Editor's word: This story initially ran on the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination.It has been greater than half a century, and so many lifetimes in the past. But the photographs from November 1963 stay haunting, blurred into our nationwide consciousness. Sixty years later, CBS Information relives that drama, second by second, because it unfolded earlier …
Editor’s word: This story initially ran on the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination.
It has been greater than half a century, and so many lifetimes in the past. But the photographs from November 1963 stay haunting, blurred into our nationwide consciousness. Sixty years later, CBS Information relives that drama, second by second, because it unfolded earlier than a world in shock.
Bob Schieffer | CBS Information: When the president got here to Texas, I used to be a younger newspaper reporter overlaying the crime beat for the Fort Price Star Telegram. With JFK and his elegant spouse Jackie heading our method, for us it was the most important story of the yr. Little might we all know historical past was about to be made. Time stopped chilly, in that darkish second, on a Dallas avenue. The horror of the murderer’s photographs shattered goals and echoed by way of the a long time, coloring our politics, and lives. It was additionally a watershed second for American tv information, led by CBS Information anchorman Walter Cronkite. With the loss of life of a president got here the start of dwell protection. America shared a nationwide tragedy, because it occurred.
Due to tv we thought we knew JFK and his household extra intimately than any of his predecessors, the person buddies merely referred to as “Jack.”
Voice of John F. Kennedy: I used to be born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1917. I’ve eight brothers and sisters they usually… I am the second oldest, And it was a terrific pleasure rising up in a big household. I feel it makes an amazing distinction.
Voice of Rose Kennedy: His father would exit and watch the sailboats … after which he’d say, “Why are your sails flapping whereas the opposite one was straight? And the opposite one received the race and also you did not. … In the event you’re gonna race, why, do it proper and are available a winner. Second place isn’t any good.”
Sandy Socolow | Walter Cronkite’s producer: John F. Kennedy … was introduced up in an ultra-rich method. Very properly educated. … Superb-looking. Very personable. … He was terribly self assured.
Schieffer: Certain, he was taking part in the media. … However the truth is he was simply so good at it, that it labored. … And who might blame him?
1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate rehearsal:
Kennedy: It is a pleasure to be right here tonight to take part on this program which opens up a sequence of discussions. … Is that about the appropriate tone of voice?
Richard Nixon: Assume I higher shave.
Walter Cronkite on the air, 1960: And the favored vote … 84 p.c of the precincts counted now … give Kennedy just a bit margin over 50 p.c of the vote… Nixon nearly 50 p.c of the vote. One of many closest elections in our nation’s historical past has been recorded on this yr of 1960.
Walter Cronkite | CBS Information (1993): Kennedy gave the impression to be main us into a brand new period of, of youthful exuberance … over the enjoyable of life, the enjoyable a rustic might have being itself, being essential on the earth. We had been dancing on clouds.
Schieffer: It was simply the distinction in night time and day. He was the Technicolor President, and we had kind of seen the presidency in black-and-white up till that time. … Immediately we had this younger good-looking president and this attractive spouse and these lovely youngsters … and he’s the primary president that we got here to essentially know, and we got here to know his household and that was due to tv.
/ Getty Photos
Schieffer: In these days presidents did not journey very a lot and it was a serious occasion. … They determined to return to Texas as a result of they thought they may elevate cash there. … The individuals had been so excited.
Schieffer: The connection between Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy was very advanced. They had been companions. Had been they ever buddies?
Robert Caro | Writer and historian: Probably not.
Schieffer: They determined to fly from Fort Price to Dallas, which is actually solely 30 miles. They flew over. Air Pressure One lands at Love Area.
Bob Huffaker | Former KRLD radio reporter: Effectively the day started grey and chilly … there was a misting rain falling and the temperature was chilly. Immediately at mid-morning the skies opened up and it was a good looking … blue, spring-like day.
