Difference between revisions of "John F. Kennedy assassination"

Latest revision as of 20:55, 26 September 2010

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade.

The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963–1964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979, and other government investigations concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was subsequently murdered by Jack Ruby, before he could stand trial. This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public; however, polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 concluded approximately 80% of the American public have held beliefs contrary to these findings.^[1][2] The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired, that there was a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President, and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed.^[3] Later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences,^[4] have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

Assassination

Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, Kennedy’s limousine entered Dealey Plaza and slowly approached the Texas School Book Depository. Nellie Connally, then the First Lady of Texas, turned around to Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." which President Kennedy acknowledged.^[5][6]

When the Presidential limousine turned and passed the Depository and continued down Elm Street, shots were fired at Kennedy; a clear majority of witnesses recalled hearing three shots.^[7] A minority of the witnesses did recognize the first gunshot blast they heard as a weapon blast, but there was hardly any reaction from a majority in the crowd or riding in the motorcade itself to the first shot, with many later saying they heard what they first thought to be a firecracker or the exhaust backfire of a vehicle just after the president started waving.^[8][9]

Within one second of each other, President Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and Mrs. Kennedy, all turned abruptly from looking to their left to looking to their right, between Zapruder film frames 155 and 169.^[10] Connally, like the president a WWII military veteran (and unlike the president, a longtime hunter), testified he immediately recognized the sound of a high-powered rifle, then he turned his head and torso rightward attempting to see President Kennedy behind him. Connally testified he could not see the president, so he then started to turn forward again, and was hit in his upper right back by a bullet that he testified he did not hear the muzzle blast from. He then shouted, "Oh, no, no, no. My God. They're going to kill us all!"^[11][12]

Mrs. Connally testified that right after hearing a first loud, frightening noise that came from somewhere behind her and to her right, she immediately turned towards President Kennedy and saw him with his arms and elbows already raised high with his hands already close to his throat. She then heard another gunshot and John Connally started yelling. Mrs. Connally then turned away from President Kennedy towards her husband, then another gunshot sounded and she and the limousine's rear interior were covered with fragments of brain, blood, and bone matter.

According to the Warren Commission^[13] and the House Select Committee on Assassinations,^[14] as President Kennedy waved to the crowds on his right with his right arm upraised on the side of the limo, a shot entered his upper back, penetrated his neck, slightly damaged a spinal vertebra and the top of his right lung, exited his throat nearly centerline just beneath his Adam's apple, then nicked the left side of his suit tie knot. He then raised his arms and clenched fists around his head and neck, then leaned forward and towards his left. Mrs. Kennedy (already facing him) then put her arms around him in concern. Governor Connally also reacted after the same bullet penetrated his back creating an oval entry wound, impacted and destroyed four inches of his right, fifth rib bone, exited his chest just below his right nipple creating a two-and-a-half inch oval sucking-air chest wound, then entered just above his right wrist, impacted and cleanly fractured his right wrist bone, exited just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm, and entered his left inner thigh.^[15][16] The Warren Commission theorized that the "single bullet" struck between Zapruder frames 210 and 225, while the House Select Committee theorized it occurred exactly at Zapruder frame 190.

According to the Warren Commission, a second shot struck at Zapruder film frame 313 (the Commission made no conclusion as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired) when the Presidential limousine was passing in front of the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure (the House Select Committee concluded that the final shot was the fourth shot). They each concluded that this shot entered the rear of President Kennedy's head (the House Select Committee determined the entry wound to be four inches higher than the Warren Commission), then exploded out a roughly oval shaped hole from his head's rear and right side. Head matter, brain, blood, and skull fragments covered the interior of the car, the inner and outer surfaces of the front glass windshield and raised sun visors, the front engine hood, the rear trunk lid, the followup Secret Service car and its driver's left arm, and motorcycle officers riding on both sides of the president behind him.^[17] Mrs. Kennedy then reached out onto the rear trunk lid. After she crawled back into her limousine seat, both Governor Connally and Mrs. Connally heard her say more than once, "They have killed my husband," and "I have his brains in my hand."^[18][19]

United States Secret Service agent Clint Hill was riding on the left front running board of the followup car, immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Hill testified he heard one shot, then, as documented in other films and concurrent with Zapruder frame 308, he jumped off into Elm Street and ran forward to try and get on the limousine and protect the president. (Hill testified to the Warren Commission that after he jumped into Elm Street, he heard two more shots)^[20] After the president had been shot in the head, Mrs. Kennedy began to climb out onto the back of the limousine, though she later had no recollection of doing so.^[21][22] Hill believed she was reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the president's skull.^[23] He jumped onto the back of the limousine while at the same time Mrs. Kennedy returned to her seat, and he clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Others wounded

