Kennedy Assassination

Kennedy Assassination

Page B-4 THE POST, Frederick, Maryland Friday, November 23, 1973 The Tragic Days Kennedy Assassination - By ROBERT E. FORD Associated Press Writer DALLAS, Tex. (AP) — "My God! I am hit!" the first man triree years oetore. cried. Yet some in Dallas were "Oh, no, no, no! My God, fearful. they are going to kill us all!" The Secret Service had asked cried the second man. for extra Dallas policemen to And so began 48 hours and 37 help. Chief Jesse Curry gave minutes of trauma and tragedy the Service all it asked and a decade ago . called in still more men. The dead: Some thought the militant President John F. Kennedy. right wing might try a demon- Police officer J. D. Tippit. stration. United Nations Am- Lee Harvey Oswald. bassador Adlai Stevenson had The wounded: been spat upon here a month Texas Gov. John B., Con- before. Scurrilous handbills had nally. been circulated on the eve of A decade ago in Lime, but Kennedy's arrival. still vivid in the mind of a na- And there were all those tion. Still terrible, the details of thousands of windows in the that November day in Dallas ... tall buildings from which an as- The air was sharp and a sault could he launched. bright sun beamed out of a The motorcade crawled west cloudless sky when Air Force. on Main. Turn right. One block One landed at Dallas' Love along Houston. Left onto Elm Field at 11:37 a.m. on Nov. 22, at a nondescript old brick 1963. structure seven stories high. The Kennedys had come from The Texas School Book Depos- Fort Worth, 30 miles away, itory. where they had spent the night Chief Curry drove the leading after stops in San Antonio and car. "Looks like we got it Houston. A political trip to made," he commented as his campaign for future elections own car passed the depository. and help fill the Democrats' Three rapid shots split the coffers. air. Kennedy was to appear at a One bullet struck President fund-raising dinner that night Kennedy in the neck and trav- in Austin, after a luncheon ad- eled downward. Another hit his dress at the Trade Mart in head. "My God! I am hit!" he downtown Dallas. exclaimed, Secret Service With him was his wife, Jac- Agent Roy Kellerman testified queline, clutching a bouquet of later. red roses against her pink suit. Gov. Connally, riding on a In the party were his vice pres- jump seat just ahead of the ident, Lyndon B. Johnson; Gov. president, was strunk by a bul- • Connally, and Sen Ralph Yar- let which passed through his borough of Texas. back and chest before emerg- - A motorcade would take ing and causing a crippling them to the Trade Mart, where wound in his right wrist. Then, already 2,500 persons were ex- almost spent, it struck Connally : pected in a thigh. It was he who ex- Twice on its way downtown claimed, "My God, they are go- the line of cars stopped so Ken- ing to kill us all!" nedy could greet school chil- Agent Clinton J. Hill jumped dren waving to him from side- from the backup car and ran to walks. the president. Kennedy's skull Thousands of people lined the was destroyed. route as the motorcade turned Hill told the Warren Commis- westward into the business sec- sion, "Mrs. Kennedy had tion. The atmosphere was hap- jumped up from the seat and . py, and it was hard to believe was, it appeared to me, reach- Kennedy had lost Dallas County ing for something coming off the right rear bumper of the car, the right rear tail, when sae nouced mat 1. was trying to climb on the car. She turned to- fly away at once from WIWl ward me and I grabbed her still might be a danger zone, and put her back in the back but he balked and refused to seat, crawled up on top of the move until Kennedy's body back seat and lay there." reached the plane and Mrs. In the front seat, Agent Kel- Kennedy arrived. lerman grabbed a microphone He called Mrs. Kennedy to and shouted to the lead car, him. Then U.S. District Court "We are hit. Get us to the hos- Judge Sarah T. Hughes swore pital immediately." Johnson in as 36th president of Agent William Greer, the the United States. presidential car driver, floored Dallas had two police radio the accelerator. One agent networks and both crackled cocked an automatic rifle. with orders deploying squad At 60 miles per hour, the mo- cars throughout Dallas. Mexi- torcade raced for Parkland can border stations were Hospital. The agents rode with drawn sidearms. alerted. The orders: Arrest an "un- known white male, approxi- mately 30, slender build, height Mrs. Kennedy, overcome by 5 