Caro: We see it, the nice airplane is gleaming silver within the background, every part is vivid underneath a vivid Texas solar, and also you hear the tv announcer: “There she is…”
Reporter: …and there is Mrs. Kennedy, the primary girl stepping from the airplane. Carrying a vivid pink swimsuit with a darkish fur collar and an identical pink hat, and the president sporting a darkish swimsuit.
Caro: They hand Jackie on the backside of the steps this bouquet of roses.
Reporter: She does makes a really putting image as she clutches the large bouquet of vivid purple roses…
Caro: He takes Jackie they usually stroll alongside the fence. And somebody stated there was no brighter second within the Kennedy presidency then that second at Love Area in Dallas.
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Schieffer: They determined as a result of the skies had cleared to take the bubble-top off the presidential limousine.
Reporter: And the president might be driving within the open. … That automobile was flown in right here final night time from Washington…
Huffaker: The gang cheered because the president and his lovely spouse got here previous us.
Reporter: And now the ticker tape and uh … different confetti and such is starting to movement from the home windows and the gang at our level is surging ahead. There’s a large cheer going up…
Schieffer: As they turned to enter the primary downtown space, Nelly Connally, who was John Connally’s spouse, [Texas] Governor Connally’s spouse, turned to the president and stated, “Effectively, Mr. President, you may’t say Dallas does not love you.”
Reporter: … and right here is the President of the USA … and what a crowd… what an amazing welcome he’s getting now.
Huffaker: The gang simply surged out from their factors on the sidewalk and crammed the road from curb to curb.
Caro: Then they flip off Important Road into this open grassy space, Dealey Plaza, and there is a sharp cracking sound. … John Connally, I keep in mind saying to me, “I used to be a hunter. I knew the second I heard it, it was the crack of a searching rifle.”
Abraham Zapruder movie: I used to be down on this freeway early … and even the freeway was jammed pack with spectators ready their probability to see the president as he made his method towards the commerce mart … it seems as if one thing has occurred within the motorcade route … one thing I repeat has occurred within the motorcade route.
Schieffer: Effectively, it was simply pandemonium. It was only a horrible second.
Caro: So the three vehicles — the vehicles with President Kennedy, the Secret Service automobile and Johnson’s automobile squeal up the ramp to an expressway … after which off the expressway and into the emergency bay at Parkland Hospital.
Reporter: There was a taking pictures … Parkland Hospital has been suggested to face by for a extreme gunshot wound.
Cronkite (1993): Wanting proper at it when the bells rang, 5 bells for a bulletin. … Photographs rang out whereas the president’s motorcade drove by way of the streets of Dallas. … And with that I rotated and shouted, “Let’s get on the air, lets get on the air!” Effectively. in these days we did not preserve a digital camera scorching.
Socolow: And he could not get on the air on tv. You by no means noticed Cronkite. You noticed a card on the display.
Cronkite on the air: Here’s a bulletin from CBS Information. In Dallas, Texas, three photographs had been fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas.
Huffaker: This was the day that the information went dwell on tv.
Cronkite on the air: The primary experiences say the president, Kennedy has been critically wounded by this taking pictures.
Schieffer: Folks had been crying. Folks had been simply strolling round with a clean look on their face. “What does this imply? What’s occurred?”
Walter Cronkite on the air: That is Walter Cronkite in our newsroom. There was an try, as maybe you recognize now, on the lifetime of President Kennedy. He was wounded in an vehicle driving from Dallas Airport into downtown Dallas, together with Governor Connally of Texas. They have been taken to Parkland Hospital the place their situation is as but unknown.
Dr. Kenneth Salyer: I am Dr. Kenneth Salyer. And on Nov. 22, 1963, I used to be on neurosurgery name at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. … A nurse bumped into the room and stated “the president’s been shot.”
Schieffer: And what did you do?
Dr. Salyer: Once I walked in, my colleagues had been on the prime of the desk in Trauma Room One. … The president … had a big, enormous jagged harm of the appropriate facet of his cranium, with items lacking.
Schieffer: Was he alive?