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Governor 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, his wife pulled him 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 531 feet (162 metres) away from the Depository's sixth floor, far-eastern window, 270 feet (82 metres) in front of and slightly to the right of President Kennedy's head facing direction, and more than 16 feet (4.9 metres) below the president's head top. Tague's injury occurred when a bullet or bullet fragment with no copper casing struck the nearby Main Street south curb. When Tague testified to the Warren Commission and was asked which of the three shots he remembered hearing struck him, he stated it was the second or third shot; when the Warren Commission attorney pressed him further, Tague stated he was struck concurrent with the second shot.^[24]

Aftermath in Dealey Plaza

The Presidential limousine was passing a grassy knoll on the north side of Elm Street at the moment of the fatal head shot. As the motorcade left the plaza, police officers and spectators ran up the knoll and from a railroad bridge over Elm Street (the Triple Underpass), to the area behind a five-foot (1.5 m) high stockade fence atop the knoll, separating it from a parking lot. No sniper was found.^[25] S. M. Holland, who had been watching the motorcade on the Triple Underpass, testified that "immediately" after the shots were fired, he went around the corner where the overpass joined the fence^[26] but did not see anyone running from the area.^[27]

Lee Bowers, a railroad switchman sitting in a two-story tower,^[28] had an unobstructed view of the rear of the stockade fence atop the grassy knoll during the shooting.^[29] He saw a total of four men in the area between his tower and Elm Street: a middle-aged man and a younger man, standing 10 to 15 feet (3.0 to 4.6 metres) apart near the Triple Underpass, who did not seem to know each other, and one or two uniformed parking lot attendants. At the time of the shooting, he saw "something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around," which he could not identify. Bowers testified that one or both of the men were still there when motorcycle officer Clyde Haygood ran up the grassy knoll to the back of the fence.^[30] In a 1966 interview, Bowers clarified that the two men he saw were standing in the opening between the pergola and the fence, and that "no one" was behind the fence at the time the shots were fired.^[31][32]

Meanwhile, Howard Brennan, a steamfitter who was sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, notified police that as he watched the motorcade go by, he heard a shot come from above, and looked up to see a man with a rifle make another shot from a corner window on the sixth floor. He had seen the same man minutes earlier looking out the window.^[33] Brennan gave a description of the shooter,^[34] which was broadcast to all Dallas police at 12:45 p.m., 12:48 p.m., and 12:55 p.m.^[35]

As Brennan spoke to the police in front of the building, they were joined by Harold Norman and James Jarman, Jr.,^[36] two employees of the Texas School Book Depository who had watched the motorcade from windows at the southeast corner of the fifth floor.^[37] Norman reported that he heard three gunshots come from directly over their heads.^[38] Norman also heard the sounds of a bolt action rifle and cartridges dropping on the floor above them.^[39]

Estimates of when Dallas police sealed off the entrances to the Texas School Book Depository range from 12:33 to after 12:50 p.m.^[40][41]

Of the 104 earwitnesses in Dealey Plaza who are on record with an opinion as to the direction from which the shots came, 54 (51.9%) thought that all shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository, 33 (31.7%) thought that all shots came from the area of the grassy knoll or the Triple Underpass, 9 (8.7%) thought all shots came from a location entirely distinct from the knoll or the Depository, 5 (4.8%) thought they heard shots from two locations, and 3 (2.9%) thought the shots came from a direction consistent with both the knoll and the Depository.^[7][42]

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald, reported missing to the Dallas police by Roy Truly, his supervisor at the Depository,^[43] was arrested an hour and 20 minutes after the assassination for killing a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, who had spotted Oswald walking along a sidewalk in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff.^[44] Oswald was captured in a nearby movie theater after he was seen sneaking into the theater without buying a ticket.^[45]

Oswald resisted, attempting to shoot the arresting officer, M.N. McDonald, with a pistol, and was struck and forcibly restrained by the police.^[46] He was charged with the murders of Tippit and Kennedy later that night.^[47] Oswald denied shooting anyone and claimed he was a patsy who was arrested because he had lived in the Soviet Union.^[48][49][50] Oswald's case never came to trial because two days later, while being escorted to a car for transfer from Dallas Police Headquarters to the Dallas County Jail, he was shot and killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Carcano rifle

A 6.5 x 52 mm Italian 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.^[51] The recovery was filmed by Tom Alyea of WFAA-TV.^[52] This footage shows the rifle to be a Carcano, and it was later verified by photographic analysis commissioned by the HSCA that the rifle filmed was the same one later identified as the assassination weapon.^[53] Compared to photographs taken of Oswald holding the rifle in his backyard, "one notch in the stock at [a] point that appears very faintly in the photograph" matched,^[54] as well as the rifle's dimensions.^[55]

The previous March, the Carcano rifle had been bought by Oswald under the name "A. Hidell" and delivered to a post office box Oswald rented in Dallas.^[56] According to the Warren Commission Report, a partial palm print of Oswald was also found on the barrel of the gun,^[57][58] and a tuft of fibers found in a crevice of the rifle was consistent with the fibers and colors of the shirt Oswald was wearing at the time of his arrest.^[59][60]

