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From : thefilmarchive
Added: Sep 24, 2009
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 19631964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 19761979, and other government investigations concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald who himself was murdered before he could stand trial. This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public, but polls conducted from 1966 show as many as 80% of the American public hold beliefs contrary to these findings. 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 and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed. Later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots. Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, Kennedys 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. 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. There was hardly any reaction in the crowd to the first shot, many later saying they thought they had heard a firecracker or the exhaust backfire of a vehicle. President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, sitting beside his wife in front of the Kennedys in the limousine, both turned abruptly from looking to their left to looking to their right. Connally immediately recognized the sound of a high-powered rifle. "Oh, no, no, no," he said as he turned further right, and then started to turn left, attempting to see President Kennedy behind him. According to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, 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, and exited his throat. He raised his clenched fists up to his neck and leaned forward and to his left, as Mrs. Kennedy put her arms around him in concern. Governor Connally also reacted, as the same bullet penetrated his back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh. He said, "My God, they are going to kill us all!" The final shot took place when the Presidential limousine was passing in front of the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure. As the shot was heard, a fist-size hole exploded out from the right side of President Kennedy's head, covering the interior of the car and a nearby motorcycle officer with blood and brain tissue. Then Mrs. Kennedy said, "I have his brains in my hand." United States Secret Service agent Clint Hill was riding on the left front running board of the car immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Sometime after the shot that hit the president in the back, Hill jumped off and ran to overtake the limousine. After the president had been shot in the head, Mrs. Kennedy began to climb out on the back of the limousine, though she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she was reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the president's skull. He jumped onto the back of the limousine, pushed Mrs. Kennedy back into her seat, and clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital.
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