feet 10 inches, weight 165 shock and grief, did not want to pounds, reported to be armed surrender her husband who was with what is thought to be a lying in her lap. He was taken from her into the hospital. .30-c a I i ber rifle." That was a rather poor de- Doctors rushed to -Trauma scription with which officer Rooms I and 2 — No. 1 for the J.D. Tippit was to spot the sus- president, No. 2 for the gover- nor. The doctors testified that pect. Kennedy was breathing and a Oswald rode a bus for a short pulse could be detected in a distance from the depository, leg. alighted and hailed a taxicab. But it was hopeless. It took him across the Trinity Two Roman Catholic priests River to a point near his room- administered the last rites. ing house. Oswald went to his room, donned a jacket and The open-top presidential car came outside again, the Warren sat abandoned at the emergen- Commission reported. cy entrance of the hospital with He was walking down a side- Jacqueline's red oases trampled walk when Tippit called to him, on the floorboards. The officer opened the car The announcement came: ' door and started around the ve- President Kennedy is dead. Of- hicle. Oswald drew a second- ficial time of death: 1 p.m. hand .38-caliber Smith and Oneal Funeral Home brought Wesson and shot him four its best grade of casket and backed a black hearse to the emergency entrance dock. times, the Warren Commission Jacqueline refused to leave said, before Tippit could fully her husband. She walked to the draw his pistol. Tippit died al- edge of the dock and stood most instantly, 16 minutes after there, frozen-faced, straight as Kennedy. a pillar, her eyes focused a The young man fled toward hundred thousand miles away. Oak Cliff's main business Attendants rolled Kennedy's street, then darted into the casket up behind her, placed it Texas Theatre, where officers in the hearse and closed the captured him even as he drew doors. Mrs. Kennedy turned to his pistol again. the right, walked to the front of He was charged with the the hearse and sat beside the murder of Tippit first, then of driver. ; Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson, meanwhile, It was two days later, Sun- had been spirited to the airport. day, when police brought Os- He slumped in the car seat. wald down from an upper cell The accompanying guard cars to the city jail basement. They kept their sirens silent. planned to transfer him a few He did not want to ride in Air Force One, but advisers de- blocks away to the Dallas manded it, for it held superior County jail as required by Texas law after a person is communications gear and John- son was president now — if not charged. technically at this moment, By now, police feared Oswald then soon. himself would be assassinated. Advisers wanted Johnson to They provided an armored car as a stalking hot-se while plan- ning to spirit him secretly in an unmarked car the few blocks to the county installation.- Officers seemed almost anx- trauma room where Kennedy ious, however, that newsmen be succumbed, seven minutes lat- allowed at some point to see er by the clock than did the and photograph Oswald. They president two days before. knew the historic nature of the Kennedy, Tippit and Oswald events of the last two or three all were buried on Monday, days. And they wanted impar- three days after the presiden- tial observers to tell the public tial assassination. that the prisoner had not been John F. Kennedy went to his mistreated while in custody. resting place in solemn rites in About 50 newsmen were Arlington with delegations from present in the city jail base- 100 or more countries mourning ment, kept back from the door with the nation. through which Oswald would J.D. Tippit's services were in walk. a small Baptist church' with 400 Down the vehicle ramp from officers in crisply creased uni- the street to the basement forms inside and another 1,000 strolled a short, pudgy charac- paying tribute on the church . ter-about-town. grounds. This was Jack Ruby, oper- Lee Harvey Oswald was bur- ator of two bars, the best ied almost obscurely in a Fort known the downtown Carousel Worth cemetery, and only rela- Club where strippers performed tives and reporters were on stage and B-girls cadged present. Attending were his drinks largely from con- mother, Marguerite; his wife, ventioneers. Marina; his brother, Robert, Ruby walked to within a few and the Oswalds' two small feet of Oswald and shot him.

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