A bullet found on Connally's hospital gurney, and two bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine, were ballistically matched to this rifle.^[61]

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 Burkley,^[62] the President's personal physician, determined the head wound was the cause of death. Dr. Burkley signed President Kennedy's death certificate.^[63]

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.^[64] The Very Rev. Oscar L. Huber,^[65] the priest who administered the last rites to Kennedy told The New York Times that the President was already dead by the time Huber 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 White House Acting Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff^[66] at 1:33 p.m. CST (19:33 UTC).^[67] Governor Connally, meanwhile, was 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 a forensic examination could be conducted by the Dallas County coroner (Earl Rose), which violated Texas state law^{[citation needed]} (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 of the United States,^[68][69] although it was a federal crime to conspire to injure a federal officer while he was acting in the line of duty.^[70][71]

Vice-President 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 initial incapacitation.^[72] At 2:38 p.m. Johnson took the oath of office on board Air Force One just before it departed from Love Field.

Autopsy

After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C., Kennedy's body was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an immediate autopsy. The autopsy (about 8 p.m. to 12 midnight EST on November 22)^[73] was followed by embalming and cosmetic funeral preparation (about 12 midnight to 4 a.m.) in the morgue at Bethesda, in a room adjacent to the autopsy theater. This was done by a team of private mortuary personnel, who made an unusual trip to the hospital for this procedure. 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 entered slightly above and 2.5 cm to the right of the external occipital protuberance, exiting through the right side of the skull above the ear and "carrying with it portions of cerebrum, skull and scalp."^[74]

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.^[75] 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.^[76] 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 (13 and 15 centimetres) below Kennedy's collar (Image). However, photographic analysis of the motorcade, including a new pre-assassination film released in February 2007 (color film), 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.^[77] 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 noted that this drawing was never intended to be scale-exact, and he re-drew it for the benefit of The Baltimore Sun on November 25, 1966, placing an X at the higher spot (Image). Boswell stated that his measurements of 5.5 inches (14 centimetres) from the ear and shoulder properly locate the wound, and these are inconsistent with a wound at the third thoracic vertebra.^[78] Moreover, all three Bethesda doctors authenticated 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.

Later federal agencies such as the Assassination Records Review Board^[79] criticized the autopsy on several grounds including destruction from burning of the original draft of the autopsy report and notes taken by Cmdr. James Humes at the time of the autopsy, and failure to maintain a proper chain of custody of all of the autopsy materials.^[80]

Funeral

The President's body was brought back to the White House and placed in the East Room in a closed casket for 24 hours but was opened 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 John Kennedy Jr.'s third birthday). After the service, the casket was taken by caisson to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

Recordings 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 Dallas Trade Mart in anticipation of Kennedy's arrival. Those members of the media who were with the motorcade were riding at the rear of the procession.

The Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency designated as Channel One was used for routine police communications. A second channel, designated Channel Two, was an auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the president's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of Police Chief Jesse Curry's announcements of the location of the motorcade as it wound through the streets of Dallas.

President 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. Frame enlargements from the Zapruder film were published by Life magazine shortly after the assassination. The footage was first shown publicly as a film at the trial of Clay Shaw in 1969, and on television in 1975.^[81] According to the Guinness Book of World Records, an arbitration panel ordered the US government to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs for giving the film to the National Archives. The complete film, which lasts for 26 seconds, is valued at $16m.^[82]

Zapruder was not the only person who photographed at least part of the assassination; a total of 32 photographers were in Dealey Plaza. Amateur movies taken by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore (shown on television in New York on November 26, 1963),^[83] and Charles Bronson (not the actor) captured the fatal shot, although at a greater distance than Zapruder. Other motion picture films were taken in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting by Robert Hughes, F. Mark Bell, Elsie Dorman, John Martin Jr., Patsy Paschall, Tina Towner, James Underwood, Dave Wiegman, Mal Couch, Thomas Atkins, and an unknown woman in a blue dress on the south side of Elm Street.^[84] Still photos were taken by Phillip Willis, Mary Moorman, Hugh W. Betzner Jr., Wilma Bond, Robert Croft, and many others. The lone professional photographer in Dealey Plaza who was not in the press cars 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 in photographs taken by the others.

Previously unknown, color footage filmed on the assassination day by George Jefferies was released on February 20, 2007 by the Sixth Floor Museum, Dallas, Texas.^[85] The film does not include depiction of the actual shooting, having been taken roughly 90 seconds beforehand and a couple of blocks away. The only detail relevant to the investigation of the assassination is a clear view of Kennedy's bunched suit jacket, just below the collar, which has led to different calculations about how low in the back Kennedy was first shot (see discussion above).