Dr. Salyer: He was nonetheless respiration … and we had been making an attempt to intubate him, get a tube into his windpipe, trachea. … Nevertheless it would not go previous this wound.
Cronkite on the air: We’ve not been advised their situation. At Dallas, in a downtown lodge room, a bunch had been gathered to listen to President Kennedy and was ready his arrival. Let’s change down there now the place Eddie Barker of KRLD is on the air.
Eddie Barker reporting: As you may think about there are numerous tales which might be coming in now as to the precise situation of the president. One is that he’s useless. This can’t be confirmed.
Schieffer: Did you suppose this was survivable?
Dr. Salyer: I did not make that evaluation for the time being I used to be taking good care of him. … It is a main, excessive velocity harm.
Huffaker: As I used to be standing within the crowd, two monks brushed previous me…
Voice of Bob Huffaker | KRLD Radio: President Kennedy is on the within of Parkland Hospital and two monks have simply been despatched in to the room with the president.
Dr. Salyer: As I appeared up within the room, within the far again of the room is Mrs. Kennedy … blood splattered on her costume. However she was simply observing every part, wasn’t speaking.
Cronkite (1993): My God — who, what, why? Certainly the president will not die. I imply, that may’t be. He will not die, absolutely.
Schieffer: How lengthy did that go on?
Dr. Salyer: It appeared like ceaselessly. Nevertheless it was actually most likely lower than half-hour.
Cronkite on the air: From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Commonplace Time, 2:00 Jap tTme, some 38 minutes in the past. [Takes off glasses, pauses.]
Socolow: He stopped in his tracks. … powerful man who understood the momentousness of what he was charged with doing.
Cronkite (1993): It was disbelief that it might have occurred, that it had occurred.
Dr. Salyer: As I used to be taking a look at Mrs. Kennedy and everybody began to exit the room and she or he came to visit. We had lined him up … and she or he laid on his chest. And took a hoop off, and put onto his finger. … And I believed it was a really touching second.
Socolow: Because the information unfold individuals stopped what they had been doing to go to the radio, principally, but additionally to tv. … It was the primary occasion of wall-to-wall information protection.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: It was probably the most stunning issues I might ever heard. Frankly, I used to be very upset and could not regulate to it and will hardly imagine it to start with.
Penny Robinson to Charles Kuralt: No one might imagine it. It is too… there isn’t any phrases to precise what occurred in any respect.
Charles Kuralt | CBS Information 1963: It is true that there are not any phrases to precise it and that feeling is apparent throughout us on the streets of Los Angeles.
Richard Nixon: Immediately tens of millions of individuals all through the world are looking for phrases sufficient to precise their grief and their sympathy to his household.
Man on the road, NYC: We’re sorry. Deeply moved over this incident. It is a darkish day within the historical past of America.
Edward Kennedy: I do need to say how respect each my dad and mom have been for the great outpouring of thoughtfulness and prayers which have come from all People from all components of the nation.
Man on the road: Somebody to do that have to be mentally deranged. No clear-thinking human individual would ever consider doing one thing like that.
Dan Somewhat | CBS Information Dallas reporting: These are scenes at a constructing throughout the road from the scene the place President Kennedy was shot. … Some empty cartridges have been present in that constructing. … Maybe out of a kind of open home windows is the place the murderer of President Kennedy is believed to have fired the deadly photographs.
Dan Somewhat (2008): After the preliminary hammer to the guts that an assassination of the president — the truth of that sinks in, then it was, “give attention to the story.” As a result of if you happen to do not try this, then you definitely’re at some danger of simply falling aside emotionally.
Cronkite on the air: In Dallas— a Dallas policeman simply a short time in the past was shot and killed whereas chasing a suspect.
Schieffer: And a policeman named J.D. Tippit noticed a person strolling down the road. And referred to as him over to the police automobile. And when he did, Oswald walked up and shot him at point-blank vary.
