President and Mrs. Kennedy embark on a political fence-mending mission to Texas–where the Democratic Party was severely split–in preparation for the 1964 election. First stops: San Antonio, Houston and Forth Worth. Then on to Dallas and Austin.
MORNING IN FORT WORTH Congressman Jim Wright and Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr describe the morning in Fort Worth.
Jim Wright: I worked with what powers that be in Fort Worth to put on a good, effective breakfast meeting of the civic, business and commercial leadership of the community. We integrated it. We had representatives of the labor unions as well as of the professions and the large businesses. But even so, gosh, in those days, it was rare when the president of the United States was in your town….I said, “Look, in my hometown, I want a public meeting…we can go right outside the Texas Hotel where he’ll be spending the night, we will assemble the crowd in that big parking lot out there.”
Boy, the night before, it rained. At about 15 minutes before he was scheduled to appear, I looked out and people were already gathering in rain gear, some with umbrellas…and I thought: “Oh, what a mess. What a tragedy… what have we got him into? He’s got to get up on that flatbed trailer and speak to that crowd in the rain.” [Then] the clouds disappeared, the sun came through…bright, beautiful, sun-shining day. I thought, “The luck of the Irish.”
Waggoner Carr: There was a rally out in front of the Texas Hotel. That was followed by a breakfast at the hotel in the big dining room with a large crowd of people there, local people, and the president, after introducing Mrs. Kennedy and having a few remarks, made his speech. The president came by and shook my hand and told me how much he and Mrs. Kennedy appreciated the reception they were receiving in Texas….
OSWALD’S RIDE TO WORK Wesley Frazier recounts the ride to the Texas School Book Depository, departing at 7:20 a.m.
Wesley Frazier: I was sitting there eating my breakfast…mother just happened to glance up and saw this man, you know, who was Lee looking in the window for me and she said, “Who is that?” And I said, “That is Lee.” He just walked around there on the carport right there close to the door and so I told her I had to go, so I went in there and brushed my teeth right quick and come through there and I just walked on out and we got in the car….When I got in the car I have a kind of habit of glancing over my shoulder and so at that time I noticed there was a package laying on the back seat…and I said, “What’s the package, Lee?” And he said, “Curtain rods,” and I said, “Oh, yes, you told me you was going to bring some today.” …so I didn’t think any more about it….
I asked him did he have fun playing with them babies and he chuckled and said he did.
JFK’s MORNING IN FORT WORTH JFK calls Dallas Times Herald publisher James Chambers; Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, describes the morning activity; Jim Wright on the flight to Dallas.
James Chambers: I was in my office about 8:15 or so, the phone rang, and it was the president. And he said, “Can you get me some Macanudo cigars?” He loved a good cigar occasionally. He says, “They don’t have any over here in Fort Worth.” And I said, “Sure.” And he said, “Well, get me about a half a dozen.” I said, “Fine.” …and got him six Macanudo cigars that I was going to give him at the luncheon….
Agent Hill : I went to the fifth floor, I believe, where the president and Mrs. Kennedy were staying in the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, at 8:15 in the morning. President Kennedy was to go downstairs and across the street to make a speech to a gathering in a parking lot.
About 9:25 I received word from Special Agent Duncan…that the president requested Mrs. Kennedy to come to the mezzanine, where he was about to speak. I took her down to where the president was speaking, remained with her during the speech and accompanied she and the president back up to the…fifth floor…remained on that floor until we left, went downstairs, got into the motorcade, and departed the hotel for the airport to leave Fort Worth for Dallas. We were airborne approximately 11:20.
Jim Wright: President Kennedy and I and John Connally had a discussion on Air Force One ….There had appeared in the Dallas News that morning a scurrilous ad calling him a traitor and other unflattering things….He had seen that. And I was irate. I thought it was a damn inhospitable thing to allow…that the paper should have screened it out. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but he was puzzled as to how to approach the Dallas News , how to be friends with them. They had written other unkind things. Mr. Dealey had written an unkind editorial about him, saying he ought to be riding Caroline’s tricycle or something like that.
ARRIVAL AT LOVE FIELD 11:40-11:45 A.M. The presidential party touches down in Dallas at 11:40 a.m. Agent Hill and WFAA cameraman Malcolm Couch describe the activity.
Agent Hill: There was a small reception committee at the foot of the ramp, and somebody gave Mrs. Kennedy some red roses….I walked immediately to the follow-up car and placed my topcoat, which is a raincoat, in the follow-up car, returning to where the president and Mrs. Kennedy were at that time greeting a crippled lady in a wheelchair.
Malcolm Couch: When Jackie and President Kennedy got off the plane, the press was supposed to stay back about 100 feet, but we didn’t. We broke and all ran up there, and then President Kennedy headed straight for the fence and started walking along the fence shaking hands with people….I was always a little quicker than other guys. I ran in front of him, got three feet in front of him and I got the neatest shots of him shaking hands with people….
MOTORCADE INTO DOWNTOWN DALLAS 11:45 A.M.–12:29 P.M. Motorcade recollections from the governor’s wife, Nellie Connally, in the presidential limousine; Agent Hill, directly behind the presidential limousine; and TV cameraman Couch and newspaper photographer Bob Jackson in a press pool convertible eight cars behind. Along the route are Dallas Detective Paul Bentley and spectator Glen Gatlin.
Agent Hill: Between Love Field and downtown Dallas, on the right-hand side of the street there was a group of people with a long banner which said, “Please, Mr. President, stop and shake our hands.” And the president requested the motorcade to stop, and he beckoned to the people and asked them to come and shake his hand, which they did. I jumped from the follow-up car and ran up to the left rear portion of the automobile with my back toward Mrs. Kennedy viewing those persons on the left-hand side of the street. Special Agent Ready, who was working the forward portion of the right running board, did the same thing, only on the president’s side, placed his back toward the car, and viewed the people facing the president. Agent in Charge Kellerman opened the door of the president’s car and stepped out on the street.
Detective Bentley: I was assigned to the corner of Main and Harwood, and I was at that particular location when the presidential parade passed and made a right turn onto Main. I was in plain clothes. As I first got over in front of the White Plaza Hotel the people of course were jamming the sidewalks….
Agent Hill: We didn’t really hit the crowds until we hit Main Street…where they were surging into the street. We had motorcycles running adjacent to both the presidential automobile and the follow-up car, as well as in front of the presidential automobile. Because of the crowds in the street, the president’s driver, Special Agent Greer, was running the car more to the left-hand side of the street…to keep the president as far away from the crowd as possible, and because of this the motorcycles on the left-hand side could not get past the crowd and alongside the car, and they were forced to drop back. I jumped from the follow-up car, ran up and got on top of the rear portion of the presidential automobile to be close to Mrs. Kennedy in the event that someone attempted to grab her from the crowd or throw something in the car.
Glen Gatlin: We had a very good view of the parade route. We were on the 12th floor, and so we were kind of watching [Commerce Street]. The crowds were enthusiastic, waving. Mrs. Kennedy had on a really cute pink outfit, and Gov. Connally and his wife were in the back seat. Gov. Connally always looked very, very handsome, and Kennedy, of course, was a guy that could have been a male model and sold clothes very nicely. He was doing his thing and waving, and the crowd was excited and it was just one of the best of times.
Malcolm Couch: A fella from Channel 4, KRLD…was next to me. We were both sitting on the back of the convertible as we got to the canyon of the big buildings downtown. I’ll never forget because there had been a lot of tension in Dallas politically. General [Edwin] Walker was in Dallas at the time. He was a radical right-winger. There had been some nasty statements from people in Dallas about Kennedy. As we drove along, we literally would point to buildings and say: “Boy, a sniper would sure get him from that one, what about this building over here? Perfect spot for them to get him.” That was part of the tension — that somebody would try to do something to Kennedy.
Bob Jackson : As we approached Main and Houston to make the turn, I had just unloaded my camera…one of my two cameras. It happened to be the one with the long lens because I had used it along the route more than the other one. We had prearranged for me to pass my film to a reporter who was standing at the corner [of] Main and Houston. So I unloaded the camera and put the film in an envelope. As we rounded the corner, I tossed it to Jim Featherstone, a reporter…he reached for it and the wind caught the envelope and blew it out of his hand or away from him, and he had to kind of chase it. We were kind of laughing, you know, at how he had to chase my film across the street, and we had already made the turn as this was taking place…onto Houston, which put our car directly facing the Book Depository.
Nellie Connally: We had just finished the motorcade through the downtown Dallas area. The people had been very responsive to the president and Mrs. Kennedy, and we were very pleased. In fact the receptions had been so good every place that…I could resist no longer. When we got past this area I did turn to the president and said, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”
SPECTATORS WAIT AT DEALEY PLAZA The end of the downtown portion of the motorcade was Dealey Plaza. Marilyn Sitzman arrives to find her boss, Abraham Zapruder, already there; Ernest Brandt recalls the crowd’s anticipation.
Marilyn Sitzman: As I came down that street Mr. Zapruder and a couple of the other women were standing up on the [grassy knoll]. The first part of that film shows me walking up towards him. And I got up there, he turned off the camera, and we’re talking about, well, where could he stand…because by that time, there’s quite a few people gathering. And we’d go look at this place, and we’d go look at that place. We went over to where that concrete pergola was, and we decided that would be the best place because, I says: “You can get up here. You’ll be above everybody. No matter how many people are down there, you won’t have anybody blocking your view.” And so, he said…he had vertigo, though. If he got up there, he’d get dizzy. So, he says, “You’ll have to stand behind me and hold onto me.” I says, “It’s no problem at all.” So we both got up there, and I stood behind him, and I held onto him.
Ernest Brandt: Everybody was quiet and just standing there waiting until the motorcade came along. And of course, when it did, Kennedy was kind of casually waving to people, Jackie sitting next to him, looking so pretty and prim. I noticed directly behind his car, very close behind his car, was the Secret Service limousine. It was an old Cadillac where they had put running boards on the sides so that they could stand. Two men standing on each side, on the running boards, and three or four of them inside the car.
SHOTS FIRED AT THE MOTORCADE 12:30 P.M. In the seconds after the motorcade turns left onto Elm St. and before the triple underpass, the assassin strikes. Jacqueline Kennedy in the president’s car and Vice President Lyndon Johnson two cars behind react. In addition to others in the press cars were Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Dillard and the president’s assistant press secretary, Malcolm Kilduff. Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses included Jean Lollis Hill, Malcolm Summers, Bill and Gayle Newman with their two children, and Abraham Zapruder with his Bell & Howell movie camera.
Nellie Connally: Then I don’t know how soon, it seems to me it was very soon, that I heard a noise, and not being an expert rifleman, I was not aware that it was a rifle. It was just a frightening noise, and it came from the right. I turned over my right shoulder and looked back, and saw the president as he had both hands at his neck.
Jim Wright: I heard the first shot. I thought it sounded like a rifle shot, but I couldn’t imagine that it could be a rifle shot. Then, I heard the second shot, and I thought: “It’s crazy. Someone is trying to fire a 21-gun salute with a rifle.” It was obviously a rifle shot, and obviously the shots were from the same rifle. That’s all I heard…but the timing of the third…the cadence was just off a fraction of a second enough to let me know, “Uh-oh, no, this isn’t a salute.”
Tom Dillard: …and it was loud, and I said, “They’re throwing torpedoes at him!” I guess, in my mind, those things we threw as kids that hit the sidewalk and exploded. Then, in a matter of a second and a half, another shot. Or two seconds, something like that. I said, “No, that’s rifle fire!”
Bob Jackson: We heard the first shot. Then, we heard two more shots closer together…I just looked straight up ahead of me because that’s the direction the sound came from, and I saw two black men leaning out of the window of the fifth floor, looking directly up above them. My eyes went on up to the next floor, and there was the rifle. I could see the rifle…part of the stock, and it being drawn in the window….
Tom Dillard: The third shot, I said, “My God, they’ve killed him!” Bob Jackson said, “There’s a guy with a rifle up in that window.” I said, “Where?” I had both cameras around my neck, loaded, focused, cocked…Bob says, “In that window up on that building right there, it’s that top window.” I shot a picture with the wide-angle camera. I said, “Which window?” He said, “It’s the one on the right, second from the top.” By that time, I had the 100mm camera up, shot a picture of that window….
Bob Jackson: The person behind it was not visible. There was no one standing in the window or anything looking out. He was obviously down low. Of course, I had an empty camera. I swung my camera up, too, just so I could see better with the long lens and zoomed in and no one was visible in the window. No one else in the car saw the rifle, and I don’t think I could have reacted fast enough to get a picture even if I had film in the camera. So then, the car proceeded on, rather jerkily, toward the intersection.
Jean Lollis Hill : We were standing on the curb, and I jumped to the edge of the street and yelled, “Hey, we want to take your picture!” to him. He was looking down in the seat — he and Mrs. Kennedy, and their heads were turned toward the middle of the car looking down at something in the seat, which later turned out to be the roses — and I was so afraid he was going to look the other way because there were a lot of people across the street, and we were, as far as I know, we were the only people down there in that area, and just as I yelled, “Hey!” to him, he started to bring his head up to look at me and just as he did the shot rang out. Mary took the picture and fell on the ground and of course there were more shots. She fell on the ground and grabbed my slacks and said, “Get down, they’re shooting!” And, I knew they were but I was too stunned to move….
Ernest Brandt: As soon at the limo got within view, I’m looking for Kennedy and Jackie. He was just kind of glancing at the crowd, his eyes kind of jumped along from one to another. He was kind of casually smiling…acknowledging the crowd and waving casually.
Nothing had happened by the time the limo was exactly opposite us. I was still watching Kennedy from the back. And of course, all I could see above the back seat was his shoulders, his neck, and head….I think the limousine was about 60 or 70 feet past us…it wasn’t moving real slow, but yet not real fast either…then bam! The first shot was fired, and boy, it just reverberated around the Dealey Plaza something terrible. Sounded like an elephant rifle to me. I thought it was a motorcycle backfire because there was a half a dozen of them on either side of Kennedy’s limousine. And that’s what I really thought because nothing in mind would have occurred to me that it was a rifle shot, see….I thought the first shot was a motorcycle backfire, and in conjunction with that thought, I thought he was just pretending. And that maybe he had thought, “Gee, I better duck.” You know, playfully, playing a little game in conjunction with the motorcycle backfire, but then when the second shot rang out, that canceled any thoughts I had of a motorcycle backfire. Then, in just a couple of seconds more, there was a second shot, then everybody…seemed to realize something was wrong then because Kennedy had by then already fallen over on Jackie’s shoulder.
Malcolm Summers: I was within five feet of the curb. They came around and then the first I heard was, I thought, was a firecracker…because the FBI, Secret Service people that was on the back of that car, they looked down at the ground….I think they thought it was a firecracker…I thought in my mind, well, what a heck of a joke, you know, to be playing like that. Then the car kept coming, and then the second shot rang out. And then the third…rang out. I saw Kennedy get hit. I heard Connally say, “They’re going to kill us all!” or “shoot us all.” …And then, I heard Jackie Kennedy scream out, “Oh, God! No, no, no!”
Bill Newman: We were there just a few moments… probably less than five minutes before the president’s limousine came down Main and made a right onto Houston. And I can remember hearing the crowds before seeing the cars or the motorcycle escorts. You could hear the cheers, the crowd, the noise…I felt an excitement, you know, because the president was getting close. I can remember seeing the car turn right onto Houston Street off of Main, going the one short block and turning left on Elm. When he was probably 150 or 200 feet away the first two shots rang out, and it was like a “Boom…Boom.”
Gayle Newman: I had no idea that it was gunfire. The first two noises sounded like firecrackers, and I think both of us…had the same impression…that’s really in bad taste, you know. Throwing firecrackers at the president’s car. But he seemed to be going along with the joke, you know. He sort of put his hands up and sort of was looking around the crowd, and you know, thoughts just sort of flash through your mind. And we thought…well, I did…boy, he’s got a good sense of humor, you know…to react like that.
Bill Newman: He straightened up and brought both arms up….But, as the car got closer to us, I felt that something was wrong. I remember seeing a bewildered look on President Kennedy’s face, and I can remember seeing Gov. Connally, and he was sort of crouched down and holding himself. I can remember his protruding eyes. I mean, his eyes looked like they were bugging out like he was in a state of shock. I could see the blood on his shirt. Just as all of this is going through my mind, the car passed directly in front of us.