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. He was questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m., on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24.^[86] Throughout this interrogation Oswald denied any involvement with either the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit.^[86] Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the questioning, keeping only rudimentary notes.^[87] Days later he wrote a report of the interrogation from notes he made afterwards.^[88] There were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the Secret Service, and occasionally participated in the questioning.^[89] Several of the FBI agents present wrote contemporaneous reports of the interrogation.^[90]

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.^[89] The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek.^[89] However, because of the unreliability of these tests, the Warren Commission did not rely on the results of the test in making their findings.^[89]

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.^[89] Dallas authorities were not able to complete their investigation into the assassination of Kennedy because of interruptions from the FBI and the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby.

Police Chief Jesse Curry was later quoted, "We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."^[91]

FBI investigation

The FBI was the first authority to complete an investigation. On November 24, 1963, just hours after 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."^[92] 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; 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.^[93]

The FBI has received added scrutiny by Kennedy assassination researchers because of 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. Approximately 10 days to a week 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. According to the receptionist at the field office it read:

Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop bothering my wife. Signed - Lee Harvey Oswald.^[94]

After Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, Hosty's supervisor FBI Special Agent-in-Charge for Dallas J. Gordon Shanklin 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 this connection with Oswald. This information became public later and was investigated by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.^[95]

Criticism of Secret Service

Sgt. Davis, of the Dallas Police Department, believed he had prepared stringent security precautions, in an attempt to prevent demonstrations like those marking the Adlai Stevenson visit from happening again. The previous month, Stevenson, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, was assaulted by an anti-UN demonstrator. 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, they might have been able to stop Oswald before he fired a second shot, because they carried submachine guns and rifles.^[96]

Warren Commission

The first official investigation of the assassination was established by President 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 concluded that it could not find any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies). The Commission found 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 informally called the Lone gunman theory. The commission also concluded that only three bullets were fired during the assassination and that 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 that the three shots were fired in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds.^[97]

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 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 commission also concluded that had President Kennedy not ordered the Secret Service not to have agents occupy the rear running board positions of the presidential limosine, agents would have jumped on top of the President after the first gunshot wound and would have spared him from receiving the fatal head wound.^[98]

Public response to the Warren Report

Almost immediately after the Warren Commission Report was issued, several researchers began seriously questioning its conclusions. A multitude of books and articles criticizing the Warren Commission's findings have been written. The Commission's conclusions have also gradually but continually lost widespread acceptance from the American public and various prominent government officials.^{[citation needed]} Fifteen years later, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations came to a different conclusion based on an audio recording then made available.

Ramsey Clark Panel

In 1968 a panel of four medical experts appointed by Attorney General Ramsey Clark met in Washington, D.C. to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of President Kennedy. The Clark Panel determined that 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.^[99]

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 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 to the general public in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas.^[100] The commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Sturgis were in Dallas at the time of the assassination, and that the head snap did not necessarily imply a shot from the front.^[101]

United States House Select Committee on Assassinations

Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued its report, a congressional committee named the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) 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.^[102] 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 resources." (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 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 him. The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory but concluded that it occurred at a time 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 G. Robert Blakey for the House Select Committee on Assassinations 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.^{[citation needed]}

Response to the Dictabelt evidence

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.^[103]

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.^[4] The evidence was presented by Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, acoustical experts from Queens College,^[104] who were part of the 1974 panel that concluded that the 18½ minute gap in the Watergate tapes was because that section was erased.^[105]

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.^[4] 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 Dallas 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.^[4] 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 Dictaphone machine 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 & Justice article by D.B. Thomas, a government scientist and JFK assassination researcher.^[106] 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.^[107] 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.^[108]

In 2003, ABC News aired the results of their investigation of the assassination in a news-documentary program called Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination — Beyond Conspiracy. Based on computer diagrams and recreations done by Dale K. Myers, ABC News 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.^[109]

In 2005, an article in Science & Justice by Ralph Linsker, Richard Garwin, Herman Chernoff, Paul Horowitz, and Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. re-analyzed the acoustic synchronization evidence, rebutting Thomas' 2001 argument as well as correcting errors in the 1982 NAS report, while supporting the NAS report's finding that the sounds alleged to be gunshots occurred about a minute after the assassination.^[110] Followup articles in Science & Justice have been published.^[111]

Sealing of assassination records

All of the Warren Commission's records were submitted to the National Archives in 1964. The unpublished portion of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) under a general National Archives policy that applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government,^[112] a period "intended to serve as protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants in the case.”^[113] The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992. By 1992, 98% of the Warren Commission records had been released to the public.^[114] Six years later, at the conclusion of the Assassination Records Review Board's work, all Warren Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, were available to the public with only minor redactions.^[115] The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents are scheduled to be released to the public by 2017, twenty-five years after the passage of the JFK Records Act. The Kennedy autopsy photographs and X-rays were never part of the Warren Commission records and were deeded separately to the National Archives by the Kennedy family in 1966 under restricted conditions.^[116]

Several 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 on November 24,^[117] Connally's clothing cleaned and pressed,^[118] Oswald's military intelligence file destroyed in 1973,^[119] Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing).

