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John F. Kennedy assassination

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Recent History

   The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the
   United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas,
   Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded
   by gunshots while riding with his wife in a presidential motorcade
   through Dealey Plaza.

   An official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a
   10-month period, and its report was published in September 1964. The
   Commission concluded that the assassination was carried out solely by
   Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in
   Dealey Plaza. This conclusion initially met with widespread support
   among the American public, but polling in recent years shows a majority
   of that public now hold beliefs contrary to the Commission's findings.
   The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded in 1979
   that Kennedy was probably assassinated by Oswald as a result of a
   conspiracy. This conclusion was based on taped acoustic evidence, that
   has since been called into question. The assassination is still the
   subject of widespread speculation, and has spawned a number of Kennedy
   assassination theories.

Background to the Texas trip

   A handbill circulated on November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas, one day
   before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
   Enlarge
   A handbill circulated on November 21, 1963 In Dallas, Texas, one day
   before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

   Kennedy had chosen to visit Dallas on November 20 for three main
   reasons: to help generate more Democratic Party presidential campaign
   fund contributions in advance of the November 1964 presidential
   election; to begin his quest for re-election; and, as the Kennedy-
   Johnson ticket had barely won Texas (and had lost Dallas) in 1960, to
   mend political fences among several leading Texas Democratic Party
   members who appeared to be fighting politically amongst themselves.

   There were concerns about security because as recently as October 24,
   U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been jeered,
   jostled, struck by a protest sign, and spat upon during a visit to
   Dallas. The danger from a concealed sniper on the Dallas trip was also
   of concern. President Kennedy himself had mentioned it the morning he
   was assassinated, as had the Service agents when they were fixing the
   motorcade route.

   Sgt. Davis, of the Dallas Police Department, had prepared the most
   stringent security precautions in the city's history, so that the
   demonstrations like those marking the Stevenson visit would not happen
   again. But Winston Lawson of the Secret Service, who was in charge of
   the planning, told the Dallas Police not to assign its usual squad of
   experienced homicide detectives to follow immediately behind the
   President's car. This police protection was routine for both visiting
   presidents and for motorcades of other visiting dignitaries. Police
   Chief Jesse Curry later testified that had his men been in place, the
   murder might have been prevented, because they carried submachine guns
   and rifles to take out any attackers, or at least they might have been
   able to stop Oswald before he left the building.

   It was planned that Kennedy would travel from Love Field airport in a
   motorcade through downtown Dallas (including Dealey Plaza) to give a
   speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. The car in which he was traveling was
   a 1961 Lincoln Continental, open-top, modified limousine. No
   presidential car with a bulletproof top was yet in service in 1963,
   though plans for such a top were presented in October 1963.

   Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, Kennedy’s limousine slowly approached the
   Texas School Book Depository head-on, and then the limousine slowly
   turned the 120-degrees directly in front of the depository, now only 65
   feet (20 m) away.

Assassination

    The route taken by the motorcade within Dealey Plaza. North is towards
                                                    the almost direct-left
                                                                   Enlarge
    The route taken by the motorcade within Dealey Plaza. North is towards
                                                    the almost direct-left

   When the limousine had passed the depository, shots were fired at
   Kennedy. During the shooting, the limousine is calculated to have
   slowed from over 13 mph (20 km/h) to 9 mph (15 km/h).

   The shooting took place on Elm street in front of the John Neely Bryan
   north pergola concrete structure in Dealey Plaza. A number of persons
   were near the assassination site on both sides of the street, but
   notably Abraham Zapruder was standing on the western pedestal of the
   pergola making a continuous film of the President as he passed below
   his position. At one point, he testified to the shock, disbelief, and
   then the horror of seeing the President murdered right in front of
   where he was standing.

   Secret Service agent Clinton J. Hill was riding on the left front
   running board of the car immediately behind the Presidential limousine.
   Sometime after the shot which hit the president in the neck area, Hill
   jumped off and ran to overtake the limousine. After the shot which hit
   the president in the head, Hill jumped onto the back of the limousine
   and clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland
   Memorial Hospital.

   There was hardly any reaction in the crowd to the first shot, many
   later saying they thought they had heard a firecracker or a car's
   exhaust backfire.

Others wounded

   Texas Governor John Connally, riding in the same limousine in a seat in
   front of the President, was also critically injured but survived.
   Doctors later stated that after the Governor was shot, Mrs. Connally
   pulled the Governor onto her lap, and the resulting posture helped
   close his front chest wound (which was causing air to be sucked
   directly into his chest around his collapsed right lung).

