dallas in 1963, describing the local political scene as one fraught with bitter disputes that led to Dallas’s national reputation as a city hostile to Democrats. [End Page 367] He then moves on to describe the day of the assassination and the police investigation that followed, including Dallas resident Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the president’s accused assassin, while Oswald was in police custody. In newspapers across the country, journalists slandered the citizens of Dallas and blamed city officials for providing inadequate security of the president and his accused assassin; even residents of Dallas made allegations of incompetency and expressed shame on behalf of their own police department and the city as a whole. Fagin uses his narration of this often-told series of events to illustrate how Dallas’s reputation continued to worsen in the aftermath of all that happened, foreshadowing some of the complications that would arise in the debates over the memorialization of JFK’s death in the following decades.

The citizens of Dallas were not unaffected by what happened; soon after JFK’s death, many residents expressed their grief in very public ways, including an impromptu assemblage of flowers in Dealey Plaza and, eventually, an official memorial that architect Philip Johnson designed (and subsequently completed in 1970). Johnson, as well as the many residents of Dallas who supported the construction, insisted that the memorial express a sense of openness and light, a nod to the uncontainable spirit of JFK. Despite these intentions, though, the actual memorial—a large and mostly enclosed box—felt like and resembled a tomb, and an uninviting one at that. As Fagin writes, citing social psychologist James Pennebaker, “the ‘cold, white box’ of Philip Johnson’s memorial cenotaph suggested … that the community wanted to keep its dark secret locked away. In Dealey Plaza … was an ‘invisible sign … that said ‘Nothing happened here.”” (111).

The president’s death, however, required a deep and honest recognition among the residents of Dallas that the event did occur here; anything that did not confront that fact full-on would have been, as Fagin argues, a futile attempt to ignore collectively one of the most memorable events of the century. The remembrance of JFK’s death could not be abstracted from the physical place where he was killed—JFK did not die in Dallas generally; he was assassinated in Dealey Plaza specifically. The Texas School Book Depository, the building from which Oswald shot the president, thus immediately became an eerie and unfavorable presence in the city: the site provided an unwanted yet constant reminder of the shooting. And it is this site, the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, and the attempts to turn it into a memorial, that are the focus of Fagin’s book. In his account of the debate over the future and potential use of the building—over the unique yet beneficial approach to commemorating a violent event such as this—Fagin also provides an important model of study, one for citizens and professionals involved in preserving and memorializing sites of violence.

While the details are specific to the numerous stakeholders in Dallas, [End Page 368] particularly the advocates for what would become The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, the concerns Fagin outlines are broadly applicable. Among them are whether the endeavor to preserve sites of violence is inherently morbid; whether presenting an informative exhibit at a site can avoid enshrining the perpetrator of violence; which artifacts and displays are respectful to both victims of the event and visitors to the site; and what sort of institution is best suited to create and oversee such a site and its associated exhibits. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in particular offers an interesting lens through which to examine JFK’s assassination because, as Fagin argues, it offers a perspective on the importance and meaning of the event it commemorates across multiple generations, including people too young to have been alive in 1963, as well as those Fagin calls “rememberers” (168). The museum today has an ongoing oral history program, which Fagin directs in his role as associate curator; the program tracks the changing meaning of the president’s assassination through firsthand accounts of the events of that day and of the actions taken to preserve the depository and create the museum.

The museum also presents a public program called Living History that reserves a portion of each live oral history interview for questions from audience members. Since the museum’s opening in 1989, the program has collected written impressions from visitors that are called Memory Books, adding personal responses to the site and its specific exhibits, as well as recollections of JFK or his presidency, to the museum’s archive. Fagin uses portions of oral history interviews throughout to illustrate the tedious efforts of those involved in protecting the Texas School Book Depository from demolition and creating an exhibit about the assassination, to discuss the motivations of such efforts, and also to rectify inaccurate newspaper accounts of the preservation efforts and planned exhibit. Fagin’s belief in the value of oral history in general and for its utility to the specific undertaking of Assassination and Commemoration is tacitly apparent, though he does not offer an explicit discussion of his methods in this book. Rather, he champions oral history and the Living History program as means of engaging with the public, especially younger generations, and of fostering continued debate around not just JFK’s assassination but other local history issues as well.

A fascinating addendum to this book would be an analysis of material collected within the museum’s Memory Books in order to understand more thoroughly how visitors respond to the museum’s mission to present a chronicle of one event within the larger context of contemporary culture. Assassination and Commemoration is a useful guide for anyone who considers the need for preserving sites of tragedy and violence; this book offers specific insight into the benefits of doing so with particular focus on methods of multigenerational engagement around historic events [End Page 369] and the tactics developed to display material about such events to the public respectfully. Sarah Dziedzic

Question: In November 1963, a place called Dealey Plaza become famous for what event?
Answer: The assassination of John F Kennedy