Jackie Kennedy's blood-splattered pink and navy Chanel suit that she wore on the day of the assassination is in climate controlled storage in the National Archives. Jackie wore the suit for the remainder of the day, stating "I want them to see what they have done" when asked aboard Air Force One to change into another outfit. Not included in the National Archives are the white gloves and pink pillbox hat she was wearing.^[120]

Assassination Records Review Board

The Assassination Records Review Board was not commissioned to make any findings or conclusions. Its purpose was to release documents to the public in order to allow the public to draw its own conclusions. From 1992 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed about 60,000 documents, consisting of over 4 million pages.^[121][122] All remaining documents are to be released by 2017.

Assassination conspiracy 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.^[3] This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman.

In the ensuing four decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community,^[123][124] Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson,^[125] the Mafia,^[126] the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), E. Howard Hunt, and the Eastern Bloc – or perhaps some combination of these.

Others 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.

Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, David S. Lifton, and David Kaiser.

Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large.^[127]

Polls have indicated that large numbers of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy.^[128] These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003 ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected there was an assassination plot involving more than one person.^[1] A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.^[129]

Reaction to the assassination

In America and around the world, there was a stunned reaction to the assassination. Schools across the U.S. dismissed their students early,^[130] and 54% of Americans stopped their normal activities on the day.^[131] In the days following people wept, lost their appetite, had difficulty sleeping, and suffered nausea, nervousness, and sometimes anger.^[132]

The event left a lasting impression on many people. It is said that everyone remembers where they were when they heard about the Kennedy assassination,^[133] as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 before it, the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster on January 28, 1986, and the attacks waged on September 11, 2001 afterwards.

Not all recreational and sporting events scheduled for the day of the assassination and during the weekend after were cancelled. Those that went on shared the sentiment NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle expressed in deciding to play NFL games that weekend: "It has been traditional...to perform in times of great personal tragedy."^[134]

Artifacts, museums and locations today

The plane serving as Air Force One is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio where tours of the aircraft are offered including the rear of the aircraft where Kennedy's casket was placed and the location where Mrs. Kennedy stood in her blood stained pink dress while Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. The 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine is at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.^[135]

Equipment from the trauma room at Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead, including a gurney, was purchased by the federal government from the hospital in 1973 and stored by the National Archives at an underground facility in Lenexa, Kansas. The First Lady's pink suit, the autopsy report and X-rays are stored in the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland and access is controlled by a representative of the Kennedy family. The rifle used by Oswald, his diary, bullet fragments, and the windshield of Kennedy's limousine are also stored by the Archives.^[135] The catafalque which Kennedy's coffin rested on while he lay in state in the Capitol is on display at the United States Capitol Visitor Center.^[136]

The three acre park within Dealey Plaza, the buildings facing it, the overpass, and a portion of the adjacent railyard including the railroad switching tower were designated part of the Dealey Plaza Historic District by the National Park Service on October 12, 1993. Much of the area is accessible to visitors including the park and grassy knoll. Though still an active city street, the spot where the presidential limousine was located at the time of the shooting is approximately marked with an X on the street.^[137] The Texas School Book Depository now draws over 325,000 visitors each year to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza operated by the Dallas County Historical Foundation. There is a re-creation of the sniper’s nest on the sixth floor of the building.^[138]

Some items were intentionally destroyed by the U.S. government at the direction of Robert F. Kennedy such as the casket used to transport Kennedy's body aboard Air Force One from Dallas to Washington which was dropped by the Air Force into the sea in an area which would be dangerous for looters to attempt to retrieve it. Other items such as the hat worn by Jack Ruby the day he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and the toe tag on Oswald's corpse are in the hands of private collectors and have sold for tens of thousands of dollars at auctions.^[135]

Notes

References

External links

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Coordinates: 32°46′45″N 96°48′31″W / 32.77903°N 96.80867°W / 32.77903; -96.80867

ca:Atemptat contra John F. Kennedy cs:Atentát na Johna Fitzgeralda Kennedyho da:Attentatet på John F. Kennedy de:Attentat auf John F. Kennedy es:Asesinato de John F. Kennedy eo:Atenco kontraŭ John Fitzgerald Kennedy fa:ترور جان اف کندی fr:Assassinat de John F. Kennedy ko:존 F. 케네디 암살 사건 id:Pembunuhan John F. Kennedy it:Assassinio di John F. Kennedy he:רצח קנדי ms:Pembunuhan John F. Kennedy nl:Moord op president Kennedy ja:ケネディ大統領暗殺事件 no:Attentatet mot John F. Kennedy pt:Assassinato de John F. Kennedy ro:Atentatul asupra lui John F. Kennedy ru:Убийство Джона Кеннеди sk:Atentát na Johna Fitzgeralda Kennedyho sr:Атентат на Џона Кенедија sh:Atentat na Johna F. Kennedyja fi:John F. Kennedyn salamurha sv:Mordet på John F. Kennedy th:เหตุการณ์การลอบสังหารจอห์น เอฟ. เคนเนดี tr:John F. Kennedy Suikastı vi:Vụ ám sát John F. Kennedy