   James Tague, a spectator and witness to the assassination, also
   received a minor wound to his right cheek while standing 270 feet (82
   meters) in front of where Kennedy was shot. The injury resulted from
   debris ejected when a bullet struck a nearby curb.

Lee Harvey Oswald

   Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested eighty minutes after the assassination
   for killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit. He was captured in a
   nearby movie theatre. Oswald resisted arrest, he was later charged with
   murders of Tippit and Kennedy that evening. Oswald denied shooting the
   president and claimed he was a patsy. Oswald's case never came to trial
   because two days later, while being transported to an armored car for
   holding in the Dallas County Jail prior to his trial, he was shot and
   killed by Jack Ruby.

Mannlicher-Carcano rifle

   A 6.5 x 52 mm Italian Mannlicher-Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle was
   found on the 6th Floor of the Texas Book Depository by Deputy Constable
   Seymour Weitzman and Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone soon after the
   assassination of President Kennedy. The recovery was filmed by Tom
   Alyea of WFAA-TV. This footage shows the rifle to be a
   Mannlicher-Carcano, and it was later verified by photographic analysis
   commissioned by the HSCA that the rifle filmed was the exact same one
   identified as the assassination weapon. A distinctive gouge mark and
   identical dimensions also identify it as the rifle in the Oswald
   backyard photographs.

   A bullet found on Connally's hospital stretcher was ballisticly matched
   to this rifle. The previous March, the rifle had been bought by Lee
   Harvey Oswald under the name "Alek James Hidell." A partial palm print
   of Oswald was also found on the barrel of the gun.

Kennedy declared dead in the emergency room

   The staff at Parkland Hospital's Trauma Room 1 who treated Kennedy
   observed that his condition was "moribund", meaning that he had no
   chance of survival upon arriving at the hospital. Dr. George Gregory
   Burkley, the President's personal physician arrived at the Parkland
   emergency room where the President was located, five minutes after the
   President arrived. Dr. Burkley observed both the head wound and a wound
   to the back of the President and determined the head wound was the
   cause of death. Dr. Burkley signed President Kennedy's death
   certificate.

   At 1:00 p.m., CST (19:00 UTC), after all heart activity had ceased and
   after a priest administered the last rites, the president was
   pronounced dead. "We never had any hope of saving his life", one doctor
   said.

   The priest who administered the last rites to Kennedy told The New York
   Times that the president was already dead by the time he had arrived at
   the hospital, and he had to draw back a sheet covering the president's
   face to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Kennedy's death
   was officially announced by acting White House Press Secretary Malcolm
   Kilduff at 1:38 p.m. CST (19:38 UTC).

   Governor Connally, meanwhile, was soon taken to emergency surgery where
   he underwent two operations that day.

   A few minutes after 2:00 p.m. CST (20:00 UTC), and after a
   confrontation between Dallas police and Secret Service agents,
   Kennedy's body was placed in a casket and taken from Parkland Hospital
   and driven to Air Force One. The casket was then loaded aboard the
   airplane through the rear door, where it remained at the rear of the
   passenger compartment, in place of a removed row of seats. The body was
   removed before undergoing a forensic examination by the Dallas County
   coroner, which violated Texas state law (the murder was a state crime,
   and occurred under Texas legal jurisdiction). At that time, it was not
   a federal offense to kill the President.

   Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (who had been riding two cars behind
   Kennedy in the motorcade through Dallas and was not injured) became
   President of the United States upon Kennedy's death. Johnson took the
   oath of office on board Air Force One just before it departed Love
   Field.

Autopsy

   After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside
   Washington DC, Kennedy's body was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for
   an immediate autopsy.

   The autopsy (about 8 to 11 p.m. EST Nov. 22) was followed by embalming
   and cosmetic funeral preparation (about 11 P.M. to 4 A.M.) in the
   morgue at Bethesda, in a room adjacent to the autopsy theatre. This was
   done by a team of private mortuary personnel, who made an unusual trip
   to the hospital for this procedure, not ordinarily done there. The
   body, prepared for viewing, was then placed in a casket for
   transportation to Washington, D.C.

