Assassination Of President John F Kennedy example essay topic

Earl Warren, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court web 'What moved some misguided wretch to do this horrible deed may never be known to us. ' (September 27, 1964) On September 27, 1964, the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released after a 10-month investigation, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone. The presidential commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, also found that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on live national television, had no prior contact with Oswald. According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally, were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald's life, including his visit to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives. 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 the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed. KENNEDY IS ASSASSINATED SHOT BY SNIPER IN DALLAS GOV. CONNALLY HURT IN ATTACK ON MOTORCADE Mrs. Kennedy Cradles Husband's Blood-Smeared Head, Cries, 'Oh, No " St. Louis Post-DispatchNovember 22, 1963 Confusion reigned in Dallas, Texas, and throughout the United States as the details of President John F. Kennedy's assassination began to emerge. Because this account was written the day of Kennedy's death, it may contain information that has been subsequently revised or updated. By Richard DudmanDallas, Nov. 22-President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed today as he was riding in an open limousine through the streets of Dallas.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was riding in a car behind the President's and was not hurt in the sniper's attack. When Mr. Kennedy died less than an hour after the shooting, the Texan became the thirty-seventh President of the United States. Mr. Kennedy was 46 years; Johnson is 55. Two or perhaps three shots were fired at the presidential car as it passed through an intersection known as the Triple underpass. The President and the Governor slumped in their seats and the limousine raced to nearby Parkland Hospital.

Senator Ralph W. Yarborough (Dem. ), Texas, who was in the second car behind the President, said that he heard two or three shots that sounded like those of a deer rifle. Shortly before Mr. Kennedy's death became known, he was administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. He had been the first Roman Catholic President in American history. As two clergymen hovered over the President in the hospital emergency room, doctors and nurses administered blood transfusions. He was the first President to be assassinated since William McKinley was shot in 1901.

It was the first death of a President in office since Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Ga., in April 1945. Roosevelt had been on a vacation when he died. McKinley had been shaking hands at a reception at an exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. Lived 20 Minutes The shooting occurred at about 12: 45 p.m. The President, mortally wounded, clung to life for 20 minutes. Assistant White House Secretary Malcolm Kil duff said the President was still alive at 1: 05 p.m. Mike Cargile, a student who was standing near the scene of the tragedy, said that he saw the presidential car race past with the President slumped in the back seat and his wife, Jacqueline, lying across his body.

Cargile said the Governor was slumped in the front seat. Both men were carried by stretcher into the Hospital emergency room. Shortly afterward, a carton of blood was rushed to the door and carried inside. Yarborough said he believed that the shots came from behind and to the right of the automobiles. A photographer, who had been riding a few cars behind Yarborough, said the shots apparently came from a rifle pointed out of a fifth or sixth-story window of the Texas Book Depository Building at the highway underpass. Photographer Saw Rifle He said he saw the muzzle of the rifle being pulled inside the window immediately after the shots were fired.

Mrs. Kennedy cradled her dying husband's blood-smeared head in her arms as the limousine raced to the hospital". Oh, no", she kept crying. Connally slumped in his seat beside the President. Police ordered an unprecedented dragnet of the city, hunting for the assassin.

In Washington, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, telephoned the Dallas FBI office and ordered an all-out inquiry. Outside the hospital, a crowd gathered around newspaper men who awaited word as to the condition of the President and Governor. The assailant remained at large as far as could be learned at the hospital. Capt. P.W. Lawrence of the Dallas police department said, "I know they have not apprehended the man.

I know that from what I hear by police radio". The President had landed on schedule at Dallas's Love Field after making a breakfast speech at Fort Worth and an earlier brief address to a crowd of several thousand who had gathered in a light drizzle in a downtown parking lot in Fort Worth. Skies had cleared by the time the President's motorcade started from Fort Worth for Carswell Air Force Base for the 20-minute jet flight to Love Field. Crowd Cheers Kennedys A large and enthusiastic crowd awaited him at Love Field and cheered as he and Mrs. Kennedy, she wearing a suit of dusty pink and matching pill box hat, walked down the ramp from the presidential jet. Connally underwent an operation for a gunshot wound in the chest at 1: 30 p.m. His condition was said to be serious.

His doctor said that although the Governor "was not out of the woods, his vital signs were good". The doctor said Connally had a good pulse and that his respiration was satisfactory. The only sour note at the airport was a cluster of a large Cuban flag a large Confederate flag and a cloth banner saving. "Let's Barry John". Big crowds lined his route as the President rode into the city, where he was to address a luncheon at the Trade Mart. At the Trade Mart, police arrested four young men who had adhesive tape pasted over their mouths and were carrying signs that bore a hammer and sickle and said, "Hail Caesar".