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Gary Langer (November 16, 2003). "John F. Kennedy's Assassination Leaves a Legacy of Suspicion" (PDF). ABC News. Retrieved May 16, 2010. 
2. ↑ Jarrett Murphy, 40 Years Later: Who Killed JFK?, CBS News, November 21, 2003.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} "Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives". The National Archives. 1979. 
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} National Academy of Sciences, Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics.
5. ↑ Warren Commission Testimony of Nellie Connally, vol. 4, p. 147.
6. ↑ Warren Commission Testimony of John B. Connally, vol. 4, pp. 131–132.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} "Dealey Plaza Earwitnesses". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. 2006-04-24. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
8. ↑ Although some close witnesses, dependent on their viewing angle, recalled seeing the limousine slow down, nearly stop, or completely stop, the Warren Commission, based on the Zapruder film, found that the limousine had an average speed of 11.2 miles per hour over the 186 ft of Elm Street immediately preceding the fatal head shot. Warren Commission Report, chapter 2, p. 49
9. ↑ Additional research from the Zapruder film determined the car's speed to specifically slow from 14.4 mph to 8.3 mph. See the "Limo Speed" notation, written on the upper right Main Street area available on the Dealey Plaza map by Donald Roberdeau.
10. ↑ Graph of Head-facing Directions, Head-facing Changes, & Head-facing Changes in Speeds of the Kennedy's and Connally's at the Start of the Attack by Donald Roberdeau.
11. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Mrs. John Connally
12. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Jacqueline Kennedy
13. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 1: Summary and Conclusions, p. 18–19.
14. ↑ HSCA Report, p. 41–46.
15. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Governor John Connally.
16. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Dr. Shaw.
17. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Bobby Hargis. Interview of Abraham Zapruder, WFAA-TV, Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963.
18. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of John B. Connally, vol. 4, p. 134.
19. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Mrs. John B. Connally, vol. 4, p. 148.
20. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Clinton J. Hill.
21. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Jacqueline Kennedy.
22. ↑ Zapruder film: frames 370, 375, 380, 390.
23. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. II, p. 140, Testimony of Clinton J. Hill.
24. ↑ James Tague: Warren Commission testimony, 1964.
25. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Clyde Haygood.
26. ↑ See photos 4, 7, and 8, Up by the Triple Underpass 1.
27. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 6, pp. 244–245, Testimony of S. M. Holland. Photographs of the Triple Underpass and rear fence area.
28. ↑ See photo 1, Up by the Triple Underpass 1.
29. ↑ Warren Commission Report, p. 74, Commission Exhibit 2118, View From North Tower of Union Terminal Company, Dallas, Texas.
30. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Lee E. Bowers, Jr.
31. ↑ Dale K. Myers, Secrets of a Homicide: Badge Man – The Testimony of Lee E. Bowers, Jr.
32. ↑ Transcript of filmed interview of Lee Bowers, Jr., p.124, Roll GH600, from Rush to Judgment, in the papers of Emile de Antonio, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.
33. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 143, Testimony of Howard Brennan.
34. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 3, p. 145, Testimony of Howard Brennan.
35. ↑ History in Real Time: The JFK Assassination Dallas Police Tapes.
36. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 17, p. 209, CE 494, Photograph of James Jarman, showing his position at a fifth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.
37. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 17, p. 202, CE 485, Photograph of Harold Norman, Bonnie Ray Williams, and James Jarman, Jr. showing their positions on the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository as the motorcade passed.
38. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Bonnie Ray Williams. Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of James Jarman, Jr.
39. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Harold Norman.
40. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Welcome Eugene Barnett.
41. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Forrest V. Sorrels.
42. ↑ Not included in the 51.9% are two earwitnesses who though the shots came from the TSBD, but from a lower floor or at street level, and who are thus included in the 8.7%. Included in the 31.7% is a witness who thought the shots came from "the alcove near the benches".
43. ↑ Testimony of Roy Truly, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 3, p. 230.
44. ↑ Testimony of Helen Markham, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 3, p. 307.
45. ↑ Testimony of Johnny Calvin Brewer, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 7, p. 4.
46. ↑ Testimony of M.N. McDonald, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol. 3, p. 300.
47. ↑ Tippit murder affidavit: text, cover. Kennedy murder affidavit: text, cover.
48. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 20, p. 366, Kantor Exhibit No. 3 — Handwritten notes made by Seth Kantor concerning events surrounding the assassination.
49. ↑ Lee Oswald claiming innocence (film), YouTube.com.