   The autopsy of President Kennedy performed the night of November 22 at
   the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three examining pathologists to
   conclude that the bullet wound to the head was fatal, and the bullet
   had:

     "[E]ntered Kennedy's head through a small hole in the scalp in the
     rear of the president's head, on the right hand side'.... [with a]
     final exit of this missile, or fragments of it, through a large
     lateral defect in the right parietal region of the skull over the
     right ear. (emphasis added)

   The autopsy report said the defect extended into the right temporal and
   occipital regions of the skull.

   The report addressed a second missile which "entered Kennedy's upper
   back above the shoulder blade, passed through the strap muscles at the
   base of his neck, bruising the upper tip of the right lung without
   puncturing it, then exiting the front (anterior) neck," in a wound that
   was destroyed by the tracheotomy incision. This autopsy finding was not
   corroborated by the President's personal physician, Dr. Burkley, who
   recorded, on the death certificate, a bullet to have hit Kennedy at
   "about" the level of the third thoracic vertebra. (Image) Supporting
   this location along with the bullet hole in the shirt worn by Kennedy,
   (Image) and the bullet hole in the suit jacket worn by Kennedy (Image)
   which show bullet holes between 5 and 6 inches below Kennedy's collar.
   (Image). However, photographic analysis of the motorcade shows that the
   president's jacket was bunched below his neckline, and was not lying
   smoothly along his skin, so the clothing measurements have been subject
   to historical criticism as being untrustworthy on the matter of the
   exact location of the back wound . Dr. J. Thornton Boswell's face sheet
   diagram from the autopsy sheet is sometimes used to support a lower
   back wound (Image). However, in 1966 Boswell himself noted that this
   drawing was never intended to be scale-exact, and he re-drew it for the
   benefit of The Baltimore Sun in 1966 (Nov 25), placing an X at the
   higher spot. (Image) Boswell stated that his measurements of 14 cm (5.5
   inches) from the ear and shoulder properly locate the wound, and these
   are inconsistent with a wound at the third thoracic vertebra. Moreover,
   all three Bethesda doctors would authenticate for the HSCA autopsy
   photographs showing an entry wound at the level of C6 (the sixth
   cervical vertebra, at the base of the neck), which is the entry level
   as determined by the HSCA investigation on the basis of photographic
   and X-ray evidence from the autopsy.

   The House Select Committee on Assassinations assembled a medical team
   in 1979 and provided a detailed criticism of the Kennedy autopsy in
   which it found "serious" procedural errors including failure to take
   proper photographs, and failure to accurately locate wounds with
   reference to fixed anatomic reference points

   Later federal agencies such as the Assassination Records Review Board
   criticized the autopsy on a number of grounds including destruction of
   the original draft of the autopsy report and notes taken at the time of
   the autopsy, and failure to maintain a proper chain of custody of all
   of the autopsy materials.

Funeral

   After being prepared for a funeral, the President's body was then
   brought back to the White House and placed in the East Room in a closed
   casket for 24 hours, but was privately and briefly viewed during this
   time by the Kennedy family and some close friends. The Sunday following
   the assassination, his flag-draped closed casket was moved to the
   Capitol for public viewing. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of
   thousands lined up to view the guarded casket.

   Representatives from over 90 countries, including the Soviet Union,
   attended the funeral on November 25 (which was his son's third
   birthday). After the service, the casket was taken by caisson to
   Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

Recordings and recreations of the assassination

   No radio or television stations broadcast the assassination live
   because the area through which the motorcade was traveling was not
   considered important enough for a live broadcast. Most media crews were
   not even with the motorcade but were waiting instead at the Trade Mart
   in anticipation of Kennedy's arrival. Those members of the media that
   were with the motorcade were riding at the rear of the procession.
   Dealey Plaza, with Elm Street on the right - and the underpass in the
   middle. The last shot struck JFK´s head in front of the white pergola
   building on the right, and in the position between the street lamps on
   either side of the street.
   Enlarge
   Dealey Plaza, with Elm Street on the right - and the underpass in the
   middle. The last shot struck JFK´s head in front of the white pergola
   building on the right, and in the position between the street lamps on
   either side of the street.
   Looking in a southerly direction, with the white pergola and the knoll
   behind the photographer. The X on the street marks the position of the
   final head shot. Photo taken July, 2006.
   Enlarge
   Looking in a southerly direction, with the white pergola and the knoll
   behind the photographer. The X on the street marks the position of the
   final head shot. Photo taken July, 2006.

