It Was 45 Years Ago Today That John F. Kennedy Was Killed.

[Steely Dan]

Compliments of the History Channel's daily email.

 

November 22: General Interest

 

1963 : John F. Kennedy assassinated

 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible.

 

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy rarely accompanied her husband on political outings, but she was beside him, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, for a 10-mile motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas on November 22. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas' Parkland Hospital. He was 46.

 

Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States at 2:39 p.m. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband's blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington.

 

The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that Monday, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy's body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew's Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral. Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave.

 

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

 

Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street near his rooming house in Dallas. Thirty minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater by police responding to reports of a suspect. He was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.

 

On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.

 

Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy's murder had caused him to suffer "psychomotor epilepsy" and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found Ruby guilty of "murder with malice" and sentenced him to die.

 

In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.

 

The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee's findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

 

Let the conspiracy theories fly.

[Steely Dan]

I have some conspiracy and anti-conspiracy stuff below.

 

Food for thought:

 

Here's a site that has bios of the people involved in the shooting.

 

They're pretty detailed. I haven't read any in full right now. Some of them:

 

Jack Ruby

Ruby told Earl Warren that he would "come clean" if he was moved from Dallas and allowed to testify in Washington. He told Warren "my life is in danger here". He added: "I want to tell the truth, and I can't tell it here." Warren refused to have Ruby moved and so he refused to tell what he knew about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

 

Lee Harvey Oswald

The police soon found out that Oswald worked at the Texas Book Depository. They also discovered his palm print on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that was found earlier that day. Other evidence emerged that suggested that Oswald had been involved in the killing of John F. Kennedy. Oswald's hand prints were found on the book cartons and the brown paper bag. Charles Givens, a fellow worker, testified that he saw Oswald on the sixth floor at 11.55 a.m. Another witness, Howard Brennan, claimed he saw Oswald holding a rifle at the sixth floor window.

 

The police also discovered that the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was purchased under the name A. Hiddell. When he was arrested, the police found that Oswald was carrying a forged identity card bearing the name Alek Hiddell. The rifle had been sent by the mail order company from Chicago to P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas. The Post Office box belonged to Oswald.

 

Lee Harvey Oswald was interrogated by the Dallas Police for over 13 hours. However, the police made no tapes nor took any transcripts of the interrogations. Oswald denied he had been involved in the killing of Kennedy. He also told newsmen on the night of the assassination he was a "patsy" (a term used by the Mafia to describe someone set up to take the punishment for a crime they did not commit)

 

What intrigues me about this is Harvey saying he was a "patsy". Just about everyone who's arrested claims they are innocent but this is the only time I can remember somebody saying they were a patsy.

 

Very long article on the shooting.

 

A debunking article

 

Thomas Canning was a NASA scientist who studied the Single Bullet trajectory for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He used the Betzner photograph to establish a line to the right of which Connally could not have been. He also estimated the rotation of Connally's torso from the Zapruder film. The result was an alignment that showed the bullet leaving Kennedy's throat to strike Connally in the back hear the shoulder — which is where Connally was actually struck. Of course, you don't really have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.

 

Canning used the House Select Committee scenario that had Kennedy and Connally being struck by the Single Bullet at Zapruder frame 190. More recent work has pinpointed the time of the hit to Zapruder frame 223. Various researchers have modelled the Single Bullet Theory at that frame. Failure Analysis Associates, in work done for a 1992 "mock trial" of Lee Harvey Oswald for the American Bar Association, used 3-D computer animation and modelling techniques to research the bullet trajectory, and concluded that the Single Bullet Trajectory works.

 

Youtube debunking

 

Another article

 

A team of experts assembled by the Discovery Channel has recreated the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Using modern blood spatter analysis, new artificial human body surrogates, and 3-D computer simulations, the team determined that the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was the most likely origin of the shot that killed the 35th president of the United States.

 

[/dev/null]

JFK was killed by Colonel Mustard with a candlestick in the billiards room

[erynthered]

It was a sad day. I remember it.

 

Al that being said, he was not a very good president. Pretty bad really.

[Steely Dan]

It was a sad day. I remember it.

 

Al that being said, he was not a very good president. Pretty bad really.

 

I believe he handled the Cuban missile crisis perfectly. He got the Soviets to keep the missiles out of Cuba and avoided a nuclear war while doing it. What more could you ask for?

[Wacka]

I remember it clear as a bell. I was in First grade. The phone rings, the teacher has a shocked look, goes outside in the hall , comes back in and was crying. She told us then. The school was small (~150 kids). They put the one TV they had (it was wheeled from room to room if they wanted to show us something on Channel 17 (before tape). They put it in our Gymacafatorium and we watched the news until they could get the busses to the school and send us home early. I remember watching the funeral and then watching live when Ruby shot Oswald (I think it was Sunday morning). My father shouted "Holy sh--!!!!!"

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

I believe he handled the Cuban missile crisis perfectly. He got the Soviets to keep the missiles out of Cuba and avoided a nuclear war while doing it. What more could you ask for?

 

He also botched the Bay of Pigs Invasion so badly that the world was almost brought to its knees by nuclear weapons. And I think we have Robert Kennedy and McNamara to thank for guiding us out of the missile crisis. Kennedy was also notoriously bad at getting his legislation pushed through Congress due to his inexperience.

 

That said, history looks upon him as a charismatic man that gave the country hope during the Cold War and who genuinely cared about and believed in his country.