50. ↑ Lee Oswald's Midnight Press Conference, YouTube.com.
51. ↑ "John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage :: Warren Commission :: Report :: Page 645". Jfk-assassination.de. 2004-12-05. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
52. ↑ "Tom Alyea, "Facts and Photos"". Jfk-online.com. 1963-12-19. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
53. ↑ HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. VI, p. 66–107.
54. ↑ "Warren Commission Report Chapter 4 - Photograph". Archives.gov. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
55. ↑ "The Assassin". Jfkassassination.net. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
56. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 4: The Assassin, Purchase of Rifle by Oswald.
57. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 4: The Assassin, Oswald's Palmprint on Rifle Barrel.
58. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 4, Testimony of Lt. J. C. Day.
59. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 4: The Assassin, Fibers on Rifle.
60. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 21, p. 467, Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 24, Chart prepared by Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt establishing identity of shirt worn by Oswald at the time of his arrest.
61. ↑ "Warren Commission Report Chapter 3 - Bullet". Archives.gov. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
62. ↑ "Biographical sketch of Dr. George Gregory Burkley, Arlington National Cemetery". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 2009-04-28. 
63. ↑ "History Matters Archive - MD 6 - White House Death Certificate (Burkley - 11/23/63), pg". History-matters.com. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
64. ↑ "Testimony Of Dr. Robert Nelson Mcclelland". Jfkassassination.net. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
65. ↑ Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 110, Number 3, January 2007, pp.380-393 . Retrieved 20 October 2008.
66. ↑ "Biographical sketch of Malcolm MacGregor Kilduff, Jr". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 2009-04-28. 
67. ↑ Kilduff was serving as the press secretary because the chief press secretary, Pierre Salinger, was traveling to Japan with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other Cabinet officers.
68. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 8: The Protection of the President, Recommendations, pp. 454–455.
69. ↑ Bugliosi, pp. 92f–93f.
70. ↑ 18 U.S.C. 372.
71. ↑ Recommendations: Assassination a Federal Crime, Warren Commission Report, p. 454.
72. ↑ United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 6.
73. ↑ Dr. James Humes testified that the autopsy ended at “approximately 11:00 p.m.” (2 H 349, 374; HSCA Record 180-10097-10151, January 26, 1967, p. 1). However, the consensus of opinion of those in attendance is that the autopsy ended at about midnight. Humes himself indicated that the autopsy may have extended to midnight when he told the Warren Commission that three bone fragments arrived “later on that evening or very early the next morning while we were all still engaged in continuing our examination” (2 H 354).
74. ↑ The President's Commission on The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, United States Government (1964). The Warren Commission Report. pp. 86, 541. ISBN 0760749973. 
75. ↑ Warren Exhibit 387:Autopsy Protocol, President Kennedy
76. ↑ "(Image)". History-matters.com. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
77. ↑ "Was Kennedy's Jacket Bunched When He Was Hit in the Back? - 2". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
78. ↑ "The JFK Assassination Single Bullet Theory". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
79. ↑ "Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board". Fas.org. 2008-05-30. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
80. ↑ "Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board, Chapter 6, Part II". Fas.org. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
81. ↑ Assassination Archives & Research Center v. The LMH Co., 1998.
82. ↑ "Think you know your film facts?". The Guardian. London. June 11, 2004. Retrieved May 6, 2010. 
83. ↑ Rick Friedman, "Pictures of the Assassination Fall to Amateurs on Street", Editor and Publisher, Nov. 30, 1963, p. 17. “A World Listened and Watched”, Broadcasting, Dec. 2, 1963, p. 37. Maurice W. Schonfeld, "The Shadow of a Gunman," Columbia Journalism Review, July-August, 1975.
84. ↑ A different person than the so-called "Babushka Lady".
85. ↑ "Collections Item Detail | The Sixth Floor Museum". Jfk.org. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
86. ↑ ^{86.0 86.1} "Warren Commission Report pp. 181". Archives.gov. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
87. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of J.W. Fritz. Captain Fritz told the Warren Commission that “I kept no notes at the time” of his several interrogations of Oswald (4 H 209). However, many years later, someone discovered a little over two and a half pages of Fritz’s contemporaneous handwritten notes at the National Archives. Fritz also said that “several days later” he wrote more extensive notes of the interrogations (4 H 209).
88. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Report of Capt. J.W. Fritz, Dallas Police Department, p. 13.
89. ↑ ^{89.0 89.1 89.2 89.3 89.4} Warren Commission Report, Statements of Oswald During Detention.
90. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Reports of Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
91. ↑ " 'Not Sure' on Oswald Author Curry Indicates", Dallas Morning News (Nov. 6, 1969)