   However, Kennedy's last seconds traveling through Dealey Plaza were
   recorded on silent 8 mm film for the 26.6 seconds before, during, and
   immediately following the assassination. This famous film footage was
   taken by garment manufacturer and amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder,
   in what became known as the Zapruder film. It is famous to the general
   public for an appearance of the president's head to be moving backward
   and to his left after the last bullet struck him. Stills from the film
   were published by Life magazine shortly after the assassination and
   there were repeated, but heavily edited, showings on television
   starting in 1970.

   Zapruder was not the only one who photographed or filmed at least part
   of the assassination. Bystanders with still or motion cameras included
   Robert Hughes, Orville Nix, Charles Bronson, Elsie Dorman, Tina and Jim
   Towner, Philip Willis and Mary Moorman. The lone professional in Dealey
   Plaza who was not in the press car was Ike Altgens, photo editor for
   the Associated Press in Dallas.

   An unidentified woman, nicknamed the Babushka Lady by researchers,
   might have been filming the presidential motorcade during the
   assassination because she was seen apparently doing so on film and
   photographs taken by the others.

   There have also been attempts to recreate the events that took place
   during the assassination.

   A Dallas radio station KBOX-AM recreated the sounds of the shooting on
   a Long playing record and it released the record album with excerpts of
   news coverage of that day, but it was not an original recording of the
   shooting.

   In 2003, ABC News re-created the motorcade route and assassination
   using computer renderings and models. The computer re-creation was
   based on footage from all currently available video recordings of the
   assassination in a news documentary called " Peter Jennings Reporting:
   The Kennedy Assassination-Beyond Conspiracy."

Sealing of assassination records

   Just before the 1964 presidential election, President Johnson ordered
   the Warren Commission documentations to be sealed against public
   availability for 75 years (until 2039). However, in 1992 Congress
   enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
   Act of 1992. Congress questioned the legitimate need for continued
   protection of such records after three decades of secrecy. The purpose
   of the Act was to gather and accelerate the public release of
   assassination related documents.

   The Act requires all documents related to the assassination that have
   not been destroyed to be released to the public by no later than 2017.

   From 1992 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered
   and unsealed many documents. However, tens of thousands of pages of
   other documents will remain classified and sealed, away from the public
   until 2017, including:
     * 3+% of all Warren Commission documents
     * 21+% of the House Select Committee on Assassinations documents
     * An undeterminable percentage of CIA, FBI, Secret Service, National
       Security Agency, State Department, US Marine Corps, Naval
       Investigative Service, Defense Investigative Service, and many
       other US government documents.

   Additionally, several key pieces of evidence and documentation are
   described to have been lost, cleaned, or missing from the original
   chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out at hospital, Connally's
   suit dry-cleaned, Oswald's Marine Corps service record file lost,
   Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing, forensic
   autopsy photos missing, etc.)

   On May 19, 2044, the 50th anniversary of the death of Jacqueline
   Kennedy Onassis, if her last child has died, the Kennedy library will
   release to the public a 500-page transcript of an oral history about
   John F. Kennedy given by Mrs. Kennedy before her death in 1994.

Official investigations

Dallas Police

   After arresting Oswald and collecting physical evidence at the crime
   scenes, the Dallas Police held Oswald at the police headquarters for
   interrogation. Oswald was questioned all afternoon about both the
   Tippit shooting and the assassination of the President. Oswald was
   questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m.,
   on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24. . Throughout this
   interrogation Oswald denied any involvement with either the
   assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit.
   Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the
   questioning, but he kept no notes at the time. Days later he wrote
   notes of the interrogation from memory. There were no stenographic or
   tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were
   also present, including the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service and
   occasionally participated in the questioning.

   During the evening of November 22, the Dallas Police Department
   performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek in an
   apparent effort to determine, by means of a scientific test, whether
   Oswald had recently fired a weapon. The results were positive for the
   hands and negative for the right cheek. However, due to the
   unreliability of paraffin test, the Warren Commission did not rely on
   the results of the test in making their findings.

   Oswald provided little information during his questioning. Frequently,
   however, he was confronted with evidence which he could not explain,
   and he resorted to statements which were found to be false. Dallas
   authorities were not able to complete their investigation into the
   assassination of Kennedy due to interruptions from the FBI and the
   murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby.

FBI investigation

   The FBI was the first authority to complete an investigation. On
   November 24, 1963, just hours after Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered, FBI
   Director, J. Edgar Hoover, said that he wanted "something issued so we
   can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin."

   On December 9, 1963, only 17 days after the assassination, the FBI
   report was issued and given to the Warren Commission. Then, the FBI
   stayed on as the primary investigating authority for the commission.

