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HT Archive: US in mourning as sniper assassinates President Kennedy
The 46-year-old President was riding in a motorcade with his wife, Jackie, when an assassin fired three shots, striking him in the head.
President John F Kennedy died in Dallas on November 22, 1963, from an assassin’s bullet. The 46-year-old President was riding in a motorcade with his wife, Jackie, when an assassin fired three shots, striking him in the head.
He was rushed to hospital and given a blood transfusion but died shortly afterwards, at 1pm local time (0030 IST Saturday). Texas Governor John Connally was also shot, in the head and wrist, and lay injured in hospital.
Mr Kennedy lived for 25 minutes after being struck by the unknown assassin’s rifle fire. A late NBC report said the President was shot once in the head. Police were reported to have taken possession of a rifle of a non-American make. A youth was reported to have been picked up.
Vice-president Lyndon Johnson assumed the full constitutional responsibilities of the presidency immediately on Mr Kennedy’s death and before taking an oath of office.
Hunt for Assassin
FBI chief Edgar Hoover ordered an all-out manhunt for the assassin or assassins. Police believed the fatal shots were fired by a white man. The murder weapon was believed to be a 30-30 high calibre rifle.
The President was shot as his open car passed near an intersection in the main business area of the city. As the shots rang out, Mr Kennedy fell face down in the back of the car. Mrs Kennedy cried, “Oh, No,” and tried to hold his head. Governor Connally, who was also hit by bullets, slumped on the seat.
Police rushed the car to a nearby hospital. Pandemonium broke out, but Secret Service agents directed the motorcade onto a road that led to the Parkland Hospital, where he was earlier scheduled to deliver a speech. Within five minutes the President’s car pulled up at the hospital entrance. Hospital officials in the emergency ward gave the President a transfusion of B-positive blood from the bank.
The announcement of Mr Kennedy’s death brought cries and moans from the crowd gathered outside the hospital. Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas collapsed as he described the shooting to newsmen. Governor Connally underwent an operation for a bullet wound in the chest half an hour after President Kennedy’s death. Mrs Lyndon Johnson denied a report that the vice-president had been hurt. “He is fine,” she told newsmen.
Three shots
A woman, who said she was a spectator , said in a radio interview that the President and Mrs Kennedy were looking at a dog in the middle of the street when the shots rang out. “There were three shots. He grabbed his chest and fell over his seat and Jackie fell over him,” Mrs Jean Hill said. “The shots came from a hill just east of the underpass.” An eyewitness said he saw a gun emerge from an upper storey of a warehouse commanding an unobstructed view of the Presidential car.
Mr Kennedy was the first President to be assassinated since William McKinley was shot in 1901. It was the first death of a President in office since Franklin D. Roosevelt succumbed to a cerebral haemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia, in April 1945. A radio report from the scene said a white man and a Negro boy had reported seeing a man in a window with what appeared to be a gun. Some residents of Dallas expressed surprise that the triple overpass was not guarded by police. The President, concerned about his unpopularity in the south over his Civil Rights Bill, arrived in Texas yesterday with Mrs Kennedy, to win support and close the divided ranks of the Texas Democrats. The New York Stock Exchange remained closed. A Secret Service agent and a Dallas policeman were shot dead some distance from where Mr Kennedy was assassinated.