It was in Dallas that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife were booed and jostled in 1960 in a downtown hotel lobby. It was here that a man spat on Adlai E. Stevenson. United States Ambassador to the United Nations, about two months ago and a woman hit him on the head with a picket sign. Stopped to Shake Hands The crowd along the parade route today appeared enthusiastic and relaxed with a few exceptions. Most persons waved, clapped and cheered as the presidential party passed.

Several times the President stopped briefly to shake upraised hands. But there was an occasional Goldwater sign and other indications of opposition including a sign that said, "Can the Clan", a reference to the disparaging names some persons had given the Kennedy Administration. On a window in a tall new office building on the parade route, someone had pasted in huge letters, "Bah!" The horror of the assassination was mirrored in an eyewitness account by Yarborough, who had been riding in a car behind Mr. Kennedy". You could tell something awful and tragic had happened", the Senator told reporters before Mr. Kennedy's death became known. His voice breaking and his eyes red-rimmed, Yarborough said:" I could see a Secret Service man in the President's car leaning on the car with his hands in anger anguish and despair. I knew then something tragic had happened".

Yarborough had counted three rifle shots as the presidential limousine left downtown Dallas through a triple underpass. The shots were fired from above. Dr. Malcolm Perry, attendant surgeon at Parkland Hospital who attended the President said that when he arrived at the emergency room, "I noticed the President was in critical condition with a wound of the neck and head". When asked whether the wounds could have been made by two bullets, he said he did not know. He said immediate measures were taken and Dr. Kemp Clark, chief of neurosurgery, was called, along with several other members of the staff". They arrived immediately but at this point the President's condition was critical and moribund".

The doctor said an oxygen machine was used and blood and fluid were administered. Lt. Erich Kaminski of the Secret Service said the assassin's weapon appears to have been a high powered Army or Japanese rifle of about 25 caliber". The rifle had a scope on it he said. The entire building from which the sniper was believed to have fired was evacuated.

People were working in the building at the time of the shooting. Dallas Inspector J.H. Sawyer said, "Police found the remains of fried chicken and paper on one floor. Apparently the person had been there quite awhile". Secret Service agents riding with the President and in a second convertible close behind immediately drew pistols and automatic weapons. But they were unable to get a shot at the assassin. Dallas motorcycle officers, ranged around the cavalcade, took off across a field in the direction from which the killer apparently had fired.

One officer raced to the foot of a nearby railroad embankment and climbed to the tracks above, pistol in hand. Ironically, Mr. Kennedy was shot to death at a spot where there were few spectators-after driving almost within handshaking distance of many thousand. Body Removed Mr. Kennedy's body was removed from Parkland Hospital at 2: 05 p.m. in an ambulance with curtains tightly drawn. Mrs. Kennedy rode in a passenger seat in the ambulance-a type of vehicle with two seats for passengers. She and the body were escorted from the emergency entrance of Parkland by two motorcycle officers.

Mrs. Kennedy walked out the back door of the emergency entrance as the body was taken out. She walked slowly, looked around her in a dazed manner and appeared to be in a state of shock. Those who saw her enter the hospital an hour and a half earlier said she had not been hysterical. Secret Service men directed Dallas police to remove spectators and reporters from 50 to 100 yards away before the body was taken from the hospital. Officers at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., said today they understood that the president's body would be taken to Washington this afternoon. The White House staff said Mrs. Kennedy would return to Washington late today to be with her children, Caroline, 6, and John Jr., who will be 3 next week.

Source: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 22, 1963. Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) Encyclopedia 2002. (c) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MAN CHARGED WITH KILLING KENNEDY LEE H. OSWALD, LEFTIST, DENIES SHOOTING; HELD IN DALLAS CELL Questioned 10 Hours-Admits Being in Building at Time of Assassination St. Louis Post-DispatchNovember 23, 1963 This newspaper article reports on the formal indictment of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and reviews the events surrounding Kennedy's shooting. By Richard DudmanDallax, Tex., Nov. 23-Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old left-wing extremist, was charged last night with first degree murder in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

He was held overnight without bond under heavy guard in a fifth floor cell in the Dallas municipal building to await further questioning today. The formal charge accuses Oswald of murdering the President with malice aforethought. It accuses him, in effect, of being the sniper who ambushed Mr. Kennedy from a carefully-chosen vantage point at a sixth-floor window of a textbook warehouse on the President's motorcade route through Dallas. Admits Being Communist Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry said today that Oswald has "readily admitted he is a Communist".