Jim Wright: As we turned, heading west…we looked and saw pandemonium in the cars and Jacqueline Kennedy on her knees in the back seat, looking out behind, and we couldn’t imagine what was happening. Then, the car shot forward….As we passed the crowd on the grassy knoll, the look of sheer horror in their faces told me that they had just witnessed a traumatic event.
Marilyn Sitzman: When they started to make their first turn…turning into the street, he [Zapruder] said, “OK, here we go.” …That’s when I remember he started actually doing the filming. They turned the corner and they started coming down…and the first thing I remember hearing was what I thought was firecrackers because Kennedy threw his hands up, and I heard “bang, bang.” There could have been a third “bang,” I can’t swear to that one. But I know there were two “bangs” very close together, and I thought they were firecrackers because his arms were going into the air, and it was way off to my left and above. I’m just kind of like…”what a stupid thing to throw firecrackers,” and as they came down…the last shot that we heard was right in front of us and it was like the same sound…far off and to the left…but I saw his head open up….So, of course, by this time I knew it wasn’t firecrackers.
Abraham Zapruder: As the car came in line almost — I believe it was almost in line, I was standing up here and I was shooting through a telephoto lens….I heard the first shot, and I saw the president lean over and grab himself. Leaning toward the side of Jacqueline. For a moment I thought it was, you know, like you say, “Oh, he got me!” when you hear a shot—you’ve heard these expressions and then I saw—I don’t believe the president is going to make jokes like this, but before I had a chance to organize my mind, I heard a second shot and then I saw his head opened up and the blood and everything came out. I can hardly talk about it.
Agent Hill: As we came out of the curve and began to straighten up, I was viewing the area which looked to be a park. There were people scattered throughout the entire park. And I heard a noise from my right rear, which to me seemed to be a firecracker. I immediately looked to my right and, in so doing, my eyes had to cross the presidential limousine, and I saw President Kennedy grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left.
Malcom Kilduff: I heard this first noise, and Merriman Smith said, “What the hell was that?” And I said, “Well, it sounded to me like a firecracker.” And then, the second shot…by that time, I had noticed that Clint Hill…had jumped off the Secret Service follow-up car and was running towards the president’s car.
Jacqueline Kennedy: You know, there is always noise in a motorcade, and there are always motorcycles beside us, a lot of them backfiring. So I was looking to the left. I guess there was a noise, but it didn’t seem like any different noise really because there is so much noise, motorcycles and things. But then suddenly Gov. Connally was yelling, “Oh! No, no, no!”
Agent Hill: I jumped from the car, realizing that something was wrong, ran to the presidential limousine. Just about as I reached it, there was another sound, which was different than the first sound. I think I described it in my statement as though someone was shooting a revolver into a hard object — it seemed to have some type of an echo. I put my right foot on the left rear step of the automobile, and I had a hold of the handgrip, when the car lurched forward. I lost my footing, and I had to run about three or four more steps before I could get back up in the car.
Gayle Newman: As the car came closer…as it got directly in front of us, the third shot rang out and the side of his head was hit, and you saw bits of red flashing up and then some white matter come out of his head, and Mrs. Kennedy screamed, “Oh my God, no! They’ve shot Jack!”
Bill Newman: I remember a flash of white and then a flash of red, and President Kennedy going over across the car seat into Mrs. Kennedy’s lap and her hollering out, “Oh my God, no! They’ve shot Jack!” And I can remember her going back. I thought she was trying to get out of the car. I turned and said, “That’s it, Gayle! Hit the ground!” So, we hit the ground, covered our two children, thinking that we were in danger….
Jacqueline Kennedy: I was looking…to the left, and I heard these terrible noises. And my husband never made any sound. So I turned to the right. And all I remember is seeing my husband, he had this sort of quizzical look on his face, and his hand was up, it must have been his left hand. And just as I turned and looked at him, I could see a piece of his skull and I remember it was flesh colored. I remember thinking he just looked as if he had a slight headache. And I just remember seeing that. No blood or anything. And then he sort of…put his hand to his forehead and fell in my lap. And then I just remember falling on him and saying, “Oh, no, no, no!” I mean: “Oh, my God! They have shot my husband!” And “I love you, Jack!” I remember I was shouting. And just being down in the car with his head in my lap. And it just seemed an eternity.
You know, then, there were pictures later on of me climbing out the back. But I don’t remember that at all.
Malcolm Kilduff: And then I noticed that the Secret Service car and the president’s car had started to speed up. So we sped up in the pool car….This would be a normal operating procedure, to get the hell out of there in a big hurry. You know, it never even occurred to me that the president had been shot.
Lyndon Johnson: After we had proceeded a short way down Elm Street, I heard a sharp report. The crowd at this point had become somewhat spotty. The vice-presidential car was then about three car lengths behind President Kennedy’s car, with the presidential follow-up car intervening.
I was startled by the sharp report or explosion, but I had no time to speculate as to its origin because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explosion, hitting me on the shoulder, and shouted to all of us in the back seat to get down. I was pushed down by Agent Youngblood. Almost in the same moment in which he hit or pushed me, he vaulted over the back seat and sat on me. I was bent over under the weight of Agent Youngblood’s body, toward Mrs. Johnson and Sen. [Ralph W.] Yarborough.
I remember attempting to turn my head to make sure that Mrs. Johnson had bent down. Both she and Sen. Yarborough had crouched down at Agent Youngblood’s command. I heard other explosions. It was impossible for me to tell the direction from which the explosions came.
I felt the automobile sharply accelerate, and in a moment or so Agent Youngblood released me. I ascertained that Mrs. Johnson and Sen. Yarborough were all right. I heard Agent Youngblood speaking over his radio transmitter. I asked him what had happened. He said that he was not sure but that he had learned that the motorcade was going to the hospital.
AFTERMATH ON DEALEY PLAZA The minutes after the shooting are filled with horror and confusion.
Malcolm Summers: There was a motorcycle cop… coming along on the side leading the caravan there, the car, and he laid down his bike right in front of me and looked straight in my direction like he was going to pull his gun. I thought somebody behind me was doing the firing, and because I thought that, well, I fell down, I hit the ground…. And then…he jumped back on his bike, and then he took off along with the car….I stayed there just…a few seconds…until all the commotion went by, the other cars, a lot of screaming, a lot of going on….lots of people was running around…running down toward the…railroad track down there, and I, again figured—the power of suggestion—I thought, they saw him and they’re catching him down there. So, I immediately ran across the street, too, and I was going to go down there and see them catch him, and I hope hang him or whatever because I was that mad….
Bill Newman: We were just on the ground probably two…three…four minutes. We wanted to be sure it was over. I can remember the people running up on the grassy knoll and going back towards the parking lot between the School Book Depository and the grassy knoll. I thought these people were out of their minds. Jerry Haynes [WFAA reporter] and another gentleman…came running over to us, and we had stood up by this time. They asked us what we saw, and we told them. And they said, “Would you go with us over to WFAA studios?” And we said, “Sure.” So we started walking in that direction….He just walked up to a man in a car and said: “These people saw the president get shot. Would you carry us to WFAA?” We jumped in this stranger’s car and went to WFAA. We were put on the air shortly thereafter.
Abraham Zapruder: There were police running right behind me. Of course, they didn’t realize yet, I guess, where the shot came from….I didn’t even remember how I got down from that abutment but there I was, and I was walking back toward my office and screaming: “They killed him! They killed him!” and the people that I met on the way didn’t even know what happened, and they kept yelling: “What happened? What happened?” It seemed that they had heard a shot but they didn’t know exactly what had happened as the car sped away, and I kept on just yelling: “They killed him! They killed him!” And finally I got to my office and my secretary—I told her to call the police or the Secret Service…I just went to my desk and stopped there until the police came, and then we were required to get a place to develop the films. I knew I had something, I figured it might be of some help—I didn’t know what.
Marilyn Sitzman: When we got down, Mr. Zapruder apparently went directly back to the office. He didn’t even stop. I ran down the slope. There were three men in suits running up and that’s who I met. And I said: “They killed him! They killed him! And my boss has it on film!” And that’s when they got interested in me, when I said that.
Gayle Newman: I was just numb…I was just trembling. I couldn’t hardly remember what my name was. I was worried about the children. In fact, [at WFAA studio] Julie Benell, they interrupted her cooking show and she was cooking a Hormel Cure Eighty-one ham. They had just been introduced to the market. And I was just so nervous, they took me off…with the children, and Julie Benell fixed both of the boys a ham sandwich and tried to calm me down with coffee, and I didn’t drink coffee. I was just numb….
POLICE ENCOUNTER OSWALD 12:32 P.M. Police immediately rush to the School Book Depository. Building manager Roy Truly, who was standing in front of the building at the time of the shooting, recounts what took place.
Roy Truly: …everybody was screaming and hollering. Just moments later I saw a young motorcycle policeman run up to the building, up the steps to the entrance of our building. He ran right by me. And he was pushing people out of the way. I believe I caught up with him inside the lobby of the building, or possibly the front steps. I remember it occurred to me that this man wants on top of the building. He doesn’t know the plan of the floor. I ran in with him. As we got in the lobby, almost on the inside of the first floor, this policeman asked me where the stairway is. And I said, “This way.” And I ran diagonally across to the northwest corner of the building.
[On the second floor] I saw the officer almost directly in the doorway of the lunchroom facing Lee Harvey Oswald. He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside….When I reached there, the officer had his gun pointing at Oswald….He didn’t seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have been if somebody confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face. The officer turned this way and said, “This man work here?” And I said, “Yes.” Then we left Lee Harvey Oswald immediately and continued to run up the stairways.
THE MOTORCADE HEADS TO PARKLAND Once agents realize the president has been wounded, the limousine speeds off for Parkland Memorial Hospital at the orders of Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Roy Kellerman.
Agent Kellerman: I just leaned sideways to [the driver] and said: “Let’s get out of here! We are hit!” I have driven that car many times, and I never cease to be amazed even to this day with the weight of the automobile plus the power that is under the hood; we just literally jumped out of the goddamn road.
REPORT OF SHOOTING REACHES THE TRADE MART Just minutes from Dealey Plaza, the Trade Mart is filled with luncheon guests awaiting the president. TV reporter Eddie Barker covers the event live.
Eddie Barker: It was going to be quite an affair. All of the dignitaries in the city were going to be on hand for the speech. I was there on that balcony at the Trade Mart, waiting for the president to come there to the luncheon.
One of the floor men who was up on the balcony there with me said, “They want to talk to you in the truck.”…One of the engineers in the truck said: “Hey, something’s happened. They’re headed for the airport. They didn’t stop. The motorcade just went by.” And that was the first that I knew, and by then, I was getting a message from the newsroom that there had been shots fired. And that’s when I then went on the air out there at the Trade Mart.
The gist of [what I said] was that…shots had been fired, and that the motorcade had gone by, it did not stop. Then I really got into just an endless narrative…I had to stay on the air….
THE MOTORCADE REACHES PARKLAND 12:36 P.M. Agent Kellerman is in the front seat; Agent Hill is sprawled atop the president and Mrs. Kennedy. Among others, Special Agent William Greer and motorcycle policeman Willie Price help take President Kennedy into the emergency room.
Agent Kellerman: As we arrived at the hospital I immediately got out of the car. I yelled to the agents, “Go get us two stretchers on wheels.” I turned right around to the back door and opened it. By this time Mrs. Connally had raised up, and the governor is lying in her lap, face up. His eyes are open and he is looking at me, and I am fairly sure he is alive. I said, “Governor, don’t worry; everything is going to be all right.” And he nodded his head….By this time the stretcher is there. I get inside on one side of him, and Agent Hill on the other. Somebody is holding his feet, and we remove the governor and put him on the stretcher and they take him in. We then get in and help Mrs. Connally out. Our next move is to get Mrs. Kennedy off from the seat, which was a little difficult, but she was removed. Then Mr. Hill removed his coat and laid it over the president’s face and shoulder.
Willie Price: The president was laying forward. I got a good look at him and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was him. One of them told me I could help them. I was to help get the president out…I was going to catch hold of him and help pull him out, and one put a coat in my hands and said, “Put this around his head.” And by the time I got around to put that coat around his head, Mrs. Kennedy walked between me and his head and she put her hands on the back of his head, and then I saw this Secret Service man and I…I started to push her hands away, but I got to thinking, those guys might be a little gun-happy, so therefore, I better let them do it.
I knew the back of his head was blown out, and…I felt like she shouldn’t be getting her hands under there because there wouldn’t be nothing but blood….When I motioned to [a Secret Service man]…about Mrs. Kennedy, he pushed her hands down and then told Mrs. Lincoln, I believe who was the secretary of the president…”You take care of her. She’s in shock,” he says. “And don’t get away from her.” I noticed that she wiped her hands off on her clothes when she…came away from his head.
Agent Hill: The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not….
I removed [my coat] and covered the president’s head and upper chest. [Gov. Connally] was conscious. There was a large amount of blood in the lower abdominal area. He was helped from the automobile to the stretcher. He was wheeled immediately into, I think, emergency room No. 2.
Agent Greer: When I pulled into the ambulance entrance there were some people there on the right-hand side with these stretchers that they had rushed out….There was a great deal of confusion because everyone was trying to help.
I helped…take the stretcher that he was on into the emergency room. It is on wheels…and I stayed inside the door of the emergency room most of the time while the doctors were working on the president’s body.
I was inside the door. I kept the door closed most of the time, let doctors and nurses in and out while they were working on him. Mrs. Kennedy was outside the door. They got her a chair out there for a little while, and then she insisted on coming in, and she got in the corner for a little while and stayed there a little while.
Agent Hill: I accompanied [the president] and Mrs. Kennedy to the emergency room…but it was so small, and there were so many people in there that I decided I had better leave and let the doctors take care of the situation.
Special Agent in Charge Kellerman came outside and said, “Get the White House.” I asked Special Agent Lawson for the local number in Dallas of the White House switchboard, which he gave to me. I called the switchboard in Dallas, asked for the line to be open to Washington and remain open continuously. And then I asked for Special Agent in Charge Jerry Behn’s office. Mr. Kellerman came out of the emergency room about that time, took the telephone, and told Special Agent in Charge Behn that we had had a double tragedy; that both Gov. Connally and President Kennedy had been shot. Shortly thereafter Mr. Kellerman came out of the emergency room and said, “Clint, tell Jerry this is unofficial and not for release, but the man is dead.” I talked to the attorney general [Robert Kennedy] and told him that his brother had been seriously wounded; that we would keep him advised as to his condition.
Agent Kellerman: I walked into this center area of this emergency room looking for a telephone. There is a little doctor’s office and I walked inside, and I am alone at that time, except one medic who was in there. By that time a medic comes into the room from President Kennedy’s section, and he asks if anybody knows the blood type of President Kennedy. We all carry it. I produce mine.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY IN PARKLAND Doctors and emergency personnel feverishly work on the president, including Dr. Charles Carrico, Dr. Marion Jenkins and Dr. Robert McClelland.
Dr. Carrico: His color was blue-white, ashen. He had slow agonal respiration, spasmodic respirations without any coordination. He was making no voluntary movements. His eyes were open, pupils were seen to be dilated and later were seen not to react to light. This was the initial impression. He had no palpable pulse. No voluntary movements, only the spasmodic respirations.
After these initial observations we opened his shirt, coat, listened very briefly to his chest, heard a few sounds, which we felt to be heartbeats, and then proceeded with the remainder of the examination. From a medical standpoint, I suppose he was still alive in that he did still have a heartbeat.
Dr. Jenkins: As the resuscitative maneuvers were begun, such as chest cardiac massage, there was with each compression of the sternum a gush of blood from the skull wound, which indicated there was massive vascular damage in the skull and the brain, as well as brain tissue damage, and we recognized by this time that the patient was beyond the point of resuscitation, that he was in fact dead, and this was substantiated by getting a silent electrical pattern on the electrocardiogram….
FIRST BROADCAST REPORT THAT KENNEDY IS DEAD 12:40 P.M. At the Trade Mart, TV reporter Eddie Barker receives an early report that the president is dead.
Eddie Barker: I was going on with this endless chatter, and this doctor that I recognized came up to me and just kind of whispered in my ear, he said, “Eddie, he’s dead.” …I said, “How do you know?” And he said, “Well, I just called the emergency room at Parkland. He’s D.O.A.” Well, that was good enough for me, and I then said words to the effect, “I’ve just been told by a highly reliable source that the president’s dead.” And, unbeknownst to me, the broadcast was being carried by CBS because this was the only pick-up in town, and they picked it up and put it on the air.
I found out that as soon as I said that they immediately took it back to New York, and Cronkite, my dear friend Walter, said: “You know, that ain’t us, folks. That’s that hotshot down there in Dallas saying he’s dead. It’s not CBS saying he’s dead.”