92. ↑ Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 244.
93. ↑ "Findings". Archives.gov. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
94. ↑ Church, Frank (1976-04-23). "Book V: The Investigation of the Assassination of President J.F.K.: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies, Appendix B". U.S. Government Printing Office, Senate, Report 94-755, Church Committee. Retrieved 2010-04-03. 
95. ↑ "Findings". Archives.gov. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
96. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony Of Jesse Edward Curry.
97. ↑ Warren Commission Report, Chapter 3.
98. ↑ [1]^{[dead link]}
99. ↑ 1968 Panel Review of Photographs, X-Ray Films, Documents and Other Evidence Pertaining to the Fatal Wounding of President John E Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
100. ↑ Rockefeller Commission Report.
101. ↑ "Were Watergate Conspirators Also JFK Assassins?". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
102. ↑ Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Findings — CIA.
103. ↑ Spartacus Educational, House Selection Committee on Assassinations.
104. ↑ Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, An Analysis of Recorded Sounds Relating to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 1979.
105. ↑ "A Fourth Shot?". Time. 1979-01-01. Retrieved 2007-03-17. 
106. ↑ D.B. Thomas, Echo correlation analysis and the acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination revisited.
107. ↑ George Lardner Jr., Study Backs Theory of 'Grassy Knoll'.
108. ↑ Michael O'Dell, The acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination.
109. ↑ Frank Warner, More Kennedy assassination facts in: Oswald acted alone.
110. ↑ Ralph Linsker, Richard L. Garwin, Herman Chernoff, Paul Horowitz, Norman F. Ramsey. Synchronization of the acoustic evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy Science and Justice 45(4):207-26 (2005) PMID 16686272.
111. ↑ Science & Justice 46(3):199 (2006); Correspondence by Thomas; Reply by Linsker et al..
112. ↑ Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, endnotes, p. 136–137.
113. ↑ National Archives Deputy Archivist Dr. Robert Bahmer, interview in New York Herald Tribune, December 18, 1964, p.24
114. ↑ Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board (1998), p.2.
115. ↑ ARRB Final Report, p. 2. Redacted text includes the names of living intelligence sources, intelligence gathering methods still used today and not commonly known, and purely private matters.
116. ↑ Assassination Records Review Board, exhibit MD 112, Deed-of-Gift Letter from Burke Marshall (Kennedy Family Attorney) to Lawson B. Knott, Jr. (Administrator of General Services) dated October 29, 1966.
117. ↑ HSCA Record 180-10075-10174, January 6, 1964, p.4, memo from Secret Service chief James J. Rowley to Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin. Before the interior of the limousine was cleaned, it was photographed, and a metal detector was used to find bullet fragments.
118. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vo. 5, pp. 63-65, Testimony of Robert A. Frazier.
119. ↑ HSCA Report, pp.222–224.
120. ↑ Delia M. Rios, Newshouse News Service, November 22, 2003 In Mrs. Kennedy's Pink Suit, an indelible memory of public grief.
121. ↑ "Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board, Chapter 4". Fas.org. 2008-05-30. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
122. ↑ "Assassination Records Review Board: Unlocking the Government's Secret Files on the Murder of a President". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
123. ↑ James Chace, "Betrayals and Obsession," NY Times, October 25, 1987, on Joan Didion's book MIAMI
124. ↑ Joan Didion, "MIAMI," New York, Simon & Schuster, 238pp. 1987
125. ↑ Barr McClellan (October 23, 2003). "Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K." Buzzle.com. 
126. ↑ David Kaiser (March 2008). "The Road to Dallas". Harvard University Press. 
127. ↑ Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster (2002). "A Look at the Deaths of Those Involved". Assassination Research. 
128. ↑ Karlyn Bowman (September 4, 1997). "Most Americans Don't Know Much about Fast-Track". American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 
129. ↑ Dana Blanton (June 18, 2004). "Poll: Most Believe 'Cover-Up' of JFK Assassination Facts". Fox News. 
130. ↑ "1963: 'Stunned into silence' by JFK's death". BBC News. November 22, 1963. Retrieved May 6, 2010. 
131. ↑ "Historical Perspectives - Americans' reactions to Kennedy assassination, September 11 terrorist attacks, charted - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included | American Demographics | Find Articles at BNET.com". Findarticles.com. 2002-01-01. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
132. ↑ "Mourning population: Some considerations of historically comparable assassinations - Death Studies". Informaworld.com. 1980-04-02. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
133. ↑ Where Were You When President Kennedy Was Shot?: Memories and Tributes to a Slain President, Abigail Van Buren (Pauline Phillips), Andrews Mcmeel Pub, December 1994, ISBN 978-0-8362-6246-9
134. ↑ Brady, Dave (November 24, 1963). "It's Tradition To Carry on, Rozelle Says". The Washington Post. p. C2. 
135. ↑ ^{135.0 135.1 135.2} Keen, Judy (November 20, 2009). "JFK Relics Stir Strong Emotions". USA Today. Retrieved 20 November 2009. 
136. ↑ "The catafalque". Architect of the Capitol. Retrieved 21 November 2009. 
137. ↑ "Dealey Plaza Historic District". National Park Service. Retrieved 20 November 2009. 
138. ↑ "FAQs". Sixth Floor Museum. Dallas County Historical Foundation. Retrieved 20 November 2009.