Dan Somewhat reporting: That is 24-year-old Lee H. Oswald. … Now right here is the gun police say was used to kill the president. … Oswald first was charged with killing the policeman, police say which have at the very least one eyewitness to that.
Oswald: I actually do not know what this case is about. No one has advised me something besides I am accused of, uh, murdering a policeman.
Reporter: Did you kill the president?
Oswald: No, I’ve not been charged with that. In truth no one has stated that to me but. The very first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters within the corridor requested me that query.
Schieffer: And I drove all the way down to The Star Telegram. … And a lady referred to as in and stated, “Is there anybody there who can provide me a experience to Dallas?” And I stated, “Effectively, girl, you recognize, we’re not working a taxi right here. And beside, the president has been shot.” And he or she stated, “Sure … I feel my son is the one which they’ve arrested.”
Marguerite Oswald: I spoke a couple of phrases to Lee and he says, “Mom don’t fret a few factor…”
Schieffer: And it was Lee Harvey Oswald’s mom, Marguerite Oswald. We wrote down the handle, and went out and picked up her. And we drove her to Dallas. … It was my first actually large scoop.
Caro: The brokers say to [Lyndon] Johnson, “We have gotta get out of right here.” Johnson says, “No, I am not leaving with out Mrs. Kennedy.” They are saying to him, “Mrs. Kennedy will not go away with out her husband’s physique.” He says, “then we’ll go to Air Pressure One and we’ll wait there till she comes aboard with the coffin. However I am not leaving Dallas with out her.”
Dan Somewhat reporting: Mrs. Kennedy, again the way in which she had come, in an ambulance now which bore her husband’s physique.
Caro: Once they get Johnson on the airplane they draw the window shades. They’re afraid of snipers. No one is aware of at this second if this was the start of a conspiracy.
Schieffer: Air Pressure One continues to be on the bottom at Love Area. Johnson has actually taken command?
Caro: He walks into the middle of the room and begins giving orders … who he desires there. Notably he desires Mrs. Kennedy there.
Cronkite on the air: We simply acquired phrase from our reporters on the market on the airport … that Lyndon B. Johnson has been sworn in because the President of the USA.
Caro: Mrs. Kennedy has come aboard together with her husband’s coffin, and it is put within the rear part.
Schieffer: Mrs. Kennedy wouldn’t change garments. She stated, “I would like them to see what they’ve completed to him.”
Caro: Woman Chicken Johnson says, “That immaculate lady — her skirt was caked with blood.” And Lyndon Johnson asks her to be current on the ceremony, and she or he was to say, “For the sake of historical past I ought to.”
Schieffer: The image stated precisely what Johnson wished it to say. And that’s: “The USA continues to be on target. We’ve had the loss of life of a president. However the nation and the structure nonetheless lives.”
Robert Caro: Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of workplace on Air Pressure One. His hand comes down, he says: “Now let’s get airborne.” On this flight throughout the USA, you may have this airplane carrying two presidents, one useless and one alive. Regardless of how lengthy America’s historical past is, this can all the time be probably the most dramatic and defining moments in it.
Reporter: President Lyndon Johnson has arrived at Andrews Air Pressure Base in Maryland. That is movie, or tape, of that arrival. (Background: “Reside, dwell, dwell!”) It’s dwell. It’s dwell, proper now.
Caro: And this nice silver airplane comes gliding out of the darkness.
Reporter: This is without doubt one of the most original and tragic moments within the historical past…
Caro: The minute the entrance door opens, Robert Kennedy runs up the entrance steps to the airplane. Pushes previous Lyndon Johnson with out even taking a look at him. Does not acknowledge him. And, comes as much as Jackie, and says, “Jackie, I am right here.”
Reporter: I am watching a turnover in authorities, on the highest workplace. And now we will see what we imagine to be a coffin containing the physique of President Kennedy being moved from Air Pressure One.
Caro: And when the coffin comes out, proper behind it, are Jackie Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
Reporter: It is a scene at Andrews Air Pressure Base. With a casket of— carrying the physique of President Kennedy is being transferred to an ambulance.