   The FBI stated that only three bullets were fired during the
   assassination; that the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second
   shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head,
   killing him. The FBI stated that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three
   shots.

   The Warren Commission agreed with the FBI investigation that only three
   shots were fired, but disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit
   Kennedy and which hit Governor Connally. The FBI report claimed that
   the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor
   Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. In
   contrast, the Warren Commission concluded that one of the three shots
   missed, one of the shots hit Kennedy and then struck Connally, and a
   third shot struck Kennedy in the head, killing him.

Criticism of FBI

   The FBI's murder investigation was reviewed by the House Select
   Committee on Assassinations in 1979. The congressional Committee
   concluded:

     * The Federal Bureau of Investigation adequately investigated Lee
       Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination and properly evaluated the
       evidence it possessed to assess his potential to endanger the
       public safety in a national emergency.
     * The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a thorough and
       professional investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey
       Oswald for the assassination.
     * The Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to investigate
       adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the
       President.
     * The Federal Bureau of Investigation was deficient in its sharing of
       information with other agencies and departments.

   The FBI has received added scrutiny by Kennedy assassination
   researchers due to the actions of FBI agent, James Hosty. Hosty
   appeared in Oswald's address book. The FBI provided, to the Warren
   Commission, a typewritten transcription of Oswald's address book, in
   which Hosty's name and phone number were omitted. Two days before the
   assassination, Oswald went to the FBI office in Dallas to meet with
   Hosty, and when he found that Hosty was not in the office at the time,
   Oswald left an envelope for Hosty with a letter inside. After Oswald
   was murdered by Jack Ruby, Hosty's supervisor ordered Hosty to destroy
   the letter and he did so by tearing the letter up and flushing it down
   the toilet. Months later, when Hosty testified before the Warren
   Commission, he did not disclose his connection with Oswald. This
   information only became public much later.

Warren Commission

   The first official investigation of the assassination was established
   by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963, a week after the
   assassination. The commission was headed by Earl Warren, Chief Justice
   of the United States and became universally (but unofficially) known as
   the Warren Commission.

   In late September 1964, after a 10 month investigation, the Warren
   Commission Report was published. The Commission reported that it could
   not find any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy
   involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies), that Lee
   Harvey Oswald acted alone in the murder of Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby
   acted alone in the murder of Oswald. The theory that Oswald acted alone
   is also informally called the Lone Gunman Theory.

   The commission also concluded that only three bullets were fired during
   the assassination, and that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three bullets
   from the Texas School Book Depository behind the motorcade. The
   Commission also laid out several scenarios concerning the timing of the
   shots, but the "Commission concluded . . . that the three shots were
   fired in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7
   seconds.

   The commission also concluded that:
     * one shot likely missed the motorcade (it could not determine which
       of the three),
     * the first shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the upper back,
       exited near the front of his neck and likely continued on to cause
       all of Governor Connally's injuries, and
     * the last shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the head, fatally
       wounding him.

   It noted that three empty shells were found in the sixth floor in the
   book depository, and a rifle identified as the one used in the shooting
   - Oswald's Italian military surplus 6.5x52 mm Model 91/38 Carcano - was
   found hidden nearby. The Commission offered as a likely explanation
   that the same bullet that wounded Kennedy also caused all of Governor
   Connally's wounds. This single bullet then backed out of Connally's
   left thigh and was found on a stretcher in the hospital. This theory
   has become known as the " Single Bullet Theory" or, the "Magic" Bullet
   Theory (as it is commonly referred to by its critics and detractors).

   The Commission also looked into other matters beside who killed the
   president and criticized weaknesses in security, which has resulted in
   greatly increased security whenever the President travels. The
   supporting documents for the Warren Commission Report are not all due
   to be released until 2017.

Public response to the Warren Report

   After the Warren Commission Report was issued, skeptics began
   questioning its conclusions. A multitude of books and articles
   criticizing the Warren Commission's findings have been published in the
   four decades since the Commission's report was issued. The Commission's
   conclusions that Oswald was the lone gunman has not gained widespread
   acceptance from the American public. A 2003 ABC News poll found that
   70% of respondents "suspect a plot" committed the assassination of
   President Kennedy and 68% of those polled believed there has been an
   official cover-up of the assassination. . This skepticism has been
   shared by prominent government officials as well.