POLICE BROADCAST SUSPECT’S DESCRIPTION 12:45 P.M. The description was derived from eyewitness reports at Dealey Plaza.
Police Dispatcher: Attention all squads. Attention all squads. At Elm and Houston, reported to be an unknown white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 feet 10 inches, 165 pounds. Reported to be armed with what is believed to be a .30-caliber rifle.
KENNEDY PRONOUNCED DEAD 1 P.M.
Dr. Jenkins: However, for a period of minutes…after we knew he was dead, we continued attempted resuscitative maneuvers….I think as we pronounced the president dead, those in attendance who were there just sort of melted away. When we saw the two priests who arrived in the corridor outside the emergency room, I went to the door and asked one of those, what is the proper time to declare one dead. As I remember now, he said, “The time that the soul leaves the body…is not at exactly the time that medical testimony might say that death was declared.” There would be a period of time and so, if we wished to declare him dead at that time, they would still have the final rites.
…Mrs. Kennedy had come back into the room, and most of the people were beginning to leave because they felt like this was such a grief-stricken and private affair that they should not be there….I was still there as the rites were performed, and a prayer was said.
Dr. McClelland: About the time that Dr. Baxter and I were gonna walk around the head of the gurney and leave the room behind everybody else, the door came open, and Father Hubert came in…so we just kind of melted back up against the wall…while he gave the president his last rites.
[Mrs. Kennedy] came in and leaned over and asked him, “Have you given him the last rites?” And he said, “I’ve given him conditional last rites.” She grimaced a little bit then, as if she didn’t much like to hear that. She put it [a ring] on one of his fingers, and I don’t know which one she took it off of and which one she put it on, and then she turned and walked slowly out of the room. He had already been covered up with a sheet at that time…his right foot was sticking out from underneath the sheet….And as she passed by, she kind of, almost as an afterthought, she leaned over and kissed his foot, and then she walked out of the room.
OSWALD MISSING FROM DEPOSITORY 1:03 P.M. Police begin to scour the building, and manager Roy Truly discovers Oswald is gone.
Roy Truly: Some of my boys were over in the west corner of the shipping department, and there were several officers over there taking their names and addresses and so forth. I noticed that Lee Oswald was not among these boys.
Mr. Campbell is standing there, and I said: “I have a boy over here missing. I don’t know whether to report it or not.” Because I had another one or two out then. I didn’t know whether they were all there or not. He said, “What do you think?” And I got to thinking. He said, “Well, we better do it anyway.” …I picked the phone up then and called Mr. Aiken, at the warehouse, and got the boy’s name and general description and telephone number and address at Irving. I knew nothing of his Dallas address. I didn’t know he was living away from his family.
Deputy Chief [George] Lumpkin of the Dallas Police Department was standing a few feet from me. I told [him] that I had a boy missing over here, “I don’t know whether it amounts to anything or not.” And I gave him his description. And he says: “Just a moment. We will go tell Captain Fritz.”
THE SNIPER’S NEST IS FOUND 1:10 P.M . Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney describes finding the 6th-floor sniper’s nest.
Deputy Mooney: I went straight across to the southeast corner of the building, and I saw all these high boxes. And I squeezed between two…I saw the expended shells, and the boxes that were stacked up looked to be a rest for the weapon. There was a very slight crease in the box, where the rifle could have lain — at the same angle that the shots were fired from.
I didn’t lay my hands on anything, because I wanted to save every evidence we could for fingerprints. So I leaned out the window, the same window from which the shots were fired, looked down, and I saw Sheriff Bill Decker and Captain Will Fritz. So I hollered….I whistled a time or two before I got anybody to see me. I told him to get the crime lab officers in route, that I had the location spotted. So I stood guard to see that no one disturbed anything until Captain Will Fritz approached with his group of officers.
POLICE OFFICER J.D. TIPPIT IS SHOT 1:15 P.M. Witness Helen Markham describes the shooting, and Warren Reynolds and Detective Paul Bentley recall the pursuit of the suspect.
Helen Markham: I seen this man on the opposite side, across the street from me. He was almost across Patton Street….walking up 10th, away from me. I noticed a police car coming. He was driving real slow, almost up to this man. This man kept walking, and the police car going real slow now, real slow.
The man stopped. I saw the man come over to the car very slow….
I didn’t think nothing about it; you know, the police are nice and friendly. In a few minutes…this man put his arms up, leaned over, and he drew back, and he stepped back about two steps.
The policeman calmly opened the car door, very slowly, wasn’t angry or nothing, he calmly crawled out of this car. Just as the policeman got…towards the front of the car…even with the wheel on the driver’s side, this man shot the policeman. He fell to the ground, and his cap went a little ways out on the street.
The man, he just walked calmly, fooling with his gun. Come back towards me, turned around and went back….towards Patton. When he saw me he looked at me, stared at me. I put my hands over my face, closed my eyes. I gradually opened my fingers, and I opened my eyes, and when I did he started off in kind of a little trot.
Warren Reynolds: Our office is up high where I can have a pretty good view of what was going on. When I heard the shots, I went out on this front porch. I saw this man coming down the street with the gun in his hand. He turned the corner of Patton and Jefferson, going west, and put the gun in his pants and took off, walking.
I followed him up the street behind the service station and lost him….I went back there and looked up and down the alley and didn’t see him and looked through the cars and still didn’t see him.
When the police got there…I was trying to assure them that he was still there close. And they got word that he was down at a library, which was about three blocks down the street on the opposite side of the street. And every one of them left to go there. So when they left, well, I did too. I didn’t know this man had shot a policeman. I wouldn’t probably be near as brave if I had known that.
Detective Bentley: The first thing I saw was Officer Tippit’s patrol car sitting there with quite a bit of blood on the pavement where Tippit had fallen. At that particular time there were several officers talking to various witnesses who had seen the shooting….We were there only five or 10 minutes when we had heard lots of reports that the suspect had been seen in the public library there at Marcellus and Jefferson. Also a report that he had been seen entering the Texas Theatre.
THE RIFLE IS FOUND 1:22 P.M. Police locate the rifle on the 6th floor of the Depository, and Police Lieutenant Carl Day inspects for fingerprints.
Deputy Mooney: By that time there was a number of officers up there….And we were searching, trying to find the weapon at that time.
I was about 10 or 15 steps at the most from Officer Boone when he hollered, “Here is the gun!” I stepped over there…I had to look twice before I actually saw the gun laying in there…stuck between these cartons in an upright position.
Lieutenant Day: We were working on the fingerprints and so forth of the area where the shooting occurred. We found one good palm print on top of that box, which Oswald was sitting on.
We collected the three spent cartridges, cases. I used the powder on them and didn’t find any prints there, which is not unusual on a cartridge case or bullet….While we were working with that, Captain Fritz sent word for me to come to the…northwest corner of the building….They had found the gun. So we took our camera and went over there and made several shots of that.
It had a telescopic sight, but there was no name on that gun. Visually you could tell it was what we called a wartime finish. And this gun was a very rough finish, the stock was rough. It wasn’t the best place to find a fingerprint to start with.
After we got the pictures taken, I reached down and picked the rifle up. It had a leather strap on it. It was apparent that you could not get a fingerprint off that leather strap — it was entirely too rough. I picked it up by the leather strap. I took a little powder…and put it on the knob of the bolt, that you pull the bolt back to eject the shell. It was too small to do anything with, there was no print there. I held the gun by the strap, and Captain Fritz got a hold of that bolt and pulled it back and opened it, and a live round fell out. It was ready to fire again….I told Captain Fritz this is not the place to try to work on this gun. I took it back to the City Hall and locked it up.
LBJ IS INFORMED KENNEDY IS DEAD AND RETURNS TO LOVE FIELD Before it is officially announced, Johnson is informed he is now president and must immediately return t o Air Force One .
Malcolm Kilduff: Before 1 o’clock, I went to [Kennedy aide] Kenneth O’Donnell, and I said, “Kenny, we’re going to have to announce the president’s death.” And he said, “Hell,” he said, “don’t ask me. Go ask Johnson.” So, I went across the hall into a trauma room…and I walked in and I didn’t know what to call him. I didn’t know Lyndon Johnson that well. I had seen him around the White House. He knew me by name….But I suddenly realized I didn’t know what to call him. The situation, de facto, he was the president. I just said, “Mr. President,” and Lady Bird just kind of screamed. And apparently…when I said that to him was the first solid information that he had that he was the de facto president. I said, “I’m going to have to announce President Kennedy’s death.”
And he said: “Well….We don’t know what kind of a conspiracy this might be….But I think Bird and I ought to get out of here and back to Air Force One before you make the announcement.” And I said, “All right.” So, he said, “Come on….Let’s go on back to the plane.”
Lyndon Johnson: When Mr. [Kenneth] O’Donnell told us to get on the plane and go back to Washington, I asked about Mrs. Kennedy. O’Donnell told me that Mrs. Kennedy would not leave the hospital without the president’s body, and urged again that we go ahead and take Air Force One and return to Washington. I did not want to go and leave Mrs. Kennedy in this situation. I said so, but I agreed that we would board the airplane and wait until Mrs. Kennedy and the president’s body were brought aboard the plane. We left the room and were ushered by a cordon of agents to cars which were awaiting us.
PRESIDENT’S DEATH ANNOUNCED 1:31 P.M.
Malcolm Kilduff: I received word that he [Johnson] was back [at Air Force One ], and at approximately 1:31, I went ahead and made the announcement….The most difficult thing was to say that John Kennedy was dead….And I didn’t get into it clean because I guess it’s sort of like telling somebody that a close friend has died. It’s hard to come out….you don’t want to say it because once you’ve said it….That by saying it, it’s so, and if I don’t say it, it won’t be so. I have no recollection of the press in front of me.
JOHNSON BOARDS AIR FORCE ONE
Lyndon Johnson: We were ushered into the private quarters of the president’s plane. It didn’t seem right for John Kennedy not to be there. I told someone that we preferred for Mrs. Kennedy to use these quarters. I called Robert Kennedy….Despite his shock, he discussed the practical problems at hand — problems of special urgency because we did not at that time have any information as to the motivation of the assassination or its possible implications. The attorney general said that he would like to look into the matter of whether the oath of office as president should be administered to me immediately or after we returned to Washington, and that he would call back. I thereafter talked with McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins, both of whom urged that the return to Washington should not be delayed. I told them I was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy and for the president’s body to be placed on the plane, and would not return prior to that time. Our conversation was interrupted to allow the attorney general to come back on the line. He said that the oath should be administered to me immediately, before taking off for Washington, and that it should be administered by a judicial officer of the United States.
I thought of Sarah Hughes, an old friend who is judge of the U.S. District Court in Dallas. We telephoned Judge Hughes’ office. She was not there, but she returned the call in a few minutes and said she would be at the airplane in 10 minutes.
OSWALD’S CAPTURE AND ARREST 1:50 P.M. Detective Paul Bentley describes the arrest and transport of the suspect.
Detective Bentley: Captain Talbert and I went to the Texas Theatre. I got out in the front and immediately went into the theater and identified myself….
I did not stop at the cashier booth in the front….I went right into the ticket taker, and this person advised me that the suspect had been seen going to the balcony, so I first went to the mezzanine which was the first flight of stairs…and I checked the men and women’s restrooms and office space on the mezzanine and then went to the balcony. I did have my revolver in my hand at that particular time….Once I got to the balcony I could see several officers coming in from the stage or back entrance. I had advised the projectionist to turn on the house lights…the movie was cut off.
After checking the people in the balcony…there were only three or four people there, about that time a uniformed officer came up from the other side, and I advised him to take the names of the people in the balcony and I went back downstairs to go into the theater to help check the people on the ground floor. I had only taken a few steps in when I saw Officer McDonald come up in the row in front of the suspect. Just as McDonald came up in front of him, he jumped up, hit Officer McDonald in the face…. He pulled the revolver from his waist. When I first saw it, he had the revolver in his hand pointing it toward McDonald, and that’s when I tried to get just as close to him as possible, trying to grab for the weapon. I came over the backs of the seats, and I hung my right ankle in between the seats and in scuffling with him to get him under control…I pulled a leg muscle in my right ankle. I was not aware of that at the time.
…As I was grabbing for the weapon that Oswald had pulled out, I came down on the side of Oswald. And I remember I did hit him with an open hand, and this ring could have…made the scrape marks on his right temple…forehead. There were several officers grabbing for Oswald. He was wrestled to the floor. I never saw an officer hit him with a fist, shotgun butt, or anything else at the time he was in my presence.
We had an unmarked police car…parked in front of the theater, and as we went out there were numerous people…police officers and civilian people out in front of the theater….As we were bringing him out of the theater…he was telling me…”Oh, the handcuffs are too tight.” I reached back and felt that I could get my middle finger in between his wrists and the handcuffs, and in my opinion, they were not too tight.
Traffic was stopped. We could hardly get this car out…we heard several people rolling their windows down and saying, “Kill that S.O.B!” We were not aware that we had arrested the person who had assassinated President Kennedy and wounded Gov. Connally. We radioed the dispatcher…that we had a suspect in the shooting of Officer Tippit. The dispatcher asked us for the name of the suspect, and I had taken his wallet out of his left rear pocket and had taken several cards out of his wallet and it contained several different names. Hidell, Oswald, and I think a couple other aliases, and I gave this all to the dispatcher. I took out of his wallet “Freedom for Cuba” cards…looking for other aliases that we might identify him with. I think it was Sergeant Hill who was talking to the dispatcher and we gave him the names….The dispatcher advised us then that we were to bring this suspect directly to Captain Fritz’s office, that he was a prime suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Gov. Connally.
I turned to him and I said, “Did you shoot President Kennedy?” And he said, “You find out for yourself.”
I sat down to make out a report at one of the desks…and that’s when Inspector Putman came over and advised me that there was something wrong with my right ankle, and I looked down and it was swollen. I didn’t even realize it was swollen. I could hardly see the shoe it was swollen so bad.
OSWALD INTERROGATION BEGINS 2:20 P.M. Detective James Leavelle describes questioning Oswald.
Detective Leavelle: [While interviewing him] on the shooting of Tippit, Oswald made a statement, “I didn’t shoot anybody.”
I have worked [the slaying of] two other officers, and they had said, “Well, I didn’t shoot the cop,” or “I didn’t shoot the policeman.” But Oswald didn’t say that. He said, “I didn’t shoot anybody.” But I also told him, I said, “Well, Lee, you strike me as a pretty intelligent individual.” I said, “You know, of course, that we can take the bullets in the officer and use the pistol that you had on you at the time you were arrested and run ballistics on them and prove that the bullets that killed the officer came from your pistol, don’t you?” He said, “Yeah, I know that, but you’ll just have to do it.” I don’t know what was going on inside of him, but he struck me as a very calm individual, and he answered my questions very clearly and everything….
MARGUERITE OSWALD COMES TO THE POLICE STATION After being out on the town all night with local and national newsmen, Bob Shieffer—then a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter—is awakened by his brother. He recounts his amazing afternoon.
Bob Shieffer: I was sound asleep when it happened, and Tom…came in and waked me up, and he said: “You better get up. The president’s been shot. You better go to work.”…by the time I got to the First National Bank building where we parked…and just as I parked my car…it came over my car that the president was dead. I was just beside myself…and I began to cry. The city editor had sent all the reporters to Dallas and there wasn’t anybody to answer the phones, and that’s when this unbelievable thing happened to me. I was just answering the phones on the city desk when we got this call, and this woman said, “Is there somebody there who can give me a ride to Dallas?” And I said, “Well, you know, lady, this is not the taxi, and the president’s been shot.” She said, “Well, I heard it on the radio, and they say my son is the one who shot him.” And it was Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother….
She had been living in Fort Worth when he had defected to the Soviet Union, and so reporters from the Star-Telegram had actually gone out and interviewed her, and perhaps the paper was her only contact.
I had a Triumph sports car in those days, and I thought, “My God, I can’t bring her over to Dallas in that.” And so, I went to the auto editor, Bill Foster…the car dealers always gave him a car and gas to drive for a week or two….I said, “Bill, what kind of car do you have this week?” And he said, “I’ve got a Cadillac, actually.”