Curry said the Texan admitted to officers in questioning last night that he was "a member of the Communist party". Curry said he did not know whether Oswald was a card-carrying member of the party". Last year Oswald said on the New Orleans television panel that he was not a Communist but was a Marxist", Curry said, "but actually, Oswald has never drawn any distinction between the two". Curry said police never had Oswald listed on their suspicious list. "We have another man working in that same building who has been listed in our subversive files since 1955", Curry said.

Police were seeking this man for questioning. Oswald insisted that he is not the assassin of President Kennedy. But an officer said today, "I think we got some good results from the paraffin test on both of Oswald's hands". Fired at Patrolman There was no explanation from police as to what the paraffin tests would have shown because Oswald fired at least one shot in the killing of a patrolman and attempted a second shot when arrested. A rifle was used to kill the President. Paraffin tests are aimed at proving that a suspect has fired a weapon.

Paraffin is poured on the hands or face to pick up microscopic particles of gunpowder residue, which show up then in chemical tests. Oswald wrote a letter to former Secretary of the Navy John Connally-the present Governor of Texas-asking Connally to reverse the former Marine's undesirable discharge from the Navy. Connally refused the request. The date of the letter is not known but it was written when Oswald was in Russia and presumably was sent to Connally when he was President Kennedy's Secretary of the Navy. Oswald returned about a year ago from a three-year stay in the Soviet Union.

Connally was wounded in the gunfire that killed Mr. Kennedy yesterday. Letter in Record The Department of Defense disclosed today that the hand written letter from Oswald to Connally was in the personnel records of Oswald which were flown here from the Military Records Center in St. Louis. This development could pose the question of whether Connally-rather than Mr. Kennedy-might have been the primary target if the government's charge that Oswald did the shooting is sustained. Oswald kept telling reporters: "I did not kill President Kennedy. I did not kill anyone. I don't know what this is all about".

When first arrested last night in a suburban theater four miles from the assassination scene, Oswald refused to give his name or answer any other question, almost continuously for 10 hours. Later he acknowledged being an employe of the Texas School Book Depository, where the sniper had hidden, and being present in the building at the time of the shooting. He complained repeatedly to reporters that he had not been permitted to get a lawyer". I asked for legal representation, but they won't let me have any", he said. No witness have been produced thus far who saw him fire the three shots from a high-powered foreign rifle with a telescopic sight found at the warehouse window. One of the shots mortally wounded the president, and another seriously wounded Connally.

No Fingerprint Evidence Fingerprints on the murder weapon were either nonexistent or too smudged to be useful, police said. They arrested him first as a suspect in the killing of J.D. Tippett, a police patrolman, 30 minutes after the shots were fired at the President. He now is charged with first degree murder in that death also. The textbook warehouse was sighted immediately as the sniper's hideout. At least two police officers and a cameraman in the motorcade, looking for the source of the shots, saw the muzzle of a rifle being pulled back through the window. As the President's automobile raced to Parkland Hospital with the wounded men and their wives, police dashed to the building to search for the assassin.

Others in the building pointed to the sixth floor window, where, apparently, they, too, had seen the rifle. Used Cartridges Found In a little used corner of the sixth floor, police found cartons of books pulled near the window, partly shielding it from the rest of the floor. The rifle was there, as well as three used cartridges and some chicken bones where the killer had waited. The book firm's president Jack D. Cason, said today that Mr. Kennedy's assassin could have spent as long as four days in the sixth floor dead storage area of the building". Sometimes three or four days go by without anybody going to the sixth floor to get anything". Cason said.

After the shooting yesterday, police sealed off the building and began a thorough search, thinking the assassin was still inside. A half-hour later, patrolman Tippett was shot and killed near his police car, about four miles from the motorcade shooting. Police learned of Tippett's death when a passer-by called headquarters on Tippett's police radio. A woman who had been waiting for a bus said she had seen Tippett stop at the curb to speak to a pedestrian.

She said Tippett got out of the car and the pedestrian took out a pistol and shot him. Chasing the assailant, police first were directed on false leads to two furniture warehouses and a library. Finally a shoe repairman told them, "The man you are looking for is in the Texas Theater". The theater is about four blocks from where the officer was killed.

Resemblance Indicated By that time, the officers had been told by police radio that the killer of the officer bore a strong resemblance to a man thought to have fired the shots at the President. About 20 police officers converged on the theater. An usher pointed out Oswald, seated alone in the third row from the back. They said that as they approached, with the theater lights turned on, Oswald jumped to his feet, shouted.