Ramsey Clark Panel

   In 1998 a panel led by Attorney General Ramsey Clark met in Washington,
   DC to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents and other
   evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. The Clark Panel
   determined that President Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from
   above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on
   the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the
   skull from behind and destroyed its upper right side . The chain of
   custody of the evidence on which the panel reached its conclusions has
   been called into question. Clark raised this issue with President
   Johnson. The Assassination Records Review Board said in 1998: "[T]he
   persons handling the autopsy records did not create a complete and
   contemporaneous accounting of the number of photographs nor was a
   proper chain of custody established for all of the autopsy materials."

Rockefeller Commission

   The U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United
   States was set up under President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate
   the activities of the CIA within the United States. The commission was
   led by the Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, and is sometimes
   referred to as the Rockefeller Commission.

   Part of the commission's work dealt with the Kennedy assassination ,
   specifically the head snap as seen in the Zapruder film (first shown
   publicly in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and
   Frank Sturgis in Dallas.

House Select Committee on Assassinations

   Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued its report, a
   congressional committee named the House Select Committee on
   Assassinations reviewed the Warren Commission report and the underlying
   FBI report on which the Commission heavily relied.

   The Committee criticized the performance of both the Warren Commission
   and the FBI for failing to investigate whether other people conspired
   with Oswald to murder President Kennedy. The Committee Report concluded
   that:

   "[T]he FBI's investigation of whether there had been a conspiracy in
   President Kennedy's assassination was seriously flawed. The conspiracy
   aspects of the investigation were characterized by a limited approach
   and an inadequate application and use of available resource."(footnote
   12)

   The Committee found the Warren Commission's investigation equally
   flawed: "[T]he subject that should have received the Commission's most
   probing analysis--whether Oswald acted in concert with or on behalf of
   unidentified co-conspirators the Commission's performance, in the view
   of the committee, was in fact flawed."( footnote 13)

   The Committee believed another primary cause of the Warren Commission's
   failure to adequately probe and analyze whether or not Oswald acted
   alone arose out of the lack of cooperation by the CIA. Finally, the
   Committee found that the Warren Commission inadequately investigated
   for a conspiracy because of: "[T]ime pressures and the desire of
   national leaders to allay public fears of a conspiracy."

   The committee concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at
   President John F. Kennedy. The second and third shots he fired struck
   the President. The third shot he fired killed the President. The HSCA
   agreed with the single bullet theory, but concluded that it occurred at
   a time point during the assassination that differed from what the
   Warren Commission had theorized. Their theory, based primarily on
   dictabelt evidence, was that President Kennedy was assassinated
   probably as a result of a conspiracy. They proposed that four shots had
   been fired during the assassination; Oswald fired the first, second,
   and fourth bullets, and that (based on the acoustic evidence) there was
   a high probability that an unnamed second assassin fired the third
   bullet, but missed, from President Kennedy's right front, from a
   location concealed behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence.

   Many years after the House Select Committee on Assassinations issued
   its report, the attorney for the House Select Committee on
   Assassinations; G. Robert Blakey issued a statement to the news media
   calling into question the honesty of the CIA in its dealings with the
   Committee and the accuracy of the information given to it.

Response to the Dictabelt evidence

   The attorney for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G.
   Robert Blakey, told ABC News that the conclusion that a conspiracy
   existed in the assassination was established by both witness testimony
   and acoustic evidence:

     The shot from the grassy knoll is not only supported by the
     acoustics, which is a tape that we found of a police motorcycle
     broadcast back to the district station. It is corroborated by
     eyewitness testimony in the plaza. There were 20 people, at least,
     who heard a shot from the grassy knoll.

   The sole acoustic evidence relied on by the committee to support its
   conclusion of a fourth gunshot (and a gunman on the grassy knoll) in
   the JFK assassination, was a Dictabelt recording alleged to be from a
   stuck transmitter on a police motorcycle in Dealey Plaza during the
   assassination.

   After the committee finished its work, however, an amateur researcher
   listened to the recording and discovered faint crosstalk of
   transmissions from another police radio channel known to have been made
   a minute after the assassination. Further, the Dallas motorcycle
   policeman thought to be the source of the sounds followed the motorcade
   to the hospital at high speed, his siren blaring, immediately after the
   shots were fired. Yet the recording is of a mostly idling motorcycle,
   eventually determined to have been at JFK's destination, the Trade
   Mart, miles from Dealey Plaza.