I explained what had happened, and so the two of us went out to Arlington Heights and, sure enough, standing on the curb at the address she had given us was Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother. She had on a little white practical nurse’s uniform…and she had these big, black horn-rimmed glasses. I got in the backseat with her and Bill drove, and I tried to talk to her and interviewed her…but she seemed to express no curiosity or interest in the president being shot. She didn’t express much interest in what was going to happen to her son. She began to say that people would sympathize with his wife [Marina] and that they would give her money and that she wouldn’t get any and that she’d starve to death, and she didn’t know how she was going to live. And these…statements were so bizarre that when I wrote the story about it for the next day’s paper, I didn’t even include most of it….I thought, “This poor woman, who can imagine being in the situation that she had suddenly found herself in?”
When we got to the Dallas Police Station, this tale became even stranger. I was wearing my snap-brim hat like I always wore…I took her in and I told the first uniformed cop, “I’m the one that brought Oswald’s mother over here, where can we put her so these reporters won’t be talking to her?” He found a place for us, and so I put her in there and went in there with her. By that time, we [ Star-Telegram ] had 17 reporters on the scene. Well, as the evening wore on, they brought Oswald’s wife in and finally, Mrs. Oswald, the mother, asked Captain Fritz…if he could arrange for her to see her son, and he said he’d see what he could do. And the next thing I know, they’re ushering her and his wife and me into this holding room next to the jail, and I’m just kind of sitting there thinking, “When is this going to end?”…At this point, not one person there had asked me who I was….Finally, one of the officers said, “Who are you with?” And I said, “Who are you with?” And he said, “Are you a newspaper reporter?” And I said, “Well, aren’t you a reporter?” I believe that’s when I got the first serious death threat as an adult because I think he would have killed me. He said: “You get out of here! I don’t ever want to see you again.” You know, the first rule of reporting is it’s better to apologize than to explain, so I said: “Well, I apologize. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to be here.” And I got out of there….
Bob Jackson: The scene at the police station was just bedlam…you couldn’t move…there were so many people in the halls…it was hard to shoot pictures. I photographed Marina, the kids and Oswald’s mother in a group. I don’t know how I stumbled onto that, but I was real pleased with the picture.
RIFLE SHOWN TO MARINA OSWALD Homicide Captain Will Fritz and Lieutenant Day confront Marina Oswald with the rifle.
Captain Fritz: I also asked Lieutenant Day to bring the rifle down after I sent after [Marina] Oswald, and had her look at the rifle. She couldn’t identify it positively, it looked like the rifle that he had, but she couldn’t say for sure. [She] thought he brought it from New Orleans.
Lieutenant Day: Captain Fritz had Marina Oswald in his office….He came up to my office and said he wanted her to look at the gun to see if she could identify it, but he didn’t want to bring her out into the reporters out there in the hall. I’m accustomed to four, five, six reporters hanging out in that hall all the time in any major case. And if I wrapped the thing up, it’s likely to mess up the powder or prints that are on there. So I just picked it up by…the strap and the stock, and I decided I’d carry it like that down, and go through a few reporters and show it to her. Well when I got off at the third floor, I was shocked. There was television cameras and I don’t know how many people were there….And here I am with a piece of evidence, standing there holding it over my head, and all these people around. But Captain Fritz and his men spread them out, and I walked on through holding the gun over my head so nobody would touch it. And showed it to Marina Oswald in the office….I finally took the gun on back upstairs. But they got that television picture of me holding it over my head and everything else. Looked to me like I was trying to show the thing off, which…was a poor way of handling evidence.
BODY MOVED FROM PARKLAND TO AIR FORCE ONE 2:20 P.M. Authorities contest control of the president’s body, as recounted by Agent Roy Kellerman and Henry Wade, Dallas district attorney.
Agent Kellerman: I was requested by Mr. O’Donnell, one of the presidential assistants, to obtain a casket, because they wanted to return to Washington immediately. I contacted the administrator of the hospital and asked him to take me where I could telephone the nearest mortuary, which I did, requested that their best available casket be brought to the emergency entrance in my name immediately. The casket did arrive from the O’Neal Mortuary, Inc., in their own hearse, which we then wheeled into the emergency room. I left the emergency room and asked that two of our agents…clear all the corridors, and I checked the closest and most immediate route to the ambulance.
…Another gentleman came into this little doctor’s room…he represented himself to be from the Health Department or commission. He said to me: “There has been a homicide here, you won’t be able to remove the body. We will have to take it down there to the mortuary and have an autopsy.” I said, “No, we are not.” And he said, “We have a law here you have to comply with it.”
With that Dr. [George] Burkley walked in, and I said: “Doctor, this man is from some health unit in town. He tells me we can’t remove this body.” The doctor became a little enraged; he said: “We are removing it. This is the president of the United States and there should be some consideration in an event like this.” And I told this gentleman, “You are going to have to come up with something a little stronger than [the] law that this body can’t be removed.”
Shortly he leaves this little room and it seems like a few minutes he is back and he has another gentleman with him, and he said: “He is a judge here in Dallas. He will tell you whether you can remove this body or not.” I said: “It doesn’t make any difference. We are going to move it. Judge, do you know who I am?”
The poor man looked at me and he said, “I know who you are, I can’t help you out.” I said: “All right, sir.” But then I happened to look to the right and I can see the casket coming on rollers, and I just left the room and let it out through the emergency entrance and we got to the ambulance and put it in, shut the door after Mrs. Kennedy and General [Godfrey] McHugh and Clinton Hill got in the rear part of this ambulance.
Henry Wade: …Aaron Ward was a justice of the peace at Parkland. He called me just as I got back to the office and he said, “Now, they’re having a fight over John F. Kennedy’s body.”…You have the Secret Service, the FBI and Jackie Kennedy trying to take the body on to Washington, and on the other side, you have Dr. [Earl] Rose, the medical examiner here, who wants to do the autopsy….And so, Dallas police and the sheriff — because there’s a state law that says you can’t take a body out of the state without an autopsy but the fine is $100 — they wanted to do the autopsy here. I said, “Is the White House doctor there?” And I got him on the phone…I said, “The only thing is, we’ve got to have some doctor testify that a gunshot wound caused his death.” And he said: “Well, we’re going to take him to Bethesda. And I’ll furnish your doctor when he does the autopsy for the trial.” And I got Ward back on there and I said, “Tell him to take him on back.”
Malcolm Kilduff: They wanted to keep the body here for an autopsy. And Roy Kellerman received word from headquarters to bring it back to Washington for an autopsy at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval….And that’s when Roy Kellerman and some other agents and myself formed sort of a flying wedge…and we flew out that door and put the casket in the ambulance and took off and went to Love Field.
Agent Kellerman: I am looking around for Mr. Greer and I don’t spot him directly because I want to get out of here in a hurry, and I recognize Agent Berger and I said, “Berger, you get in the front seat and drive and Mr. Stout, you get in the middle and I will get on this side….” As we are leaving a gentleman taps on the driver’s window and they roll it down and he says, “I will meet you at the mortuary.” [I replied,] “Yes, sir.” We went to the airport.
SWEARING IN OF LYNDON JOHNSON 2:28 P.M.
Malcolm Kilduff: We went back to Air Force One , and by that time, Lyndon Johnson had contacted the attorney general, of course…there was no love lost between Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy. But Bobby advised him that in case of any presidential decisions, not knowing what was going on, that it would be best if he was sworn in here. So, that was the decision made by the attorney general, that he should be sworn in…by Judge Sarah Hughes, which, of course, was another slight irony. Lyndon Johnson had opposed her…appointment to the federal bench as a federal district court judge…. We got on Air Force One , and all the Kennedy people were in the far aft section of the plane around the casket.
Lyndon Johnson: Mrs. Kennedy and the president’s coffin arrived. Mrs. Johnson and I spoke to her. We tried to comfort her, but our words seemed inadequate. She went into the private quarters of the plane. I estimate that Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin arrived about a half-hour after we entered the plane, just after 2 o’clock. About a half-hour later, I asked someone to find out if Mrs. Kennedy would stand with us during the administration of the oath. Mrs. Johnson went back to be with her. Mrs. Kennedy came and stood with us during the moments that the oath was being administered. I shall never forget her bravery, nobility and dignity. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Kennedy were at my side as Judge Hughes administered the oath of office.
Malcolm Kilduff: When Judge Hughes came aboard, the president asked that Mrs. Kennedy be invited to come up during the swearing-in. She was only too gracious about coming forward. She never, never blinked an eye, twitched a muscle, and in some of the pictures, you can see the blood on that…suit of hers. And she stood right next to him as he was sworn in as our president. Within a few moments we were airborne back to Washington.
We all drank about as much as human beings could possibly consume, but nobody got drunk.
FIRST LINEUP FOR OSWALD 4:35 P.M.
Captain Fritz: That first showup was for a lady who was an eyewitness and we were trying to get that showup as soon as we could because she was beginning to faint and getting sick. In fact, I had to leave the office and carry some ammonia across the hall. They were about to send her to the hospital or something and we needed that identification real quickly, and she got to feeling all right after using this ammonia. She looked at these people very carefully, and she picked him out and made the positive identification. She said: “That is the man that I saw shoot the officer.” She pointed out Oswald.
AIR FORCE ONE ARRIVES AT ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE 5 P.M. (6 P.M. EST) Ten minutes after landing, President Johnson addresses the nation.
Lyndon Johnson: This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help — and God’s.
COFFIN BEARING JFK ARRIVES AT BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL 5:25 P.M. (6:25 P.M. EST)
Malcolm Kilduff: Now, in removing the casket on the forklift at Andrews Air Force Base, one of the handles got broken. And for that reason, they got another casket from Gawler’s Funeral Home in Washington, but that was not until after they had taken the body to Bethesda Naval Hospital. That’s when the switch in the caskets was made.
Agent Hill: I assisted Mrs. Kennedy and the attorney general, who had joined her at that time, into the ambulance bearing the president’s body….I entered the automobile immediately behind the ambulance….
I went to the 17th floor with Mrs. Kennedy, and I remained with Mrs. Kennedy except for one time when I was requested to come to the morgue to view the president’s body. I returned to the 17th floor and remained with Mrs. Kennedy until we departed the hospital. We went downstairs to the rear of the hospital, where the body was placed in a naval ambulance. I entered an automobile immediately behind the ambulance. Mrs. Kennedy and the attorney general got into the rear of the ambulance with the body. I accompanied them to the White House. I remained on duty until approximately 6:30 in the morning; went home, changed clothes, and came back.
ENCOUNTERS WITH JACK RUBY AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS CBS Radio reporter Ike Pappas recalls speaking with Ruby.
Ike Pappas: I was trying to get to Henry Wade’s office and up comes this guy in a black pin-striped suit…and a little fedora….little stubby little guy….He comes up to me, and he says, “Are you a reporter?” I said: “Yeah, I’m a reporter. Are you a policeman?” He said: “No, I’m Jack Ruby. I run the Carousel Club down the block.” And he hands me a card. I said: “Carousel Club? What’s that?” And he says: “Well, you know, it’s a nightclub. We’ve got, you know…get some of your friends and come by and you know, we have anything you need there, you know.” Here is this guy trying to hustle me into his nightclub. “I got your card,” I said. “Now, can you get me a telephone?” And he said, “Yeah, just a minute.” He’s looking around. I said, “I want to talk to Henry Wade, but I need a telephone.” He said, “I’ll get you a phone.” So, he goes over to Henry Wade and he said: “Hey, this guy’s from New York. Can he use your phone? And he wants to do an interview.” [Wade] said: “Yeah, but I’m busy with these reporters. Put him on the phone, and I’ll be in in a minute.” So, Jack Ruby takes me into Henry Wade’s office.
I dialed New York. Now, I’m saying: “I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I’m in the district attorney’s office.” And I figured this little guy, Jack Ruby, is really pretty connected….I did the interview, I hung up the phone, and I went about my business.
OSWALD MEETS THE PRESS 12 MIDNIGHT With allegations of police mishandling of the suspect swirling, Chief Jesse Curry brings Oswald to meet the media.
Chief Curry: The news media, a number of them, had continued to say: “Let us see him. What are you doing to him? How does he look?” I think one broadcaster…said that Lee Harvey Oswald is in custody of the police department…he looked all right when he went in there, they wouldn’t guarantee how he would look after he had been in custody of the Dallas police for a couple of hours, which intimated to me that they thought we were mistreating the prisoner. …I told them if they would not try to overrun the prisoner and not try to interrogate him we would bring him to the showup room. Now, Mr. Wade, the district attorney, was present at this time and his assistant was present, and as I recall, I asked Mr. Wade, “Do you think this will be all right?” And he said, “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
We brought him in there in front of the screen and kept him there as I recall only about four or five minutes….
Ike Pappas: As soon as I got there, I picked up the theme of what people were talking about. They were saying: “We think that they’re beating the hell out of him, you know. The cops are beating him up because he killed the president….” So, they were demanding of Will Fritz and the other detectives and Chief Curry that they produce Oswald. Eventually, they did bring him out at midnight….The deal was that there would be no questions. And everybody agreed: “Oh yeah, no questions. No problem, no questions, of course not.” And everybody knew that as soon as he showed his face, there would be questions. They brought him in and as soon as they saw him, “How did you get hurt?” and everybody was yelling things at him, and I screamed and a couple of other people screamed it at almost the same time, “Did you kill the president?” And he said, “No,…I didn’t kill anybody.” And as soon as he answered that…Will Fritz or one of the detectives said, “No, that’s enough, let’s go.” And they took him out of there, and then there was a lot of hubbub. People were scrambling to get telephones. How do we get the story out? We’ve seen the assassin! He did have a mouse on his eye. He was injured in the arrest in the Texas Theatre, but he certainly wasn’t being beaten on by the Dallas police force. That story was gone.
AMBULANCE CARRYING JFK’S COFFIN ARRIVES AT WHITE HOUSE 4:35 A.M.
OSWALD INTERROGATION EARLY SATURDAY
Captain Fritz: I asked him what he thought of the president, about the family — he said he didn’t have any particular comment to make about the president. He said he had a nice family, that he admired his family, something to that effect….At one time I told him, “You know you have killed the president, and this is a very serious charge.” He denied it and said he hadn’t killed the president. He said people will forget that within a few days and there would be another president.
I showed him a picture of him holding a rifle and wearing the pistol…he said: “[Someone has taken my picture and that is my face and put a different body on it. I know all about photography, I worked with photography for a long time. That is a picture that someone else has made. I never saw that picture in my life.”
…In the hallway we had some 200 news reporters and cameramen with big cameras and little cameras and cables running on the floors to where we could hardly get in and out of the office…and each time we went through that hallway to and from the jail we had to pull him through all those people, and they, of course, would holler at him and say things to him,…and I don’t think that helped at all in questioning him. I think that all of that had a tendency to keep him upset.
OSWALD IS SHOT 11:21 A.M. Detectives Leavelle and L.C. Graves are assigned to escort Oswald to the county jail. Photographer Jackson and newsman Pappas are there among the crowd.
Detective Leavelle: I made a statement to him, in jest really, when I was getting him ready to transfer him down…I said, “Lee, I hope if anybody shoots at you, they’re as good a shot as you are,” meaning, of course, that it’d hit him and not me. And he kind of laughed, and I think it was the only time I ever saw him smile while he was in custody. He said, “Nobody’s going to be shooting at me.”…I said, “Well, in case they do, you know what to do, don’t you?” And he said, “Well, Captain Fritz has told me to follow you, so I’ll do whatever you do.” And I said, “Well, in that case, if anybody starts shooting at you, you will be on the floor in a hurry.”
My left arm was handcuffed to his right….And the reason for that was, since the threats had been that they were going to take him away from us and do all kinds of bodily harm to him, Cap figured somebody ought to be handcuffed to him, so if they took him, they had to take me, too.
Detective L.C. Graves was on his left, holding onto his left arm, and we had a couple officers behind us…and there were detectives lined up along the wall just outside the double doors. So, I walked out into the basement with Oswald…I was told that the car that we were going to transfer him in would be crossways with the doorway, which it was not. But one of our detectives was in there and was trying to back it into position, and at the time…when I walked out, I was looking to my right at the car….Out of the peripheral vision…I saw Ruby standing in the center of the driveway, in front of all of those newspapermen, and he had the pistol out and by his side.
I saw all of that in a flash. I had Oswald right up against me, and I tried to pull him behind me, but all I succeeded in doing was turning his body, so that instead of hitting him dead center, it hit him just about four inches to the left of the navel. Then the officers gathered around there had piled on him and pushed him to the ground. I reached over and grabbed Ruby by…his left shoulder and shoved back and down on him, but by the time that happened, the officers had swarmed on him and crushed him to the ground, and so I released him and returned my attention to Oswald. And with the help of Detective Combest…we picked him up and carried him back inside the jail, and I gave my keys to Combest, and he took the handcuffs off of him. The ambulance was there in a matter of minutes, and also, the intern from Parkland that we had down there every weekend working Saturdays and Sundays…was there immediately and started working on him. And when the ambulance pulled in, we loaded him in the ambulance, and I crawled in there with him and so did the doctor, and we rode to Parkland with him.