Socolow: No one understood, on the time, what this occasion meant for tv information. Tv information, all of the sudden grew to become essential.
Reporter: Behind it comes, Mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy…. And now President Johnson is coming down the ramp, out the again door.
Schieffer: Johnson had this innate sense of command. He knew that the nation needed to know that there was continuity. It was a tragic second, but it surely was a terrific second within the historical past of the nation as a result of it stated: there’s nonetheless a president.
Caro: There isn’t any presidential podium, there isn’t any presidential seal, all they’ve completed is put this bunch of microphones on the naked tarmac.
President Lyndon Johnson: We’ve suffered a loss that can not be weighed. For me, it’s a deep private tragedy. I do know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her household bear. I’ll do my finest, that’s all I can do. I ask to your assist … and God’s.
Schieffer: The speech was poignant, but it surely was good in its brevity.
Cronkite (1993): We had an entire new world on the market. Lyndon Johnson was not going to be John Fitzgerald Kennedy by any means.
Reporter: At 4:30 this morning Mr. Kennedy’s physique was returned to the White home. George Herman was available when it arrived.
George Herman reporting: President John F. Kennedy comes again to the White Home for the final time.
Cronkite on the air: There might be a very poignant time for the Kennedy household subsequent week.The 2 Kennedy youngsters, uh, each have birthdays subsequent week. John, 3, November the twenty fifth, and Caroline, 6, on November the twenty seventh. A complete nation has nearly come to a cease as we speak, uh, within the wake of the horrible information.
Huffaker: I had by no means seen something like I noticed after I arrived on that Saturday morning after the assassination. Your entire hallway was crammed with, most likely, maybe as many as 100 reporters.
Cronkite on the air: We reported to you on the arrest of that particular person in Dallas. He’s being grilled now. He’s stated to be 24 years previous. The identify has been given for him by Dallas Police as Lee H. Oswald.
Reporter: Has he confessed sir? Has he made an announcement?
Official: He has not confessed.He has made no assertion. Fees of homicide have been accepted towards him.
Dan Somewhat reporting: Oswald has admitted nothing. After additional questioning, he was formally charged with the president’s loss of life. That gun is a strong navy rifle, which police discovered within the constructing from which the president is believed to have been shot.
Schieffer: Lee Harvey Oswald was on the sixth flooring of the Texas Faculty E book Depository when he shot the president. He had a birds-eye view. In the event you go and look out that window, the place he was, you notice you did not have to be an excellent shot.
Dan Somewhat reporting: Lee Oswald, espouser of leftist causes: an energetic member of the Truthful Play for Cuba Committee, an avowed admirer of Russia and of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, a person who as soon as lived in Russia.
Reporter: What did you do in Russia?
Oswald: A policeman hit me.
Huffaker: We knew that Oswald was probably the most hated suspect of the twentieth century.
Reporter: Chief, do you may have any concern for the security of your prisoner In due of the excessive feeling among the many individuals of Dallas over the assassination of the president?
Police Chief: No, however precautions … vital … precautions might be taken, in fact.
Schieffer: On that Sunday, the plan was to switch Oswald from the Dallas Metropolis Jail, the place he had been questioned and the place he had been stored, and switch him to the county jail.
Harry Reasoner, CBS Information, on the air: That is how issues stand at this hour. In Washington, it isn’t lengthy till the time for the switch of the physique of President Kennedy from its repose on the White Home to the rotunda of the Capitol the place it should lie in state. In Dallas, Lee Oswald, the person accused of the assassination of the president, is to be moved from one jail to a different. We can have a direct report.
Somewhat (2008): This was one thing … model new. Protecting this sort of tragedy, no one had completed it on tv earlier than.
Harry Reasoner on the air: Allow us to go now to the White Home and Robert Pierpoint.
Dan Somewhat (2008): No one knew how you can do it, and by way of protection … everyone in tv … we had been making it up as we went alongside.
