John F. Kennedy

Kennedy's Assasination

President Kennedy believed that his Republican opponenet in 1964 would be Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. He was sure that he could defeat Goldwater under an avalanche of votes, thus receiving a mandate for major legislative reforms. The only obstacle in his plan was a feud in Vice President Johnson's home state. The feud was between Johnson B. Connally, Jr., and Senator Ralph Yarborough, both democrats. Hoping to present unity in the party, Kennedy decided to tour the state with both men. On Friday, November 22, 1963, the President and his wife cheered enthusiastically as they passed riding slowly through downtown Dallas in an open limousine. At 12:30 PM a siper opened fire.

The assassin fired several shots, striking the President twice, in the base of the neck and the head, and gravely wounding the governor of Texas, John Connally. The President was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital. He was dead upon arrival. Governor Connally though siriously wounded, recovered. On the same day, at 2:38 PM, Vice President Johnson took the oath as President.

On the day of the assasination, Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24 year-old Dallas citizen and ex-Marine, was accused of killing the President. Oswald, who had lived in the Soviet Union, killed Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit while resisting arrest. Two days later he was shot to death by Jack Rudy, a local nightclub owner, in the basement of the Dallas police station.

On November 24, amidst national and worldwide mourning, the President's body lay in state in the rotunda of the US Capitol. The next day, leaders of 92 nations attended the state funeral and a million people lined the streets as a horse-drawn caissopm carried the body to St. Matthew's Cathedral for a requiem Mass. While millions of Americans watched the ceremonies on television, the President was buried on a slope in Arlington National Cementery.

On November 29, President Johnson appointed a seven-member commission, headed by Chief of Justice Earl Warren, to conduct a thorough investigation of the assasination and report to the nation. The commission's report, made public on September 27, 1964, said that Oswald fired the shots that killed the President. To allay further suspicions of a major conspiracy, it stated to the committee "found no evidence" that either Oswald or Rudy "was a part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assasinate President Kennedy."