   Several years later, in 1981, a special panel of the National Academy
   of Sciences (NAS) disputed the evidence of a fourth shot, contained on
   the police dictabelt . The panel concluded it was simply random noise,
   perhaps static, recorded about a minute after the shooting while
   Kennedy's motorcade was en route to Parkland Hospital.

   The NAS experts, headed by physicist Norman F. Ramsey of Harvard,
   reached that conclusion after studying the sounds on the two radio
   channels Dallas police were using that day. Routine transmissions were
   made on Channel One and recorded on a dictabelt at police headquarters.
   An auxiliary frequency, Channel Two, was dedicated to the president's
   motorcade and used primarily by Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry; its
   transmissions were recorded on a separate Gray Audograph disc machine.

   The conclusion by the NAS was then rebutted in 2001 in a Science and
   Justice article by D.B. Thomas, a government scientist and JFK
   assassination researcher. Mr. Thomas concluded the HSCA finding of a
   second shooter was correct and that the NAS panel's study was flawed.
   Thomas surmises that the Dictaphone needle jumped and created an
   overdub on Channel One.

   In response to Thomas's findings, Michael O'Dell concluded in his
   report that the prior reports relied on incorrect timelines and made
   unfounded assumptions that, when corrected, do not support the
   identification of gunshots on the recording.

   However, Thomas claimed those findings to be false at a conference in
   DC in 2005, and provided what he said was further support for evidence
   of at least four shots.

   In 2003, ABCNEWS aired the results of their investigation on a program
   called " Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination-Beyond
   Conspiracy." Based on computer diagrams and recreations done by Dale K.
   Myers, ABCNEWS concluded that the sound recordings on the dictabelt
   could not have come from Dealey Plaza and that the Police Officer H.B.
   McLain was correct in his assertions that he had not yet entered Dealey
   Plaza at the time of the assassination.

Assassination Records Review Board

   The Assassination Records Review Board was created by an act of
   Congress in 1992 to gather and preserve the documents relating to the
   assassination. The Assassination Records Review Board was not
   commissioned to make any findings or conclusions. According to the
   AARB, one of the many tragedies related to the assassination of
   President Kennedy was the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the
   suspicion caused by the secrecy that has surrounded the records that do
   exist.

Assassination theories

   An official investigation by the House Select Committee on
   Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that
   Oswald assassinated President Kennedy as a result of a probable
   conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the
   earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was
   assassinated by a lone gunman.

   The perception of a conspiracy was widespread even at the time. A
   source considered reliable by the FBI, related that Colonel Boris
   Ivanov, Chief of the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB)
   Residency in New York City at the time of the assassination, stated
   that it was his personal feeling that the assassination of President
   Kennedy had been planned by an organized group rather than being the
   act of one individual assassin.

   Many not only dispute the conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin
   (claiming that there was a conspiracy), but also claim that Oswald was
   not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a
   "patsy." Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination,
   and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody.

   Some polls indicate a large number of Americans are suspicious of
   official government conclusions regarding the assassination. A 2003 ABC
   News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected there was an
   assassination plot. These same polls also show that there is no
   agreement on who else may have been involved. Virtually every person
   and organization that could have had any possible motive for the crime
   has been accused at one time or another of involvement in the Kennedy
   assassination.

President's motorcade

   The motorcade consisted of numerous cars and police motorcycles.

   The lead car, an unmarked white Ford: Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry
   (driver), Secret Service Agent Winston Lawson (right front), Sheriff
   Bill Decker (left rear), Agent Forrest Sorrels (right rear)

   SS 100 X (its District of Columbia license plate), a 1961 Lincoln
   Continental: Agent Bill Greer (driver), Agent Roy Kellerman (right
   front), Nellie Connally (left middle), Texas Governor John Connally
   (right middle), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (left rear), President
   Kennedy (right rear)

   Halfback (a Secret Service code name), a convertible: Agent Sam Kinney
   (driver), Agent Emory Roberts (right front), Agent Clint Hill (left
   front running board), Agent Bill McIntyre (left rear running board),
   Agent John Ready (right front running board), Agent Paul Landis (right
   rear running board), Presidential aide Kenneth O'Donnell (left middle),
   Presidential aide David Powers (right middle), Agent George Hickey
   (left rear), Agent Glen Bennett (right rear)

   1964 Lincoln 4 door convertible: State highway patrol officer Hurchel
   Jacks (driver), Agent Rufus Youngblood (right front), Senator Ralph
   Yarborough (left rear), Mrs. Lyndon Johnson (centre rear),
   Vice-President Lyndon Johnson (right rear).