Detective Graves: We were told the car would be backed up there right in position where all we’d have to do was walk out and get in it. And we got out there, and it wasn’t there…we were told to wait and they’d give us a “clear” signal, so somebody gave us a “clear” signal and we walked out, and there wasn’t supposed to be anybody out there but police officers around that wall. Well, the first thing that happened to me…there was a guy there with a trench coat on. He’s got a microphone…and he slapped it right up in my face and began to try and talk to me. And I’m just walking right on by him, getting away from him….My eyes are on the car. Now, Ruby steps out from behind this officer…he steps out, he makes one long step….and coming down with that pistol. Well, I saw him coming down with that pistol…so I got loose from his [Oswald’s] arm and grabbed his pistol before he could get the second shot off. I grabbed it right over the cylinder. When you do that, that stops the pistol from firing. I grabbed it and then I turned to my right just right around with his arm and began to twist and tell him to turn that gun loose with a few choice words…I think I called him a “son of a bitch” and told him to turn that gun loose before I broke his arm off….
Bob Jackson: I positioned myself there, I pre-focused….So, they said, “He’s coming down.” And we were all ready, and I could see when he came out the door. I put the camera up to my face, and I was looking through the viewfinder at my spot because I didn’t want to miss that first frame. My plan was to get a shot there and then back up the ramp on my side of the car. I knew they’d put him in one of those vehicles…I thought that probably at the most, I might get three frames or two. So, as he stepped into the clearing, I’m ready to shoot, I see a figure step out very quickly. The arm came up, the shot, I fired, it just came together.
Ike Pappas : I’ve got all these people in front of me…they’re three deep. I said, “God, I hope he doesn’t come out now…because I can’t see anything.” I saw a little opening right next to the fender of a car….I went over there and I squeezed in, moved in with my big New York City elbows. And I didn’t know it at the time, but I was squeezing in right in front of Jack Ruby.
Oswald hit the door, and he started to come for me…for the car. And I started….”Here he is, wearing his black sweater….Do you have anything to say in your defense?” And just as I said “defense,” Boom! He jumps out, shoots him right in front of me….I heard footsteps, and then boom! and then I saw this flash on his black sweater and Oswald moaned and he went down….And I felt the impact of the bullet as it creased the air. I felt this explosion of the weapon. The next thought that I had is…this is history and upon these words you’ll be judged as a reporter and as a human being. Say something, don’t freeze, and…the only thing that was apparent to me was that Oswald had been shot. “Oswald’s been shot!” I could see his feet being dragged back into the double doors and then there’s a huge fight in front of us. And police were saying, “Freeze!” I went down on one knee…to continue broadcasting. Ruby was then taken away too…then, a detective came out, and I said, “Who was that?” And he said: “It was Jack Ruby. Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.”
THE PRESIDENT LIES IN STATE As Oswald is shot in Dallas, Kennedy’s body is moved from the White House to the Capitol Rotunda, where a brief ceremony is held. An estimated 250,000 mourners line up to pay their respects.
INTERROGATION OF JACK RUBY 12:20 P.M.
Captain Fritz: I wanted to know something about premeditation because I was thinking about the trial too and I told him I wanted to ask him some questions and he first said: “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to my lawyers.” [Later he said,] “Now if you will level with me and you won’t make me look like a fool…I will talk to you.”
I did ask him some questions and he told me that he shot him, told me that he was all torn up about the presidential killing, that he felt terribly sorry for Mrs. Kennedy.
Struggling to regain its balance from the staggering, violent blows inflicted in Dallas, a numb and somber nation collectively searches for solace and comfort in the poignant pageantry of a state funeral. The symbolism wrought through the use of the same catafalque and caisson that bore the body of Abraham Lincoln contributes to a sense that while a leader falls the Republic marches on, its ideals inviolate. As a grieving world gazes upon her, the slain president’s widow braces the nation’s fallen spirits with her fortitude and grace on this crisp, sun-soaked November day. After receiving the sympathy of presidents, ministers and monarchs, Jacqueline Kennedy — looking forward, not back — hosts a birthday celebration later that evening for her son John, turning 3 years old that day.
Halfway across the continent, two other Americans shot and killed in Dallas are laid to rest. Hundreds honor fallen policeman J.D. Tippit, killed in the line of duty. Few bid farewell to the infinitely infamous Lee Harvey Oswald.
This article was originally published in the December 2003 issue of American History magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!]
Presidential Libraries
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, a few miles outside of Boston. His parents were Joseph Kennedy, a successful businessman, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was the second of nine children. While Jack grew up with every material advantage, he suffered from a series of medical ailments but learned to underplay the effects of his illnesses.
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy pose for a portrait with their children, Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr., on a porch in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. August 4, 1962. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum Local Identifier: ST-C22-1-62
World War II changed Kennedy in many ways. He joined the Navy and served in the Pacific, where his PT boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer. He never forgot his own war experience and the bravery of his Navy crew.
After the war, JFK decided to run for office. In 1946 he won election as congressman for Massachusetts and served for six years. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952. In 1953 he married Jacqueline Bouvier, and their daughter, Caroline, was born in 1957, and their son, John Jr., was born in 1960.
At 43 years old, he became the youngest man elected President of the United States, defeating Richard Nixon in 1960.
One of his first actions after taking office was creating the Peace Corps, which today still sends volunteers on two-year missions to live and work with people around the globe.
The Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962 threatened the world with possible nuclear war. The United States confronted the Soviet Union over the placement of nuclear weapons on Cuba, and in secret negotiations, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles.
Kennedy challenged the U.S. to be the first country to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s. The United States reached President Kennedy’s goal on July 20, 1969, when the crew of Apollo 11 landed on the lunar surface.
At home, Kennedy urged an end to racial segregation and asked Congress for a civil rights bill. Before the bill could get through Congress, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
People remember John F. Kennedy as a President who was young and energetic. But he is also remembered as a leader who made a difference. His words and actions made people want to help others and serve their country.
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On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president; he was the youngest to die.
Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, son of financier Joseph Kennedy and his wife Rose, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT-109 boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.
Back from the war, he became a Democratic congressman from Boston, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. They had a daughter, Caroline, a son, John Jr., and another son, Patrick, who died soon after birth. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage , which won the Pulitzer Prize for history.
In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for vice president, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for president. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic president.
His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” As president, he set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. After two years of temporizing, Kennedy in 1963 called on Congress to pass a civil rights bill that would desegregate hotels, restaurants, and other public accommodations.
His vision also extended to the quality of the national culture and the role of the arts in American society. Jacqueline Kennedy sought to make the White House a world-class museum, saved architectural treasures from the wrecker’s ball, and improved the appearance of Pennsylvania Avenue.
President Kennedy wanted America to resume its enduring mission as the first nation dedicated to the preservation of human rights. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the Cold War was still on with a vengeance.
Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy permitted a band of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro was a failure. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy replied by increasing the nation’s military strength, including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this reaction, Moscow, after the creation of the Berlin Wall, relaxed its pressure in central Europe.
But in the summer of 1962, the Soviets secretly installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, Kennedy initiated secret negotiations and persuaded the Kremlin to take the missiles out in exchange for certain American concessions.
Kennedy declared that both sides had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race. This led to a partial nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.
That November, Kennedy was assassinated, and the world mourned. Americans still remember his charm, wit, bravery, glamour, intelligence, and above all, the potential for future leadership of which the nation was denied.
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Born on May 1917, John F. Kennedy came from an illustrious political family; his father Joseph Kennedy was a leading member of the Democratic Party, and Joseph encouraged John F. Kennedy in his political ambitions after the war.
John graduated from Harvard after completing a thesis on “Appeasement in Munich.” His thesis was later converted into a successful book: Why England Slept (1940).
On Jack Paar Tonight Show
Before America joined the war, John joined the Navy and saw action throughout the Pacific theatre. In August 1943, his boat was rammed by Japanese destroyer Amagiri . John F Kennedy was later decorated for his outstanding bravery in rescuing a fellow crewman; he was also awarded the Purple Heart for an incident later in the war. Afterwards, Kennedy was modest about his actions, saying he felt a bit embarrassed as it resulted from a botched military action.
In 1946, he won a seat in Boston for the US House of Representatives, and in 1952 got himself elected to the US Senate, defeating the incumbent Republican.
In 1956, he was nearly chosen to be the Vice Presidential candidate for Adlai Stevenson. The national exposure raised his profile, and in 1960 he was selected to be the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.
In 1960, in a very tight election, John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated the much-fancied Republican, Richard Nixon. It was a memorable election with many millions glued to the TV in the pre-election hustings. John F. Kennedy came across very well on TV and looked more relaxed and professional on camera.
During his inauguration, JFK gave a memorable speech, where he famously encouraged citizens to help the nation become strong again.
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
He also called for greater internationalism.
“We will make clear that America’s enduring concern is for both peace and freedom; that we are anxious to live in harmony with the Russian people; that we seek no conquests, no satellites, no riches; that we seek only the day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
One of his early acts was to establish the Peace Corps – a volunteer programme run by the US government, it allowed young Americans to travel abroad and serve in developing countries. Kennedy hoped it would change foreign perceptions of Americans and give Americans a greater sense of international solidarity.
In 1961, after pressure from the CIA, Kennedy reluctantly ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. It was mostly led by Cuban exiles with minimal US support. They hope to overthrow the Communist Fidel Castro. However, the invasion was a failure leading to embarrassing negotiations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Despite been reluctant to go along with the policy, he accepted his responsibilty for its failure.
In 1962, figures in the US Department of Defense and Joint Chief of Staff proposed ‘Operation Northwoods’ which involved the CIA planning ‘false flag’ operations to stage attacks on US targets and claim Cuba was responsible – to create an opportunity to start a war against Cuba. Kennedy rejected the proposals but his reluctance to fully commit to removing Castro led to resentment amongst some CIA officers and Cuban exiles who felt Kennedy was insufficiently committed to removing Castro.
In 1962, the world came extraordinarily close to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union moved missiles to Cuba, which was seen as very provocative (despite the US have nuclear weapons in NATO ally Turkey. Many in the American military were keen on a pre-emptive airstrike on the missile bases, but Kennedy chose a more cautious diplomatic approach.
Kennedy found a way to offer Khrushchev a way out without losing face. After several days of tense negotiation, an agreement was reached where the Soviet Union would remove missiles from Cuba in return for a US promise not to invade Cuba. The US also secretly removed weapons from Turkey to pacify the Soviets. His careful handling of the situation was widely praised. It led to the establishment of a direct Moscow-Washington hotline and for a few years, tensions between the Cold War antagonists were reduced.
During his brief presidency, John F. Kennedy oversaw an escalation of US involvement in Vietnam, which included sending 16,000 military advisers to the country. Later, Kennedy’s Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara said Kennedy considered pulling out of Vietnam in 1963 and believes that if Kennedy had survived, American involvement would have ended. Tapes showed that Kennedy’s former Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson later criticised Kennedy’s opinion that America should withdraw.
Meeting with leaders of March on Washington August 1963
Kennedy was a supporter of civil rights, but when elected in 1960, American society was deeply divided with entrenched opposition to the end of segregation and racism. Kennedy was torn between the need to retain the support of white southern democrat voters and a wish to promote civil rights. He supported voter registration drives, appointed African Americans to positions within his administration and promoted Thurgood Marshall to the Second Circuit court of Appeals in New York.
However, this was insufficient to tackle the much larger injustices. During the 1960s, the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King became disappointed with JFK’s apparent non-committal stance, instead, they took non-violent direct action to highlight the injustice of segregation and civil rights leaders. This often led to shocking images – shown on tv, of police brutality against civil rights activists. A turning point was 3 May 1963, where police in Birmingham unleased shocking brutality on protestors. This galvanised Kennedy to take more direct action sending federal marshals to the south in order to prevent racial violence getting out of hand. On 11 June 1963, Kennedy made a televised address to the nation where he spoke clearly in favour of the need to pass civil rights legislation
“The heart of the question is — whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities. Whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated… One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free….” – J.F. Kennedy
Although he did not live to see his promise enacted, it was a turning point in his presidency with a clear commitment made. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation.
JFK’s handwriting
In June 1963, Kennedy made a memorable speech in West Berlin to a crowd of up to 450,000. He criticised the Soviets for their divisive wall and stated:
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”
His speech was very well received by people living in West Berlin, who felt surrounded by the Berlin Wall and Communist East Germany. The Soviet authorities were less enamoured of his speech which they felt was confrontational.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and put on trial for his murder. However, before he could reach trial, Lee Harvey Oswald was himself killed by Jack Ruby. Lee Harvey Oswald always pleaded his innocence and many believe the assassination was a wider conspiracy. His death left a large void in American politics that was never adequately filled. Though Johnson did enact civil rights legislation and a form of welfare state, which many see as something Kennedy was keen to do. His brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 whilst seeking the democratic presidential nomination.
Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ John F. Kennedy Biography ”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net , Last updated 25 March 2020. Originally published 11 Feb 2013.
The Kennedy Half-Century at Amazon
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, Amherst College, Oct 26, 1963 – Source JFK Library, Boston, Mass.
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961
“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
“I believe in an America where the rights that I have described are enjoyed by all, regardless of their race or their creed or their national origin – where every citizen is free to think and speak as he pleases and write and worship as he pleases – and where every citizen is free to vote as he pleases, without instructions from anyone, his employer, the union leader or his clergyman.”
October 31, 1960. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Inaugural Address (1961)
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Born: May 29, 1917 Brookline, Massachusetts Died: November 22, 1963 Dallas, Texas American president
John F. Kennedy was the thirty-fifth president of the United States. He was the first president to reach for the moon, through the nation's space programs. He also was the first president since Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) with whom youth could identify. He made the nation see itself with new eyes. His assassination shocked the world.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. He was the second son of nine children born to the multimillionaire business executive and financier Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969) and his wife, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995). Joseph's father had served in the Massachusetts Legislature and in elective offices in Boston, Massachusetts. Rose's father, John Francis Fitzgerald (1863–1950), had been a state legislator, the mayor of Boston, and a U.S. congressman. Joseph himself had served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, and ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40). Thus, the Kennedys were a wealthy family with a history of political and public service.
Kennedy attended the Canterbury parochial school (1930–31) and the Choate School (1931–35). One of his teachers later said that people in school liked him more for his personality than for his accomplishments. He was often ill during his childhood and spent much of this time reading. Kennedy enrolled at Princeton University in 1935 but illness soon forced him to withdraw. Upon recovery he went to Harvard University, where he majored in government and international relations. During his junior year at Harvard, he traveled in Europe and observed the events that were leading to World War II (1939–45; a war in which the Allies—France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and from 1941 the United States—fought against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan). He used his observations for his senior paper, which later became the bestselling book Why England Slept (1940).
After graduating from Harvard with honors in 1940, Kennedy went to Stanford University for graduate studies. In April 1941 he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army but was rejected for physical reasons (a back injury received while playing football). Months later, after his back strengthened through a regimen of exercises, the U.S. Navy accepted him. He then became an intelligence officer in Washington, D.C. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II. Kennedy requested active duty at sea and was given this assignment in late 1942.
Following Kennedy's training with the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron, he was shipped to the South Pacific to fight in the war against Japan. In March 1943 he was given command of a patrol torpedo (PT) boat, a small, fast boat armed with weapons, including torpedoes. In August his boat was sliced in two by a Japanese destroyer and two of his crew were killed. Kennedy and four others clung to the half of the PT boat that remained afloat. Six other men survived in the nearby water, two wounded. In a three-hour struggle Kennedy got the wounded crewmen to the floating wreck. When it capsized, he ordered his men to swim to a small island about three miles away. He towed one man to shore in a heroic five-hour struggle. Several days later, having displayed great courage, leadership, and endurance, Kennedy succeeded in having his men rescued.
Kennedy won the primary, the fall election, and reelection to the House in 1948 and again in 1950. He worked for better social welfare programs, particularly in the area of low-cost public housing (or affordable places for people to live). In 1949 he became a member of the Joint Committee on Labor-Management Relations. In this capacity, Kennedy was a strong supporter of labor, working for higher wages and better working conditions.