Harry Reasoner on the air: We at the moment are switching to Dallas the place they’re about to maneuver Lee Oswald and the place there’s a scuffle within the police station…
Reporter: We’re going to change now to Bob Huffaker, down within the basement of the courthouse, who’s near the scene. Go forward, Bob.
Bob Huffaker: Lee Harold Oswald has been shot. The scenario is now that Lee Harold Oswald has been shot. The person who noticed the shot fired, stated it was fired by a person sporting a black hat, a brown coat…
Huffaker: I had appeared and seen Oswald grimace, grasp his abdomen and fall. And I knew, that, what we had feared, had really taken place.
Harry Reasoner: We’ve, we acquired our tape. We’ve re-racked the video tape that exhibits that complete scene of confusion.
Schieffer: Immediately, these two detectives stroll out, with Oswald between them, and somebody simply walks up and sticks a gun in Oswald’s facet and shoots him.
© CORBIS/Corbis through Getty Photos
Schieffer: And once more it is simply this whole, what on the earth occurred? How might this have occurred?
Socolow: From a journalist’s viewpoint, there have been so many inquiries to be answered. Who was the assassin? Why did he do it?
Reporter: And also you knew him?
Officer: Sure, sir.
Bob Huffaker: And he’s a resident of Dallas, is he not?
Officer: Sure, sir.
Cronkite (1993): The police, uh, captured a person on the scene who reporters noticed shoot Oswald and have booked him.They are saying his identify is Jack Ruby, or Rubenstein.
Huffaker: The operator of a seedy strip membership in downtown Dallas.
Bob Huffaker reporting: Right here comes Oswald, he, he’s ashen and unconscious … and now the ambulance is popping out … the ambulance with Lee Harvey Oswald, who was shot.
Cronkite (1993): He was taken to Parkland Hospital and died an hour and quarter-hour after he was shot, in a emergency room simply 10 ft from the room the place President Kennedy had died nearly precisely 48 hours earlier than.
Schieffer: That weekend was not like something that had ever occur in tv or in journalism, uh, on this nation. I by no means felt that method till 9/11.
Bob Schieffer: The day Oswald was to be transferred to the county jail in Dallas, I used to be despatched to cowl his arrival. As we all know he by no means acquired there. As a substitute, his homicide fueled a firestorm of suspicion a few doable conspiracy. Was Jack Ruby despatched to silence the president’s murderer? Even in spite of everything these years, a [2013] CBS Information ballot exhibits most People — 61 p.c — do not imagine Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Reporter: It seems as if one thing has occurred within the motorcade route — one thing, I repeat, one thing has occurred within the motorcade route.
Schieffer: From the second the sound of these photographs had been heard, individuals started to marvel … was there a conspiracy?
Reporter: Parkland Hospital has been suggested to face by for a extreme gunshot wound…
Schieffer: Those that had been down on Dealey Plaza … did not know what had occurred.
Reporter: One thing is improper right here, one thing is extremely improper…
Caro :It is an environment of uncertainty. As Air Pressure One is heading to Washington, the Mexican border is being sealed as a result of we’re afraid of conspirators getting away.
Philip Shenon: Inside hours of the assassination, Bobby Kennedy took the director of the CIA out on to his garden and requested the query bluntly, “Did you kill my brother?”
Schieffer: And his reply?
Shenon: His reply was no.
In his account of the Kennedy assassination, Philip Shenon, a former investigative reporter for The New York Occasions, explores why many suspected a global conspiracy.
Shenon: There was horrible suspicion at the moment in regards to the Soviet Union, about Cuba, in regards to the bigger Communist menace. … Fidel Castro is aware of, within the fall of 1963, that the Kennedy administration is making an attempt to kill him. And so … it was an apparent suspicion that Castro could be concerned in Kennedy’s loss of life.
Earlier than the week was out, President Johnson determined that to quell America’s fears, a excessive degree fee to research the assassination was vital.