"This is it" and reached to pull a pistol from his belt. They grappled with him, subduing him after two officers had suffered twisted ankles and a third a blow on the head. Examination of the weapon afterward showed that it had misfired. The chambers of the pistol, a snub-nosed. 38 caliber revolver, were all full.

A witness later told of having seen the suspect stop and reload on his way to the theater. Arraigned After 6 Hours Justice of the Peace David Johnson first arraigned Oswald on a charge of first degree murder in Tippett's death. That was at 7: 30 p. m., after six hours of interrogation. Johnson said at that time that Oswald wanted legal counsel and would be allowed to have it. Both cases are expected to be presented to the grand jury about the middle of next week. Some discrepancies remained today in accounts of the shooting of the President and the Governor.

Eyewitness accounts of a shocking incident often vary widely. Mrs. Connally said the first shot hit the President and the second hit her husband. Patrolman J.M. Chaney, escorting the presidential car on a motorcycle at the right rear fender, said the first shot caused the President to look back to the left and the second "shattered his face". Two Wounds Mentioned Physicians who attended the President at Parkland hospital said nothing about injuries to the President's face.

They mentioned only two wounds-a bullet hole in the throat, below the Adams apple, and a massive wound on the right side of the back of the head. The President actually was shot twice, it was learned today in Washington. An authoritative White House source said one bullet entered Mr. Kennedy's head and another penetrated the "neck and chest". Previously there had been some question whether Mr. Kennedy was hit once or twice... Their car had just emerged from the downtown area and curved down an approach to Dallas's "triple underpass" at the time. She recalled telling Mr. Kennedy, "you can't say Dallas isn't friendly to you today".

At the next moment, she said she heard the first report and saw her husband turn toward the President. Mr. Kennedy had been hit and slumped to the floor of the automobile. Then she heard the second and third shots, and her husband slumped down in his seat. The two wives huddled over their husband's bodies to protect them and seek shelter for themselves from the unknown sniper. The Secret Service man driving the machine grabbed the radio telephone and told other leading cars in the motorcade, "let's go straight to the nearest hospital".

They reached the Parkland emergency entrance in about two minutes. Mrs. Kennedy cradled her husband's head in her lap as the machine raced to the hospital at 70 miles an hour. A reporter following close said the President appeared to be completely motionless and had one or both hands over his face. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson's automobile was immediately following that of the President. The Vice President walked into the hospital while a stretcher was being wheeled out for the president. Johnson held one arm against his chest in a gesture that gave rise to a brief rumor that he had suffered another heart attack.

The report was denied and appeared to be unfounded. Mrs. Kennedy Helps Three or four Secret Service men lifted the President onto the stretcher. Mrs. Kennedy helped them and walked beside the stretcher into the emergency room. His body remained motionless. Connally was left unattended for a time, clutching his chest in apparent pain, while the President was being taken inside. The Governor later was helped in.

Dr. Malcolm Perry, attending surgeon at the hospital, examined the President within a few seconds of Mr. Kennedy's arrival in the emergency room". It was apparent that the President had sustained a lethal wound", he said. "He was critically ill and moribund (near death)", Dr. Perry said. Eight to 10 physicians attended the President. They tried resuscitation measures, assisting breathing with an anesthesia machine and by cutting an opening in the windpipe and inserting a tube. They gave him blood and other fluids.

An electrocardiograph monitor was attached to the President to record his heartbeat. Chest Tubes Inserted Dr. Kemp Clark, chief neurosurgeon at the hospital, said he inserted chest tubes to relieve any possibility of air entering the pleural space. They described the throat wound as an entrance wound and said the injury to the back of the head could have been caused by the exit of the bullet. At the back of the head, they said, there was "extensive laceration and loss of brain tissue."The President's heart stopped shortly after I arrived", Dr. Clark said. "We tried closed-chest cardiac massage.

We were able to obtain palpable pulses by this method, but to no avail". The doctors thought the President lived 40 minutes after reaching the hospital. Asked for the exact time of death, Dr. Perry said: "We were very busy. There were a lot of people in attendance. We elected to call it 1300 (1 p.m. St. Louis time)."I thought there was no possibility of saving his life when I first looked at him", Dr. Clark said.

Most people of Dallas were in a state of stunned grief. Waitresses in restaurants were weeping openly. A chef said nothing but kept shaking his head in disbelief that such a thing could have happened. At the luncheon, Mr. Kennedy was to have addressed at the downtown Trade Mart, the chairman first reported: "There has been a mishap. We believe it is not serious at this time". A minister led a prayer for the President and the Governor.