Kennedy supported the domestic programs of President Harry Truman (1884–1972), including social welfare programs, progressive taxation, and regulation of business. However, he did not follow Truman's policies in foreign relations. For example, he was against the fighting in Korea "or any other place in Asia where [the United States] cannot hold our defenses."
In April 1952 Kennedy ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate against Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902–1985), a Republican liberal. Kennedy won by over seventy thousand votes. Lodge reeled under the impact. He had not run against a man, but a whole family. The Kennedy women alone had acted as hostesses to at least seventy thousand Massachusetts housewives. In 1958 Kennedy was reelected to the Senate.
Kennedy's political success was soon followed by high points in his personal life. On September 12, 1953, Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (1929–1994), daughter of a New York City financier, at Newport, Rhode Island. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917–) noted that "under a veil of lovely inconsequence" Mrs. Kennedy possessed "an all-seeing eye and ruthless judgement." John and Jacqueline Kennedy had three children: Caroline Bouvier (1957–), John Fitzgerald (1960–1999), Patrick Bouvier (who lived only a few days after his birth in 1963); another child was stillborn in 1956.
Taking his Senate seat in January 1953, Kennedy continued to support key labor, economic, and foreign relations issues. He served on the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, the Government Operations Committee, the Select Committee on Labor-Management Relations, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. He also worked to pass several bills to aid the Massachusetts fishing and textile industries and to improve New England's economy.
A recurrence of his old back injuries forced Kennedy to use crutches during 1954. An operation in October 1954 was followed by another in February 1955. He spent his months of illness and recovery writing biographies of Americans who had shown moral courage at difficult points in their lives. These biographies became the best-selling book Profiles in Courage (1956), which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.
Kennedy's back operations were not completely successful, and he was never again entirely free from pain. After recovering from his operations, he returned to his Senate seat in May 1955. He became a strong supporter of civil rights and social welfare legislation. The Kennedy-Douglas-Ives Bill (1957) required an accounting of all employee pension and welfare funds. Kennedy also sponsored bills for providing federal financial aid to education and for relaxing U.S. immigration laws.
Kennedy's record in elected office and the books and articles that he had written attracted national attention. After he lost the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1956, he decided to run for president. Formally announcing his candidacy in January 1960, Kennedy made whirlwind tours and won the Democratic primaries in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia. On July 13, 1960, Kennedy was nominated for president, with Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) as his running mate.
"Jack in Walk" shouted the Boston Globe after Kennedy's nomination. But it would be no easy walk to win the White House against the Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Nixon (1913–1994). At that time, Kennedy was a controversial candidate because he was a Roman Catholic. Religious prejudice, or dislike of a person based solely upon his or her religion, probably cost him over a million votes in Illinois alone. Kennedy responded to the issue of religion in his "Houston speech" on September 11, 1960. He believed in the absolute separation of church and state (the belief that one body—church or government—would have no influence over the other). To him, this meant that no priest could tell a president what to do and no Protestant clergyman could tell his parishioners how to vote. In other words, Kennedy's religion would not affect the decisions he made as president.
A series of televised debates with Nixon was crucial to Kennedy's campaign. Many viewers believed Kennedy defeated Nixon with his style. Kennedy showed the American people that he had a sense of humor, a love of language, and a sense of the past. On November 9, 1960, John F. Kennedy became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic in American history to win the presidency. The 1960 presidential election was one of the closest in the nation's history. Kennedy won the popular vote by only 119,450 votes. On December 19, 1960, the electoral college cast 303 votes for Kennedy and 219 for Nixon.
At the inauguration on January 20, 1960, the first U.S. president born in the twentieth century was sworn into office. Kennedy's inaugural address included the challenge: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
In his short time in office, Kennedy faced many crises. The first of which involved Cuba, a country about ninety miles south of Florida. On April 17, 1961, fourteen hundred Cuban exiles, supported by the United States, invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. On April 18 the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) sent a note to Kennedy stating that his government would help the Cuban government resist an attack. By April 20 the invasion had failed. Although the plan for training Cuban exiles had actually begun during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), Kennedy took responsibility for it. He had first supported the plan but later refused to commit the necessary American troops. He was aware that if the Cuban people did not rise up and back the invaders, the United States could not force them to accept a new system of government. Although the Bay of Pigs invasion was a failure, it did prove Kennedy's ability to face a disaster.
Kennedy continued to show skill and passion for issues at home, particularly civil rights. In 1961 the Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights group, organized people to protest segregation, or the practice of separating people based solely on their race, on buses and trains. When the showdown came, "the Kennedys," as the president and his brother Robert, the attorney general, were known, sent six hundred Federal marshals to Alabama to protect these "Freedom Riders." In 1962 they sent hundreds of Federal marshals to protect the rights of the first African American student to attend the University of Mississippi.
On October 22, 1962, Kennedy announced to the nation that the Soviet Union had sent nuclear missiles to Cuba. In response the United States had blocked all shipments of military equipment into Cuba. The United States would not allow Cuba to become a Soviet missile base, and it would regard any missile launched from Cuba "as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full [military] response."
For a week the details of the situation had been "the best kept secret in government history." Throughout the seven days, the Kennedy administration had maintained an outward appearance of normal social and political activity. Meanwhile, American military units throughout the world were alerted.
Messages were sent back and forth between Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Pope John XXIII (1881–1963), who was volunteering as a peacemaker. During this time Soviet ships were moving toward the area of the blockade in the Atlantic Ocean. They slowed, then stopped. On October 28, 1962, the Soviet Union said it would remove its missiles from Cuba.
One result of the crisis was the nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, which Kennedy called "the first step down the path of peace." The treaty was signed on July 25, 1963. A "hot line" for emergency messages was also set up between Washington, D.C., and Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.
Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia, took up more of Kennedy's time than any other problem. The Vietnam War (1955–1975) was a civil war in which anti-Communist forces in South Vietnam, supported by the United States, were fighting against a takeover by Communist forces in North Vietnam. In 1954 President Eisenhower had offered military aid to South Vietnam and funding, and advisors were sent to the country throughout the 1950s. Although Kennedy believed that a "full-scale war in Vietnam … was unthinkable," he tripled American forces in the country. Senator William Fulbright (1905–1995) suggested that Kennedy put troops in Vietnam to prove to Khrushchev that "he couldn't be intimidated."
Kennedy was well aware of the dangers of the presidency. "Who can tell who will be president a year from now?" he would ask. On the day of his arrival in Dallas, Texas, he said that if anyone wanted to kill a president he needed only a high building and a rifle with a telescopic lens.
That day—November 22, 1963—the president was assassinated. It is generally believed that Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963), using a rifle equipped with a telescopic lens, was the person who fired on the president's car. Others, however, believe more than one person was responsible. All of the United States—indeed, the world—was in mourning. In Indonesia, flags were lowered to half-mast. In New Delhi, India, crowds wept in the streets.
Kennedy once summed up his time as "very dangerous, untidy." He lived through two world wars, the Great Depression (a period from 1929 to 1939 during which nearly half the industrial workers in the country lost their jobs), and the nuclear age. "Life is unfair," he remarked. And so it was to Kennedy, heaping him with both glory and tragedy. Yet, he never lost his grace, his sense of balance, or his optimism.
What Kennedy accomplished was not as important as what he stood for. As the African magazine Transition expressed it, "murdered with Kennedy was the first real chance for an intelligent and new leadership in the world. His death [left] us unprepared and in darkness."
Burner, David. John F. Kennedy and a New Generation. Boston: Little Brown, 1988.
Cole, Michael D. John F. Kennedy: President of the New Frontier. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1996.
Frisbee, Lucy Post. John F. Kennedy: America's Youngest President. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1984.
Manchester, William. Death of a President: November 20–November 25, 1963. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Reprint, New York: Arbor House, 1985.
O'Donnell, Kenneth P., David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy. "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye": Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.
Randall, Marta. John F. Kennedy. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Reprint, New York: Greenwich House, 1983.
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Fast facts about john f. kennedy.
The following information about John F. Kennedy is arranged alphabetically by topic. For more information please contact [email protected] . Have a research question? Ask an Archivist .
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Airport, New York City: The law changing the name of Idlewild International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport was signed by New York Mayor Robert Wagner on Wednesday, December 18, 1963. A dedication ceremony was held on Tuesday, December 24, 1963 at 11:00 AM. See the New York Times article of December 19, 1963, p. 25.
Appointment Books, General Information: The White House appointment books were kept by Evelyn Lincoln, the President's secretary, and recorded his workday appointments and activities. The Kennedy administration White House appointment books are by no means the complete record of the President's activities that such books tend to be for modern presidents.
Armorial Bearings of President John F. Kennedy
Assassination:
Back Brace: Markings on the brace that President Kennedy wore indicate that it came from the Washington, D.C. firm of Nelson Kloman Surgical Supply Company.
Baseball: During his school years, John F. Kennedy played baseball as a pitcher (right-handed) and third baseman. John F. Kennedy threw out the opening day pitch for the Washington Senators, who were playing the Baltimore Orioles, on April 8, 1963.
Birth: May 29, 1917. John F. Kennedy was born in the master bedroom on the second floor of 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts.
Books, Favorites as Child (Rose Kennedy Personal Papers, "Modern Times: Memorials, grandchildren, etc. and the future")
Books, Favorites as President (White House Central Subject Files, Box 722, "PP 15-5: Preferences and hobbies, Books-Authors-Poetry-Prose-Fiction" )
Boy Scouts: The President was a Boy Scout in Troop 2 for two years in Bronxville, New York. He was also active in the Boston Council from 1946 to 1955: as District Vice Chairman, Member of the Executive Board for more than four years, Vice President for one year, and National Council Representative for two years. He was Honorary President of the National organization of the Boy Scouts of America in 1961.
Campaign 1946 : On April 25, 1946, John F. Kennedy entered the race for the 11th Congressional District seat, which was being given up by James Michael Curley. The District comprised Boston wards 1, 2, 3, and 22; Cambridge; and Somerville wards 1, 2, and 3.
Campaign 1952: Announced his candidacy on April 6, 1952.
Car: 1959 Pontiac Convertible Coupe. Vehicle Identification/Engine #859F-1111.
Christmas Cards (White House)
Churches Attended
Condolence Card sent by Mrs. Kennedy
Cigars: John F. Kennedy smoked 4-5 a day. His preference was for Upmanns or Monticellos. ( White House Central Subject Files, Box 722, "PP 15: Preferences and Hobbies, General" )
Confirmation Name: Francis
Cuban Missile Crisis: List of letters exchanged by Kennedy and Khrushchev . Also a chronology of events .
Desk in the Oval Office: History of desk, and items it contained .
Doodles: From 1952 until the President's death, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, his personal secretary, accumulated and catalogued these materials. Most of the doodles are part of the Personal Papers of John F. Kennedy and further information can be found in the finding aid of that collection.
Election 1960: Announced his candidacy January 2, 1960 in Washington, DC.
Schedule of debates:
Eulogies to President Kennedy Delivered in the United States Capitol, 11/24/63
Godfather: Thomas A. Fitzgerald (maternal uncle)
Godmother: Loretta Connelly (aunt)
Harvard Years:
Height: 6' 1"
"High Hopes" Campaign Song: Sung by Frank Sinatra to the tune of his 1959 hit single, "High Hopes," but with lyrics changed in support of the 1960 Democratic presidential candidate.
Inaugural Address : Fewer than 1900 words (the shortest since 1905), between 16-17 minutes long.
Inaugural Poem (Robert Frost) : "The Gift Outright." Frost had composed a longer poem, "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration," but was apparently unable to see his text in the mid-day glare and recited the older poem instead.
Inauguration:
Legislation:
License: #53332D
License Plate: As Senator: MA-1995
Limousine, Presidential: 1961 Lincoln Continental Presidential Limousine "X-100" in "metalic navy blue." Equipped with two jump seats, the car could seat six adults. The blue interior had mouton carpeting on the floor, a wool broadcloth roof interior and all leather seats. Storage space for machine guns under the front seat and in the trunk compartment. Rear seat power operated and rose approximately ten and one half inches, putting the President in full view. Contained foot stands for the President's feet. Accessories: two flagstaffs (one on each front fender), two flashing type red lights located just above the front bumper, a siren, two spotlights for the flags on the fender, a two way radio telephone, an A-M radio and speaker in the rear compartment, a floodlight to illuminate the rear seat, lap robes incorporating the Presidential Seal, grab handles, a first aid kit, emergency light fire extinguisher. A continental rear tire arrangement at the rear held the spare tire. On either side of the tire was a stand for secret service men, as well as toward the front and rear on each side.
Movies: The following are some of the movies that John F. Kennedy saw during his presidency:
Navy Years:
Officials of the Kennedy Administration: January 20, 1961 - November 22, 1963.
Oval Office: Listing of items in the office and on the desk .
Pets in the White House: Two parakeets: Bluebell and Maybell; three dogs: Charlie, Pushinka and Clipper; and two ponies: Macaroni and Tex. Complete list of pets .
Portraits: The portraits of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline B. Kennedy hanging in the White House were painted by Aaron Shikler.
Presidential Medal of Freedom ( Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President's Office Files. Subjects. Medal of Honor, Medal of Freedom)
Reading Speed: John F. Kennedy could read 1,200 words a minute. In 1954-1955 he attended meetings at the Foundation for Better Reading in Baltimore.
Secret Service Code Names
Senate Office: Room #362 Senate Office Building
Social Security Number: 026-22-3747
Sunglasses: Two pairs of glasses with tortoise shell frame, one with inscriptions "American Optical" and "True color Polaroid tc74-51" and the other with "Cabana TS 2505."
Television Appearances (Before September 26, 1960)
Voting Record and Stands on Issues, Pre-Presidential
Wedding Details
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John F. Kennedy , more commonly known as ‘JFK’, served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination on 22 November 1963.
Regarded as a youthful representation of a new generation of Americans, JFK championed the world-leading US space program, navigated the country out of a recession and supported the American Civil Rights movement . He also led America through the Cuban Missile Crisis , ultimately avoiding war, and was respected around the globe for encouraging peace and supporting less economically developed countries.
JFK still consistently ranks as one of the most popular presidents in US history, but his life was not without scandal. Behind closed doors, he suffered from an array of medical conditions and pursued extramarital affairs, while his wider family suffered untold tragedies and controversies throughout the 20th century.
Here are 10 facts about John F. Kennedy.
JFK still holds the record for being America’s youngest elected president. He was 43 when he was elected, which was 12 years below the median age of an elected American president. He also holds the record of being the youngest president at the end of his tenure, at the age of 46.
When elected, JFK became the first Catholic president. This was seen as a triumph amongst the Catholic community, as there was marked prejudice towards Catholicism in the US at the time.
To achieve this feat, JFK first had to enter the state primaries to prove to sceptical party leaders that he was a viable national candidate. Later in his presidential campaign, JFK established an informal network of advisers on the religious issue, including speechwriter Ted Sorensen, Dean Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. of the National Cathedral and several journalists.
Upon taking office, JFK was immediately faced with many challenges. One of the darkest moments of his presidency was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a conflict between the US and the Soviet Union over the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba.
Though the crisis placed the world on the brink of nuclear war, a US-Soviet agreement was eventually reached and Cuba was disarmed. As such, JFK is generally regarded as having handled the situation well , ultimately preventing a war from breaking out between the two countries.
JFK famously had several affairs during his marriage to Jackie Kennedy . Despite JFK’s infidelity, he and Jackie remained married for 10 years, until he died. His most famous affair was alleged to have been with movie star Marilyn Monroe . He is also believed to have engaged in affairs with the actresses Gene Tierney and Anita Ekberg.
Robert Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and JFK (with back to camera). Taken on President Kennedy’s 45th birthday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. 19 May 1962.
Jackie was a successful editor. She took some time to accept JFK’s proposal because she had been assigned to cover the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London for The Washington Times-Herald . After taking some time to consider, she accepted. JFK and Jackie married on 12 September 1953 in Newport, Rhode Island.
JFK served in the Navy during World War Two and was awarded a Purple Heart and a Navy and Marine Corps Medal for efforts during his military service. He was awarded the latter for helping to rescue his crew after their vessel, PT-109 , was destroyed near the Solomon Islands.
JFK was honourably discharged from active duty on 1 October 1944.
JFK was the second of 9 children born to Joseph Patrick ‘Joe’ Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald. His older brother, Joe Jr., died during World War Two when JFK was just 29. He also had two sisters: Margaret, who became a nun, and Eunice, who founded Special Olympics, a sports organisation for people with disabilities.
JFK grew up in a number of homes across the United States. His father pushed JFK and his younger brother Robert into politics despite their initial lack of interest.