Reporter: The seven members of the Warren Fee, headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Courtroom…
Shenon: In September 1964, after… 10 months of investigation … the Warren Fee decided … that there was no proof of a conspiracy and that it appeared Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dealey Plaza.
But the Warren Fee itself would come underneath intense scrutiny. 4 separate authorities investigations, 33 tv experiences from CBS Information alone, and naturally, Hollywood.
In spite of everything these years, what can we lastly know? Was the president actually killed by a lone gunman in Dealey Plaza?
The very best document of the assassination to face the take a look at of time is Abraham Zapruder’s well-known 26 ½ seconds of 8mm movie photographed simply steps from the president’s motorcade. From his perch, what did Abraham Zapruder see?
For 38 years, Dale Myers, knowledgeable laptop animator, has researched the assassination. Ten years in the past, using new laptop expertise, he was capable of take the 8mm movie and analyze it body by body, believing it’d remedy the thriller of whether or not there was a second shooter in Dealey Plaza.
Dale Okay. Myers: The Zapruder movie was the one movie that captured your complete taking pictures from begin to end. … Most individuals do not realize how small the Zapruder movie is. An 8mm movie is definitely smaller than a postage stamp … and this makes it very troublesome to see what is going on on, particularly when the movie is projected in actual time. … I believed there is a method now with the expertise to take my laptop fashions and match the Zapruder movie precisely, body for body … to lastly, as soon as and for all, isolate what’s taking place within the automobile because the photographs are fired.
Schieffer: To make its lone gunman conclusion work, the Warren Fee maintained {that a} single bullet hit President Kennedy after which wounded Gov. Connally. Critics dismissed it as a “magic bullet idea.” Even Gov. Connally by no means accepted it.
Gov. John Connally (1992): To me it is simply inconceivable that the primary shot that went by way of his neck, entered my again. I do not imagine that, I by no means will imagine that. They cannot run sufficient assessments to make me imagine that.
Myers: Kennedy, when he emerges from behind the signal, he is clearly hit because the fingers come up in a really dramatic style. So the issue that conspiracy theorists level out is they are saying, “Effectively, the time lag between this and the second when Gov. Connally … is hit is simply too quick for a single gunman to be firing two rounds.” So they are saying, “This have to be a conspiracy.” … Which meant that … there was a second shooter within the plaza.
The taking pictures, as we now perceive it … there have been three photographs fired. … Zapruder begins filming proper right here. First shot is fired, bang. Second shot is fired, bang. … And the third and deadly shot is fired right here, bang. … The fact is, is the president wasn’t hit by the primary shot. Nobody was. The primary shot missed and Myers’ evaluation exhibits what occurred with the second shot.
Myers: At body 222, Connally isn’t injured. 223, however at 224 … we will see the appropriate shoulder buckle and begin to drop. … It is a very dramatic change in physique place. … He is clearly been hit. … We all know the bullet has emerged proper right here within the coat space. And so we will really see this on digital camera, the lapel all of the sudden blow open after which the dramatic response of the governor after that. So once more, in actual time, it’s totally clear that they each react on the similar time…. the 2 males are … hit by the identical bullet.
This laptop expertise confirms the controversial single-bullet idea. And by rotating the Zapruder footage in three dimensions, Myers can display why the one bullet needed to move by way of Kennedy and hit Connally.
Myers: In the event you take the doorway wound on Kennedy’s again and join it with a straight line and venture that line ahead, it hits Gov. Connally, who’s seated instantly in entrance of him. It has to hit Connally … in any other case, you get an actual magic bullet, a bullet that exits Kennedy’s throat and vanishes into skinny air.
However there’s extra — laptop evaluation now permits us to research the supply of the one bullet.
Myers: So we take the again wound on Connally. We take that as a straight line again to Kennedy’s throat wound after which simply venture it … rearward and see the place it takes us. And I used to be actually a bit bit stunned after all of the conspiracy speak to seek out it goes proper again by way of the southeastern nook of the Texas Faculty E book Depository.
twenty first century expertise concludes Oswald was the one shooter. And regardless of all of the theories and all of the investigations during the last 50 years, nobody has but produced credible proof of a conspiracy behind Oswald. So why accomplish that many individuals nonetheless refuse to imagine a single individual did this?