[Boomer860]

It was a sad day. I remember it.

 

Al that being said, he was not a very good president. Pretty bad really.

I saw Jack Ruby kill Oswald live on TV , not a replay , in black and white of course. As far as Kennedy goes he was an inspirational speaker ,de javu.

[The Dean]

He also botched the Bay of Pigs Invasion so badly that the world was almost brought to its knees by nuclear weapons. And I think we have Robert Kennedy and McNamara to thank for guiding us out of the missile crisis. Kennedy was also notoriously bad at getting his legislation pushed through Congress due to his inexperience.

 

That said, history looks upon him as a charismatic man that gave the country hope during the Cold War and who genuinely cared about and believed in his country.

 

 

To his credit, he accepted responsibility for the bad decision on Bay of Pigs, and is remembered for at least having the honesty and courage to face the nation and admit his mistake. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but in my lifetime it is more than most have done, when they have screwed up.

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

To his credit, he accepted responsibility for the bad decision on Bay of Pigs, and is remembered for at least having the honesty and courage to face the nation and admit his mistake. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but in my lifetime it is more than most have done, when they have screwed up.

 

I can agree with that. But I like to play devil's advocate when talking about Kennedy. Because he was assassinated, history views him through rose colored glasses as some infallible knight in shining armor, something he was not.

[Bmwolf21]

To his credit, he accepted responsibility for the bad decision on Bay of Pigs, and is remembered for at least having the honesty and courage to face the nation and admit his mistake. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but in my lifetime it is more than most have done, when they have screwed up.

Agreed. I read a decent article about how Obama can learn from prior President's early mistakes, and they mentioned Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs foul up:

 

In the days following the abortive invasion, according to historian Richard Reeves, the president “was seen talking to himself, sometimes startling his men by interrupting conversations with lines like, ‘How could I have been so stupid?’”

 

Kennedy invited Eisenhower to confer with him after the fiasco in a show of national unity. The old general gave the young president a scolding, Reeves said. “Mr. President, how could you expect the world to believe we had nothing to do with it?”

 

As Kennedy told Bissell later, “In a parliamentary system, I would resign.” But the Constitution gives presidents a fixed four-year term. Early embarrassments, and even disasters must simply be endured.

[The Dean]

I can agree with that. But I like to play devil's advocate when talking about Kennedy. Because he was assassinated, history views him through rose colored glasses as some infallible knight in shining armor, something he was not.

 

 

I understand. But, most of what I hear lately about JFK involves drugs, the mob and indiscriminate sex with many women. He was a good, but not perfect, President and a flawed, but not inconsequential. man.

 

Of course, as you probably noticed around here, there is only black and white.

[Bishop Hedd]

I understand. But, most of what I hear lately about JFK involves drugs, the mob and indiscriminate sex with many women. He was a good, but not perfect, President and a flawed, but not inconsequential. man.

 

Of course, as you probably noticed around here, there is only black and white.

 

 

There was that whole cottage industry back in the late 80's early'90's which hit its peak with Ollie Stone's flick.

 

Now? Well.....notice you don't see the cable stations going bonkers over it anymore.

 

As for a conspiracy....I'm with Crash Davis on that one.

[East Brady]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dOOFB8fs38&NR=1

[Steely Dan]

He also botched the Bay of Pigs Invasion so badly that the world was almost brought to its knees by nuclear weapons. And I think we have Robert Kennedy and McNamara to thank for guiding us out of the missile crisis. Kennedy was also notoriously bad at getting his legislation pushed through Congress due to his inexperience.

 

That said, history looks upon him as a charismatic man that gave the country hope during the Cold War and who genuinely cared about and believed in his country.

 

I disagree with the McNamara and Robert Kennedy comment. I do agree with the bay of pigs but give him some credit for trying something.

 

 

I understand. But, most of what I hear lately about JFK involves drugs, the mob and indiscriminate sex with many women. He was a good, but not perfect, President and a flawed, but not inconsequential. man.

 

Of course, as you probably noticed around here, there is only black and white.

 

What he said.

 

A friends ex-girlfriend's father was at the Bay of Pigs. He kept it a secret for many years refusing to talk about his military history until one day he told them about it. It wasn't a pleasant experience for him, obviously.

[The Dean]

A friends ex-girlfriend's father was at the Bay of Pigs. He kept it a secret for many years refusing to talk about his military history until one day he told them about it. It wasn't a pleasant experience for him, obviously.

 

 

Have you seen The In-Laws? (The one with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk)

[Steely Dan]

Have you seen The In-Laws? (The one with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk)

 

No.

[molson_golden2002]

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/kaiass..._to_dallas.html

 

another year, another new book.

 

So, like, what about the bullet looking so perfect after doing all that damage?

[/dev/null]

Unfortunately the immutable laws of physics contradict the whole premise of your account.

Allow me to reconstruct this if I may for Miss Benes as I've heard this story a number of times.

Newman, Kramer, if you'll indulge me.

According to your story Hernandez passes you and starts walking up the ramp.

Then you say you were struck on the right temple.

The spit then proceeds to ricochet off the temple striking Newman between the third and fourth rib.

The spit then came off the rib made a right turn hitting Newman in the right wrist causing him to drop his baseball cap.

The spit then splashed off the wrist, Pauses in mid air mind you...

Makes a left turn, and lands on Newman's left thigh.

That is one magic loogie.

[The Dean]

No.

 

 

See it