The Kennedy Family at Hyannis Port, 04 September 1931. L-R: Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, Jean Kennedy (on lap of) Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (who was pregnant with Edward “Ted” Kennedy at time of this photo), Patricia Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (behind) Rosemary Kennedy. The dog in the foreground is Buddy.
JFK wrote two books about World War Two. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the category of Biography or Autobiography for his book Profiles in Courage (1956), a volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by 8 United States Senators. He wrote the book while recovering from a difficult surgical operation on his back.
Although closely guarded during his presidency, it is now known that JFK suffered from a plethora of medical issues. As a child, he spent a significant amount of time in hospital with ulcers, colitis and various other medical problems.
He also endured crippling lower back pain throughout his life (for which he had 4 unsuccessful surgeries) and was also afflicted with Addison’s disease, a life-threatening condition which required a plethora of treatments to manage.
Traveling in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, JFK was shot once in the back, with the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head. Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee at a warehouse, is officially reported to have shot him, but was himself shot and killed before he could be tried.
JFK’s last words were addressed to Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas. She remarked, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.” Kennedy replied, “no, you certainly can’t.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 36 th President of the United States of America. He was the youngest person to become President through elections and was widely loved by the American people. He was one of the only few Presidents that became so popular that he is remembered just as much for his policies as he was for his astounding good looks and charisma. He was a Senator, Harvard Alum, a Navy Officer commemorated as a War Hero, a journalist, and a famous Socialite who looked just as comfortable rubbing shoulders with Hollywood’s elites as he did with Government officers and the general American public.
Kennedy’s Presidency coincided with the cold war, so a lot of his policies focused on the Soviet’s growing threat in world politics. Famous events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Strategic Hamlet Program all happened during his tenure. Along with this, the civil rights movement that John F. Kennedy publicly backed was also in full swing by the time he was assassinated. One of his lasting legacies was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964 both were proposed by Kennedy but passed after his death. Even though the Presidency of John F. Kennedy lasted less than 3 years, he regularly ranks high in polls of U.S. Presidents among historians, academics, and the U.S. public alike.
On May 29, 1917, John F. Kennedy was born near Brookline, Massachusetts to Joseph Kennedy , a businessman, and a politician. His mother Rose Kennedy was a philanthropist and socialite. His family is of Irish descent and both his paternal and maternal grandfather were involved in politics. His paternal grandfather P.J. Kennedy served on the Massachusetts State Legislature and his maternal grandfather John F. Fitzgerald was elected as a U.S. Congressman and was also elected to two terms as Mayor of Boston.
Kennedy grew up in Brookline where his earliest memories include walks around Boston’s historic sites with his grandfather Fitzgerald and dinner table discussions on politics with his family, sparking an interest in public life and history that Kennedy retained. Kennedy’s childhood was also marred with several illnesses , it started with an appendectomy in 1931 before he enrolled in Choate Rosemary Hall , an extremely prestigious boarding school in Connecticut. It was at Choate where Kennedy met one of his closest friends Kirk Lemoyne Billings. He was ill throughout most of his time in high school and even ended up hospitalized in 1934 when doctors suspected leukemia. By 1934, he was diagnosed with colitis. John F. Kennedy graduated the next year and he was voted “most likely to succeed” in his school yearbook.
In September 1936, John F. Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College after being unable to attend the London School of Economics and Princeton University due to health concerns. At Harvard, Kennedy earned a spot on the university’s varsity team. While at Harvard, Kennedy polished his skills as a future diplomat by developing an interest in political philosophy. In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis “Appeasement in Munich”, addressing Britain’s negotiations with Germany in the Munich Agreement . The thesis would eventually become a bestseller named “Why England Slept”. Kennedy’s increasing pressure on the American government to become involved in the Second World War caused President Roosevelt to dismiss Kennedy’s father as ambassador to the United Kingdom. By 1940 , Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in government.
John F. Kennedy, with the help of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Alan Kirk , joined the United States Naval Reserve as a member of staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington D.C. His first command was of the PT-101 boat between 1942 and 1943 where he was essentially an instructor on a Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat. By April 1943, John F. Kennedy was assigned command of the PT-109 at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. This is around the same time that the United States of America was locked in an intense naval battle with the Empire of Japan. On the night of August 1-2, 1942, Kennedy and his crew were ordered to block Japanese destroyers and floatplanes that were carrying food, supplies, and soldiers to help the Japanese strengthen their control of Kolombangara Island. While engaging with the Japanese on the open sea, Kennedy’s PT boat was rammed by a Japanese Destroyer Amagiri killing 2 of his crew members instantly.
JFK and 10 other crewmen that survived swam more than 5 km with Kennedy towing a badly burned crew member through the water to an island close by. This also reaggravated his old back injury but he pressed on. On the same night, he swam for approximately another 4 km to find food for his crewmates. Two days later, on August 4, Kennedy and another officer, Ensign Lenny Thom, assisted their injured and hungry crew on another 6 km swim to Olasana Island from Plum Pudding Island . They swam against the current and even on Olasana there was no fresh water for the crew forcing Kennedy and Ensign George Ross to swim on August 5 again to find water for the crew. It was not until August 8 that the crew, along with Kennedy, were rescued by Lieutenant Liebenow , a friend of John F. Kennedy.
After the events of commanding the PT-109, in October 1943 after recovering from his injuries, John F. Kennedy was promoted to a full lieutenant . He continued as the commander of the PT-59 where he was involved mostly in rescue missions but would soon be hospitalized again and relieved from active duty because of his ailing back. He was presented with the Purple Heart Medal for sustaining injuries while commanding the PT-109. His service was also rewarded with the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Both of Kennedy’s medals are on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
John F. Kennedy, at the urging of his father, began his political career in Boston in 1946. He won the Democratic primaries in Massachusetts by gaining 42.41% of the total votes and then he went on to win the Congressional District Election by a landslide accumulating 71.87 % of the total votes. He was only 29 when he joined Congress. As a Congressman, JFK advocated for more public housing, worker rights (better working conditions, higher wages, and the right to protest), cheaper rents, Veteran rights, and greater social security for the aged. In terms of foreign policy, he was a supporter of many Cold War policies including the Truman Doctrine , a potentially controversial policy proposed by President Truman . He was also a supporter of the Marshall Plan to help redevelop European economies.
As soon as 1949, John F. Kennedy was preparing for a seat in the Senate and by 1952 he ran for the Senator seat from Massachusetts and defeated Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. by 70,000 votes. In 1953, he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier a famous socialite who helped boost his electoral appeal. Jacqueline or “Jackie” was the perfect match for the handsome politician and the two were looked at as a glamorous couple.
As Senator, JFK gained a reputation for being extremely responsive to his constituents, always bringing their interests to the front except when it came to matters of National Interest. This was demonstrated by the fact that he was elected twice as his people’s representative. While still in Senate, Kennedy was once again in critical condition in 1954 for his back injury. While injured he co-authored Profiles in Courage with his assistant Theodore Sorensen, a book on eight American Politicians that defied popular ideas in matters of conscience. This book was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 . On matters of conscience, Kennedy became increasingly committed to civil rights legislation and pushed for increased labor reforms. He also pushed the Senate and the French government to grant Algeria independence.
By 1960, John F. Kennedy’s popularity had grown so much that when he announced his candidacy on January 2, 1960, as a Democratic Presidential nominee. Despite his relatively young age and inexperience, Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by barely two-tenths of one percent (49.7% for Kennedy to 49.5 % for Nixon). He became the youngest president ever to be elected to the presidency. During his inaugural address , Kennedy famously said:
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Once elected as President, John F. Kennedy’s policies were dominated by confrontations with the Soviet Union. Starting with his pledge to support West Germany and warning the Soviets of any interference to the U.S. access rights in West Berlin would be looked at as a direct declaration of war. Then followed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961, where 1500 trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles were sent to Cuba to instigate an uprising among the Cuban people. No U.S. air support was provided, and the Cuban government captured and killed the invading exiles forcing JFK to negotiate the release of the captured exiles in exchange for 53 million dollars.
Barely a year after the failed invasion came the Cuban Missile crisis . This was where the Soviet Union and the United States of America came dangerously close to a nuclear war, the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear war. It all started when CIA spy planes managed to capture photographs of immediate-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba. This meant that the Soviets could directly launch a potential attack on the United States. Negotiations followed and eventually, the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba, while the US agreed to remove their Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey.
John F. Kennedy’s other foreign relations were similarly dominated by the Cold War in the background. Recognizing the growing threat of communism in Latin America, he established the Alliance for Progress which sent aid to multiple countries and sought greater human rights standards in Latin American countries. He also continued policies that provided economic, political, and military support to the governments of South Korea and South Vietnam. Kennedy was also credited with the creation of the U.S.-Israel military alliance .
Domestically , John F. Kennedy kept interest rates low to encourage growth in the economy and keep inflation in check. He was also a strong proponent of the civil rights movement and sought to remove barriers present in American Society that restricted access to equal opportunities for African Americans. The Space Program at NASA also saw a lot of progress under Kennedy.
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
John F. Kennedy, 1962
On November 22, 1963 , in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was assassinated while traveling in a presidential motorcade live on television. Lee Harvey Oswald , a worker at the Texas School Book Depository (from where the shots were fired) was arrested as the murderer. Before he could go on trial, on November 24, Oswald was shot dead by Jack Ruby while still in Police custody. Jack Ruby successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence for killing Oswald but then mysteriously died of cancer on January 3, 1967. The cancer was not the mysterious part, but the circumstances were strange because Oswald denied shooting the President and was shot dead before he could stand for trial. A Gallup poll conducted in 2013 showed that more than 60% of Americans believed in some form of conspiracy around Kennedy’s death. A Fox News poll in 2004 showed that more than 70% of respondents believed that there was some form of a cover-up around the President’s death. John F. Kennedy died at the age of 46.
Kennedy’s death started what many consider the News revolution. Strangely, his assassination and the subsequent news coverage which lasted for a total of 70 hours made it the longest uninterrupted news event on American television until the events of September 11 in 2001. After the death of the President, he received a Green Beret that was placed on his grave by the United States Special Forces acknowledging the special bond the president had with them. His civil rights proposals led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Gallup polls since 1930 , Kennedy ranks as the 3 rd most popular President behind Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Despite barely being President for over 1000 days and not many legislative changes passing during his term, he is still remembered as one of the most charismatic Presidents ever.
Want to learn more about JFK? Check out 10 Interesting Facts About John F. Kennedy !
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John f. kennedy.
35th president of the United States
John F. Kennedy, the second oldest of nine children, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts , on May 29, 1917. His father hoped that one of his children would one day become president. As a child, Kennedy had many childhood illnesses and once almost died from scarlet fever. But he grew up to be athletic and competitive, playing football for Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He injured his spine in college and never fully recovered from the injury.
In 1943, a Japanese warship destroyed a boat Kennedy commanded while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Kennedy swam with the surviving crew members to safety several miles away, carrying one injured sailor by pulling the man’s life jacket strap by his teeth. When asked later how he became a hero, Kennedy replied: "It was easy—they sank my boat." Now a decorated World War II officer, Kennedy took up his father’s presidential hopes after his older brother, Joseph, died in combat.
Before being elected president, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, soon after he became a senator. In 1960, he was elected president of the United States by the narrowest popular voting margin in history, becoming the youngest person and the only Catholic to ever be elected president.
The Cold War—a period of tensions mostly between the United States and the former Soviet Union, now called Russia —dominated much of Kennedy’s presidency. First, the U.S. government secretly tried to overthrow the island of Cuba’s new leader and Soviet Union ally, Fidel Castro, in a failed mission known as the Bay of Pigs. Then the Soviet Union built a wall in Germany , dividing East Berlin, which was under control of communist Soviet Union, and West Berlin, which was supported by the democratic West. This angered Germans on both sides of the wall and citizens of nearby countries. Kennedy visited West Berlin and vowed U.S. support to the people there, stating: " Ich bin ein Berliner, " or "I am a Berliner" in German.
Cold War tensions cooled off in 1963 after the two nations signed a treaty, but the conflict would last until around 1990.
Another issue Kennedy dealt with during his presidency was civil rights, or the idea that all U.S. citizens should have the same basic rights regardless of the color of their skin, and their religion. Kennedy wanted to pass more laws that would guarantee equal rights for all citizens.
Before Kennedy became president, the Supreme Court passed a ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education that schools had to desegregate, or allow white and black children to attend the same school. Kennedy publicly supported the ruling and even sent military troops to the southern states to make sure African-American kids were getting safely to school.
Near the end of Kennedy’s time in office in 1963, more than 200,000 people took part in a March on Washington during the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln ’s Emancipation Proclamation speech. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. , delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the gathering.
Kennedy had only been president for a little less than three years when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while touring Dallas, Texas , in a presidential motorcade. Gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the death but was killed himself before he could be put on trial.
More than a hundred nations sent representatives to Kennedy’s funeral in Washington, D.C. Although he was only president for a short time, his calls for peace, justice, and national service—JFK famously said "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" when he first became president in 1961—inspired action among countless citizens during his lifetime and continue to influence others today.
• Kennedy supposedly wrote his own spy book, but he never released it.
• During stressful meetings, Kennedy liked to doodle sailboats.
• JFK donated his entire presidential salary to charity.
From the Nat Geo Kids books Our Country's Presidents by Ann Bausum and Weird But True Know-It-All: U.S. Presidents by Brianna Dumont, revised for digital by Avery Hurt
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Congressman John Fitzgerald Kennedy (circa 1946-47) in his Congressional Office.
Courtesy of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
Brett Milano
Harvard Correspondent
One of the revelations about John F. Kennedy in Fredrik Logevall’s new biography, “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917‒1956,” is that the man was an excellent letter-writer and diarist. The Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and professor of history makes effective use of the collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, part of which has become available only recently.
“He always had a knack for the English language, even if he was an indifferent student in prep school and in his first years at Harvard,” Logevall says. “His teachers, frustrated by his lack of application overall, were always impressed by his way with words. It is an interesting contrast with his older brother, Joe Jr., the family’s supposed golden child, whose writings had a more dutiful, less imaginative quality.”
The first of a two-volume set, “JFK” aims to give the clearest picture yet available of the 35th president set against the historical, political, and cultural context of a pivotal age. The book begins with great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy’s arrival in Boston during the Irish potato famine and runs through Jack’s childhood, studies at Harvard, and military duty, and finally his rise in politics in 1956, when he almost became the Democrats’ vice presidential pick. Logevall spoke with the Gazette recently about the man and the book.
GAZETTE: There have certainly been many books written about JFK. What were you able to find that hadn’t been found before?
LOGEVALL: You’re quite right. There are a lot of excellent books out there on various aspects of his life and career, and especially the presidency — one thinks, for example, about the many studies of the Cuban missile crisis, Civil Rights, the Bay of Pigs disaster, the marriage with Jackie, and the assassination in Dallas. But we don’t have many true biographies, even one that is a full-scale examination of the entire life and that looks closely at his early life, in particular his teens and 20s, which I believe were key years for him (as they are for most of us). Mine is a “life and times” biography that places Kennedy in his own context, that of a rising American power in world affairs. I guess the conceit of the book is that I can tell two stories together: the story of John F. Kennedy’s rise and the story of America’s rise. I believe we can better understand the first half of the so-called American Century through the lens of Kennedy’s life.
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (from left), Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., and John F. Kennedy in Southampton, England, July 2, 1938.
Courtesy of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
GAZETTE: What did you find that people have missed about JFK in the past?
LOGEVALL: One thing that people have underplayed is the degree to which he was a serious student of democracy and world affairs at an earlier point than we imagine. We tend to think of him as a callow playboy, not serious about public policy or his career until quite late, until he runs for Congress in 1946, and maybe not even then. But you can look at the papers he wrote as an undergraduate at Harvard, some of which are available, and you can look at his senior thesis which became a best-selling book [“Why England Slept”] and see a young man already thinking deeply and in sustained fashion about important issues. A second finding is that the young Jack Kennedy was in important respects his own master. Though his father was a towering force in his life and those of his eight siblings, Jack proved willing and able, to a degree I did not expect, to chart his own course. The Harvard years are interesting in this regard: In 1939‒40, as World War II began and debate raged in the U.S. about how to respond, Jack showed himself willing in a way his older brother, Joe Jr., never was to separate himself from his father. Long before Pearl Harbor, Jack had become an interventionist while his father adhered throughout to a staunch isolationist position. Later, during his political campaigns, Jack always kept the key decision-making role for himself, notwithstanding the common misconception that his father called the shots. [gz_soundcloud title=”John F. Kennedy recording for public speaking class at Harvard, 1937″ track_id=”321147626″ playlists=”” height=”350″ show_artwork=”false”] [/gz_soundcloud]
GAZETTE: Another family relationship we learn more about is with his brother Bobby, and how this became increasingly important.