The chairman then said the shooting had been more serious than at first reported and asked the crowd to remain calm. One man broke the shocked silence by shouting. "Those damned fanatics. Why do we have to have them in Dallas?" The man may have been referring to the right-wingers, who have established a strong foothold in Dallas. Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 23, 1963.

All rights reserved. Oswald, Lee Harvey (1939-1963), accused assassin of United States President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) in Dallas, Texas. Oswald was arrested after the assassination on November 22, 1963, but was killed before standing trial. Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, two months after the death of his father. As a child, Oswald was often in trouble and, according to a psychiatrist, was emotionally disturbed. Oswald dropped out of school at the age of 17 and joined the United States Marine Corps.

In 1959 he was discharged from the Marines at his request. He then defected to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but was denied citizenship there. Oswald returned to the United States in 1962 with his Soviet-born wife, Marina, and their daughter. The Oswald moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in June 1962.

In October of that year, Oswald took a job at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. On November 22, 1963, a gunman from the sixth floor of this building fired three shots into President Kennedy's motorcade, killing Kennedy and injuring Texas Governor John B. Connally. Oswald was arrested at a movie theater just over an hour later. Oswald was also accused of killing police officer J.D. Tipp it, who had been shot shortly after the president's assassination. On November 24, as police were moving him from the city jail to the county jail before a national television audience, Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby while standing in a crowd of police officers and reporters.

Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, claimed to be distraught over the president's assassination. A special presidential commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was established to investigate the Kennedy assassination. Despite numerous conspiracy theories, the commission concluded in 1964 in the Warren Report that Oswald had acted alone. In 1979 a committee from the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledged the likelihood of a conspiracy and reported that a second assassin might have been involved. The assassination continues to be the subject of much speculation. Contributed By: Matthew A. RedingerMicrosoft (R) Encarta (R) Encyclopedia 2002. (c) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation.

All rights reserved. In 1963 Warren headed the commission formed to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The commission's findings that there was a single assassin and no evidence of a conspiracy were published in the Warren Report. Warren died July 9, 1974, in Washington, D.C. Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) Encyclopedia 2002. (c) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Jack Rubinstein " Ruby", 42, owner of the Carousel and the Club Vegas Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) Encyclopedia 2002. (c) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation.

All rights reserved. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Home State Massachusetts Party Democrat Term In Office January 20, 1961-November 22, 1963 Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson Significant Acts Created the Peace Corps, a volunteer humanitarian organization, in 1961. Ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a failed attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1961. Instituted a naval blockade of Cuba in 1962, resulting in the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba.

Authorized federal troops to enforce court-ordered integration in schools in Alabama and Mississippi in 1962 and 1963. Career 1941-1945 Served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. 1946-1952 Represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives. 1952-1961 Represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. 1961-1963 President of the United States. Did You Know Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for his book Profiles in Courage.

Kennedy was the fourth president to be assassinated. At age 44, Kennedy became the youngest man elected president. Kennedy was decorated for heroism in World War II for saving three men after his vessel was sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president.

All rights reserved. Warren Report, 1964 report and conclusions of a seven-member commission that was headed by Earl Warren, chief justice of the U.S. The commission was concerned with the circumstances of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, and the murder, two days later, of Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, by a nightclub operator, Jack Ruby. The 296,000-word report is based on the testimony of 552 witnesses taken over a period of several months following the assassination. The commission, named by President Lyndon B. Johnson seven days after the assassination, carried out an exhaustive investigation and submitted its report the following year, on September 24, 1964. Its main conclusions were that Oswald, self-styled Marxist and a former private in the U.S. Marine Corps "acting alone and without advice or assistance", had fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and that no evidence indicated that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate the president.

Despite the commission's findings, speculation persisted that others had been involved in the assassination and that Kennedy had been the victim of a conspiracy by the Soviet Union, Cuba, organized crime figures, or Cuban exiles in the U.S. In 1979 a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, after reexamining the evidence, dissented from the Warren Report, concluding that there probably had been two gunmen and that a conspiracy was "likely". All rights reserved. John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected to the United States presidency, assumed the office in 1961. As president, Kennedy directed his initial policies toward invigorating the country, attempting to release it from the grip of economic recession. He made direct appeals for public service and public commitment, paying particular attention to civil rights. The energy and possibility of his message was cut short when Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas Microsoft (R) Encarta (R) Encyclopedia 2002. (c) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation.

All rights reserved.