   Varsity (Secret Service code name), a hardtop: a Texas state policeman
   (driver), Vice Presidential aide Cliff Carter (front middle), Agent
   Jerry Kivett (right front), Agent Woody Taylor (left rear), Agent Lem
   Johns (right rear)

   Press pool car, (on loan from the phone company): telephone company
   driver, Malcolm Kilduff, assistant White House press secretary (middle
   front), Merriman Smith, UPI (right front), Jack Bell, AP, Robert
   Baskin, Dallas News, Bob Clark, ABC (rear)

   Press Car: Bob Jackson, The Dallas Times Herald, Tom Dillard, The
   Dallas Morning News, Mal Couch, WFAA-TV/ABC

Similarities to other Presidential deaths in office

   Every United States president elected or reelected in 20-year intervals
   beginning with 1840 (beginning with William Henry Harrison) had died in
   office (Harrison 1840, Lincoln 1860, Garfield 1880, McKinley 1900,
   Harding 1920, Roosevelt 1940). John F. Kennedy's assassination
   continued this pattern. It ultimately broke with Ronald Reagan who,
   elected in 1980, survived being shot in a March 1981 assassination
   attempt. This pattern of Presidential deaths has been referred to as
   Tecumseh's curse, the 20-year curse, or the zero factor.

   After JFK's assassination, a popular urban legend emerged—that there
   existed numerous similarities between Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln's
   assassination, namely that while Kennedy was shot by from a warehouse
   with the assassin escaping to a theatre, Lincoln was shot in a theatre
   and the assassin escaped to a warehouse and that both presidents were
   followed in office by men named Johnson.

Television and film portrayals

   Kennedy's life and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding his
   death have been the topic for many films, including Mark Lane's 1966
   Rush to Judgment, Executive Action in 1973, NBC TV's 1983 mini series
   Kennedy, Nigel Turner's 1988, 1991, 1995, and 2003's continuing
   documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Oliver Stone's 1991 JFK, and
   the 1993 JFK: Reckless Youth (which looked at Kennedy's early years).

   In 1975, a San Francisco-based group of artists called Ant Farm
   reenacted the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza and documented it
   in a video piece called " The Eternal Frame."

   The assassination of JFK was the focal point of an episode of the
   science-fiction comedy series Red Dwarf named " Tikka to Ride" when
   male lead Lister played by Craig Charles goes back in time to order
   some curry and ends up in the Texas School Book Depository,
   accidentally bumping Lee Harvey Oswald out the window before he fires
   the lethal shot that killed Kennedy. The resulting time paradox
   prevents Lister and his crewmates from returning to their own time, so
   Lister makes contact with the now impeached Kennedy a few years later
   after the failed assassination attempt. Lister convinces Kennedy that
   the best interests of the United States and the future are served by
   his death, so Kennedy goes back in time with Lister to be the infamous
   second shooter behind the grassy knoll. The assassination is successful
   and shortly afterwards Kennedy the shooter vanishes.

   In the TV series Twilight Zone (1985) episode " Profile in Silver", a
   time traveller whose mission is to film the assassination loses his
   detachment and prevents Kennedy's death. The result is an escalating
   series of natural disasters, as the universe tries to "heal" itself.
   The time traveller resolves the paradox by sending Kennedy forward to
   his own era, and by taking Kennedy's place in the motorcade, dying in
   his stead.

   In an two hour episode of the TV series Quantum Leap, in the episodes
   named Lee Harvey Oswald' which aired September 22, 1992, Sam Beckett
   jumps into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald at various times in his life.
   It appears that the two minds are merging, as Sam's contact with PQL,
   Al, tries to bring back Sam before he becomes Oswald and actually
   assassinated Kennedy instead of Oswald. Near the end Sam jumps from
   Oswald just before he pulled the trigger to assassinate the President,
   to the Secret Service Agent at the rear of the limo carrying the
   President, who grabs Mrs. Kennedy and pulls her back into the limo. It
   is then revealed that Sam was sent back to save Mrs. Kennedy, who was
   also killed in an alternate history, which was relayed by Al before Sam
   leaps out to his next adventure.

   The 2002 film Interview With the Assassin presents the assassination
   and resultant conspiracy theories in mock documentary fashion, with a
   terminally-ill former Marine named Walter Ohlinger who claims that he
   was the second gunman behind the fence on the grassy knoll.
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