LOGEVALL: Yes, the age difference between the two brothers was such — 8½ years — that in the early years, when Jack was at prep school and then at Harvard, they weren’t particularly close. But what we see especially in 1951, when they traveled together along with their sister Patricia on an extended tour of the Middle East and Asia, is that they developed a strong bond. Bobby admired his brother to no end, and Jack could now see Bobby’s intelligence and loyalty and good cheer. Then in 1952 Bobby, all of 26 at the time, came aboard to take charge of Jack’s floundering Senate campaign against Henry Cabot Lodge and helped to turn the thing around. Jack could now see just how important Bobby could be to his career, could see the powerful combination of doggedness, shrewdness, and ruthlessness that his brother possessed.
The Kennedy family at Hyannisport, Mass., 1931. Robert (from left), John, Eunice, Jean (on lap of) Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (behind) Patricia, Kathleen, Joseph, Rosemary.
Photo by Richard Sears, courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
GAZETTE: He was quite a complex character. He did have his playboy side, but some of his war actions can be called heroic.
LOGEVALL: Yeah, I think that is right. There is a seriousness of purpose which you see in his letters home from the South Pacific, and more dramatically in the actions he took to help save his crew after his boat, the PT-109, was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Was there heroism there? I believe so, even if he deserves no accolades for allowing his boat to be rammed. The efforts he made in the succeeding days to try to save his crew were really quite extraordinary. We might note here as well that he came back from the war, as many of the servicemen did, with a seriousness of purpose evinced to some degree before but deepened as a result of seeing combat. He was convinced that the U.S. would need to play a leading role in world affairs, even as he also had a skepticism about the use of the military’s power that he would carry with him for the rest of his days.
GAZETTE: His coming out against Joseph McCarthy seems to be a bit of a political turning point.
LOGEVALL: Well, he never fully came out in stark opposition, which was a problem. The relationship with McCarthy was complicated, partly because of family ties. He never felt the kind of personal connection to McCarthy that Joe Sr. felt and that Bobby felt. And there were a lot of aspects of McCarthy’s political persona that he found off-putting — the disdain for senatorial good manners, the disregard for facts, for reasoning from evidence. That said, liberals at the time had good reason to be frustrated by JFK’s reluctance to really condemn McCarthy. Even in 1954, when McCarthy’s influence was in decline and the Senate held a censure vote, JFK, recovering in the hospital following a serious surgery, did not instruct his aide Ted Sorensen to register his position on the vote. He could have done so, but he didn’t, and that caused a lot of grief for him with liberals later on. He preferred to sidestep the issue, aware that there were an awful lot of Irish Catholic voters in Massachusetts who still backed McCarthy. He didn’t want to get on their bad side.
A page in Kennedy’s diary from fall 1951. The first part reads: “Oct. 3 — Paris — I talked with General Eisenhower Biddle and MacArthur at SHAEF Headquarters. Eisenhower looking very fit — seemed disturbed at news of last few days.” Lt. Kennedy on board PT 109, July 1943.
Photo by Joel Benjamin (left), courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
GAZETTE: The book deals a lot with the influence of World War II on his character development. Do you think he took a lot from other aspects of American life at the time, including popular culture?
LOGEVALL: To a degree, certainly. When he returned from the war and was figuring out what he wanted to do, he had a fascinating stint as a journalist. He showed good reporting instincts and could have made it a career. In this period he also liked to pal around in Hollywood, where his father had been a movie mogul in the 1920s and still had connections. Jack dated actresses like Gene Tierney and liked to be on the set, liked to go to movies. Popular music I think interested him less, and until Jackie came along he evinced little interest in art. He did like poetry, and he memorized a lot of it starting already in prep school at Choate. But the Hollywood connection is interesting to me, and probably plays some role in his later skill at using images and film to advance his political career. He was among the first politicians to see that images matter, that the right use of film can make a powerful difference. Television was a huge emerging thing as his career builds, and he had that savvy understanding of the medium and how he could use it to his advantage, kind of like FDR used radio so effectively.
GAZETTE: Many of the reviews I’ve read have focused on his womanizing, which we already knew about. Do you think that’s ultimately that important a part of his character?
LOGEVALL: Yes, the womanizing is an important part of who he is. His father led by example, carrying on with innumerable women in the 1920s and 1930s, and the older kids knew very well what was going on. Joe Sr. made clear he expected his sons to follow his ways. But I can’t have it both ways: If I’m going to argue that JFK was able to resist his father’s pressure and be his own man when it came to politics and career choices, I have to maintain that he could have broken with him on this issue too. Here he was his father’s son, with a tendency to see women as objects to be conquered. But there are paradoxes here, among them the fact that his administration took important progressive steps, establishing, for example, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, with Eleanor Roosevelt as chair. In 1962, at the urging of the commission, Kennedy ordered federal agencies to cease sex discrimination in hiring.
Sen. John Kennedy and his then-fiancée Jacqueline Bouvier in Hyannis Port, Mass.
Photo courtesy of Harvard Fine Arts Library, Digital Images & Slides Collection
GAZETTE: In the second volume you’ll have to unravel the mystery around the assassination. Do you have a sense of how you will approach that?
LOGEVALL: There is certainly a fascination, and it shows few signs of fading. It is a vexing issue to any biographer of JFK, and it has spawned a whole cottage industry of its own. I haven’t yet written Volume 2 so I haven’t fully decided how I will proceed on this. But certainly I will talk about Lee Harvey Oswald’s background, about what led him to take this action, and will give the reader a full sense of how it all culminated in this terrible moment. And I think I will owe the reader my assessment of what I believe happened. So I will provide it. I don’t think I will get heavily into the deliberations of the Warren Commission or the various conspiracy theories that have sprouted up over the years. That’s another book, not to mention a potential morass.
GAZETTE: What do you think happened?
LOGEVALL: My reading of the evidence we have indicates pretty clearly to me that Oswald was the lone gunman. Claims to the contrary all come up short. Oswald’s associations and meetings in the weeks leading up to the assassination are worthy of investigation, however, and have been examined in recent studies. I will delve into that material and be interested to see what I find.
Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.
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This slim hardcover provides a concise look at the life and presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy that is suitable for adults and younger readers alike. First published in 2017 by award-winning commercial writer Mim Harrison, A Short Biography of John F. Kennedy is part of the “Short Biographies” series from Benna Books.
4" x 7", 32 pages
“We will need in the Sixties a president who is willing and able to summon his national constituency to its finest hour — to alert the people to our dangers and our opportunities — to demand of them the sacrifices that will be necessary.” — John F. Kennedy, 1960
Life of Pain John F. Kennedy, known as Jack, lived his life in pain. He had chronic back problems that were exacerbated by his physical competitiveness, and Addison’s disease, a hormonal disorder that causes fatigue and compromises the immune system. He was given last rites, the Catholic blessing before death, three times before he reached the age of forty: in 1947 after he returned, gravely ill, from England; in 1951 while running a high fever in Japan; and following back surgery in 1954. According to historian Robert Dallek, if the public had known about Kennedy’s ill health, he probably never would have been elected president.
School and Navy Like his father and brother before him, Jack went to Harvard where he befriended many peers and professors. His undergraduate thesis on Great Britain’s lack of preparedness for the Nazi advance was published as Why England Slept (1940). Upon graduating, Jack joined the Navy, and was sent to the Naval Intelligence division in Washington. After agitating for a more active role, Kennedy was assigned command of a patrol boat in the Pacific, PT-109.
War While on duty near the Solomon Islands in August 1943, PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crewmen. Kennedy helped a badly burned sailor reach a floating piece of wreckage and then managed to get his surviving crew to an island fifty miles behind enemy lines. Their rescue, a week later, was thanks to a message inscribed in a coconut. Jack received commendations for his bravery. Meanwhile, half a world away, his older brother Joe Jr. who had been serving as a naval pilot, died in an aerial explosion over the English Channel.
Ambition Joe Jr. had been expected to fulfill their father’s ambition of becoming the first Irish Catholic president; after his death, the father drafted Jack for that role. “'Wanted’ isn’t the right word. He demanded it,” the president later recalled.
Entering Politics In 1946, Jack ran for the open House seat vacated by James Michael Curley in an overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts district. Kennedy did not operate within the Democratic machine, however. He had enough political connections through his two grandfathers, plus funding from his father and a virtual army of friends from the Navy and college, as well as siblings to help campaign. He served in the House for three terms and then won a Senate race in 1952.
Love Affairs As a young senator, Jack courted and married Jacqueline Bouvier, a journalist twelve years his junior. Though Jackie was charming and beautiful, being married did not dissuade Jack from his constant philandering. Historians have suggested his lust was driven either from a desire to defy the near-debilitating pain he was in, or as an inheritance from his equally promiscuous father. His love affairs before and after marriage included liaisons with a suspected Nazi spy, a mobster’s girlfriend, a nineteen-year-old intern and Marilyn Monroe. Although many journalists were aware of Kennedy’s peccadilloes, they did not publicize them, either because they felt the topic was taboo or because they had been charmed by Kennedy and wanted to protect him.
National Figure In 1956, Senator Kennedy offered himself, against his father’s advice, as a possible vice presidential candidate for the Democratic ticket. Although the convention delegates chose Estes Kefauver as Adlai Stevenson’s running mate, the young politician had reached a national platform. That same year, Kennedy published Profiles in Courage, a book relating incidents in which U. S. Senators made decisions based on their consciences, often against the will of their constituents. Though some charged Kennedy had not written it himself, the book won a Pulitzer Prize for biography the following year, further distinguishing Kennedy among his peers.
Elected to the White House Kennedy’s humor, charm and youth — and his father’s money and contacts — were great assets in the presidential campaign of 1960 against Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy expertly presented his platform and himself using a new medium, television, and calling for an expansion of American democratic benefits at home and abroad. Jack’s younger brother Robert ran the campaign and was the last one awake when the election results came in. Kennedy had won by a narrow margin.
Foreign Policy Challenges Thrown into the midst of the Cold War, Kennedy’s White House was quickly besieged by foreign crises. An invasion of Cuba by American-backed Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs failed to overthrow Fidel Castro. American military advisers were sent to Vietnam. A massive airlift supplied West Berlin after the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall. The most harrowing crisis came in October 1962 when American pilots found evidence of ballistic missiles in Cuba capable of delivering nuclear warheads to North American targets. The resolution of the crisis involved public diplomacy at the United Nations, a presidential speech to the nation, private meetings between Robert Kennedy and the Soviet ambassador, and President Kennedy’s resistance to his military advisors. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy had a direct telephone line to the Kremlin installed in the White House to improve communication between the superpowers. He also signed the first nuclear weapons treaty.
Unfinished Business Among the domestic policies Kennedy instituted were the establishment of the Peace Corps, the Apollo space mission to the moon, and the introduction of civil rights legislation. The president’s work in office was cut short by an assassination that became an indelible, tragic turning point in the lives of millions of Americans, many of whom can still recall exactly where they were when they heard the news. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. He was survived by his wife, daughter and son.
When Black neighborhoods across America erupted in violence in the summer of 1967, President Johnson appointed a commission to find the cause for the unrest. Their findings offered an unvarnished assessment of American race relations.
Cuando una ola de violencia se apoderó de barrios negros por todo Estados Unidos en el verano de 1967, el presidente Johnson nombró una comisión para encontrar la causa de los disturbios. Sus hallazgos ofrecieron una evaluación honesta de las relaciones raciales estadounidenses.
In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY discovered their neighborhood had been built on a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.
In October, 2003, Journalist Adam Clymer of The New York Times , author of Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography , discussed the youngest of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s children.
Author Robert Dallek discusses John F. Kennedy’s health, the war in Vietnam, and Americans’ enduring interest in Kennedy and his family.
Historian Michael Beschloss talks to American Experince about the Cold War, Cuba, JFK' s private life, and Robert Kennedy's role in American politics.
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Recent News. John F. Kennedy (born May 29, 1917, Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.—died November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas) was the 35th president of the United States (1961-63), who faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress.
John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president of the United States on January 20, 1961. Delivering his legendary inaugural address on January 20, 1961, Kennedy sought to inspire all Americans ...
John F. Kennedy was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics. He and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged childhood of elite private schools, sailboats, servants, and summer homes. During his childhood and youth, "Jack" Kennedy suffered frequent serious illnesses. ... After a short stint as a journalist ...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Born Brookline, Mass. (83 Beals Street) May 29, 1917. In all, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy would have nine children, four boys and five girls. She kept notecards for each of them in a small wooden file box and made a point of writing down everything from a doctor's visit to the shoe size they had at a particular age.
Elected in 1960 as the 35th president of the United States, 43‑year‑old John F. Kennedy became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to hold that office. Learn about his personal and ...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963), often referred to as JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president. [a] Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963), the youngest man elected to the office. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office ...
President John F. Kennedy's youth, connections, political life, and tragic death captured the American imagination. Learn more in this mini biography. #Biogr...
Updated on May 15, 2019. John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917-Nov. 22, 1963), the first U.S. president born in the 20th century, was born to a wealthy, politically connected family. Elected as the 35th president in 1960, he took office on Jan. 20, 1961, but his life and legacy were cut short when he was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.
John F. Kennedy was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics. ... After a short stint as a journalist, Kennedy entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1961. ... Barbara Perry discusses her biography on JFK's mother, Rose Kennedy .
John F. Kennedy, (born May 29, 1917, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas), 35th president of the U.S. (1961-63).The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the navy the following year.He commanded a patrol torpedo (PT) boat in World War II and was gravely injured in an attack by a Japanese destroyer; he was later decorated for ...
John F. Kennedy summary: John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States. He was born in 1917 into a wealthy family with considerable political ties. Kennedy studied Political Science at Harvard University. He later served as a lieutenant in the Navy, where he earned a Purple Heart, among other honors, during World War II.
JFK Biography. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, a few miles outside of Boston. His parents were Joseph Kennedy, a successful businessman, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was the second of nine children. While Jack grew up with every material advantage, he suffered from a series of medical ailments ...
On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president; he was the youngest to die. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, son of financier Joseph Kennedy and his ...
John F. Kennedy was America's second youngest elected president. He oversaw one of the most crucial moments in the Cold War (Cuban Missile Crisis) and sought to affirm America's beliefs in basic human rights by calling for civil rights legislation and an attempt to reduce poverty. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 - a tragic ...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. He was the second son of nine children born to the multimillionaire business executive and financier Joseph P. Kennedy (1888-1969) and his wife, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890-1995). Joseph's father had served in the Massachusetts Legislature and in elective ...
John F. Kennedy was born in the master bedroom on the second floor of 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. Boats: The Manitou: Length: 62 feet overall (44 feet on water line). Beam: 13 feet. Draft: 9 feet. Power: gasoline engine (7-8 knots). Equipment: radio direction finder, fathometer, radio telephone.
8. He was an award-winning author. JFK wrote two books about World War Two. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the category of Biography or Autobiography for his book Profiles in Courage (1956), a volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by 8 United States Senators.He wrote the book while recovering from a difficult surgical operation on his back.
The Early Life of John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy, 1926. On May 29, 1917, John F. Kennedy was born near Brookline, Massachusetts to Joseph Kennedy, a businessman, and a politician. His mother Rose Kennedy was a philanthropist and socialite. His family is of Irish descent and both his paternal and maternal grandfather were involved in politics.
John F. Kennedy, the second oldest of nine children, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. His father hoped that one of his children would one day become president. As a child, Kennedy had many childhood illnesses and once almost died from scarlet fever. ... Although he was only president for a short time, his calls for peace ...
New biography aims to chronicle a complex life amid a pivotal time for a nation. One of the revelations about John F. Kennedy in Fredrik Logevall's new biography, "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917‒1956," is that the man was an excellent letter-writer and diarist. The Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs ...
This slim hardcover provides a concise look at the life and presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy that is suitable for adults and younger readers alike. First published in 2017 by award-winning commercial writer Mim Harrison, A Short Biography of John F. Kennedy is part of the "Short Biographies" series from Benna Boo
PC 94 Ensign John F. Kennedy, USN, in South Carolina. January 1, 1942. Courtesy: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Life of Pain. John F. Kennedy, known as Jack, lived his life in ...