Shenon: It is simply — a troublesome idea for people that one younger, unstable man with a $21 rifle might change the world. [Pauses] And but it occurred.
As rumors and uncertainty unfold, one factor was sure: America, and far of the world, was united in unimaginable grief. The president had been assassinated. The drama that was about to unfold in Washington performed like an epic tragedy, and tv broadcast dwell photographs that may be branded into our nation’s reminiscence.
Reporter: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty fifth President of the USA, leaving the White Home for the final time.
Bob Schieffer: I used to be all the time struck by, simply what appeared like overwhelming grief that individuals gave the impression to be experiencing.
Caro: So the caisson is pulled as much as the entrance of White Home. Then they put the coffin on it, put the flag on prime of it. Then impulsively there she is within the doorway.
Reporter: Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and John …
Caro: Her face is behind the veil. She’s holding a bit determine in every hand in a sky blue coat — her son and her daughter. She strikes ahead towards the limousine and Robert Kennedy … his face can also be unforgettable… ravaged face, uh, comes out behind her.
Reporter: President Johnson has gotten into the automobile with the Kennedy household.
Caro: I imply, this is Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy, two males who hate one another. They will be driving behind the physique of Robert Kennedy’s brother. On this lengthy, sluggish procession. The caisson pulls away.
Reporter: President John Kennedy … his physique within the casket transferring down Pennsylvania Avenue now, up towards Capitol Hill.
Caro: Then they go into the Rotunda.
Schieffer: Folks felt like they knew the Kennedys. We had seen their household. And so we felt like we had been dropping somebody who was very near us.
Reporter: The road, 40 blocks lengthy … estimated by police at 500,000.
Schieffer: There was this one second the place, uh, Caroline reaches up underneath the flag, to be, clearly making an attempt to be nearer to her father. And it wasn’t sufficient simply to place her hand on the flag.
Charles Collingwood | CBS Information reporting: So nice is the crush outdoors the Capitol, ready to get in, that individuals who haven’t been in line at 10 o’clock cannot probably go by the coffin earlier than it’s borne away at 10 o’clock tomorrow.
Reporter: Mrs. Kennedy adopted the casket on foot to St. Matthews Church.
Cronkite (1993): It actually occurred. The president of the USA, useless, and there he lied. It had occurred, it was over, it was completed, and we had been about to bury it. Bury one thing of our previous together with that man.
Schieffer: I feel the image that most individuals will keep in mind is that this tiny little boy, in his little-boy swimsuit, uh, and he places his hand up… and he salutes. it is laborious for me to consider it even as we speak and never be touched by that.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone through Getty Photos
Caro: It is all of the pomp and majesty {that a} republic can muster.
Schieffer: You had the riderless horse.
Caro: The nice black horse.
Schieffer: You heard the sound of the drums. … It was a smooth sound. Stable.
Caro: It was prefer it burned it into our consciousness.
Schieffer: It was overwhelming. … It was overwhelming.
Caro: If you see these photographs, even as we speak, you’re feeling this can be a watershed second in American historical past. … Actually, by no means to be forgotten.
Schieffer: So many components of our tradition modified due to that weekend. I really believed it was the weekend that America misplaced its innocence.
America was by no means fairly the identical after that day. A nation that had been brimming with confidence all of the sudden felt a brand new vulnerability. How might this have occurred? Wouldn’t it have been totally different had Kennedy lived? We will by no means know.
However that weekend was solely the start of probably the most tumultuous and violent a long time within the nation’s historical past — a decade that may see extra assassinations, Vietnam, bloody riots, and Watergate, which might convey down and power the resignation of a really totally different president. It might be a time once we would query our leaders our establishments and every part we had taken without any consideration for therefore lengthy.
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