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  As the motorcade swept toward the central business district, it reached speeds of almost thirty miles per hour. But once the motorcade reached downtown, the crowds became larger, often spilling out into the street, and the pace slowed considerably.

  The motorcade was the center of attention.

  Dealey Plaza—November 22, 1963

  The Motorcade

  Leading the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963, was an enclosed sedan driven by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry. Sitting to Curry’s right was Secret Service advance man Winston G. Lawson. In the backseat, behind Curry, sat Dallas County sheriff J. E. “Bill” Decker and to his right was Secret Service special agent in charge Forrest Sorrels.

  More than two car lengths behind was the presidential limousine, a specially made long dark-blue Lincoln Continental convertible sedan designated Secret Service Car No. 100-X. Kennedy’s Secret Service code name was Lancer, apparently a knockoff of the name Lancelot in the Camelot story.

  Driving the limousine was Secret Service agent William Greer, at age fifty-three the oldest man in the White House detail. Next to Greer sat Roy Kellerman, assistant special agent in charge of the Secret Service White House detail.

  In the center of the car in fold-down jump seats were Governor Connally, on the right, and Mrs. Connally. In the rear, on a padded seat that could be raised or lowered mechanically, sat Kennedy, wearing a leather back brace. Mrs. Kennedy sat on his left.

  Behind the limousine by about a full car length was a follow-up car for Kennedy’s Secret Service guards, a 1956 Cadillac convertible touring sedan specially equipped for the Secret Service and designated SS Car No. 679-X.

  Following this security car was a 1964 Lincoln four-door open convertible carrying vice president Lyndon Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and senator Ralph Yarborough. Yarborough told this author that while the crowds on the street were boisterous and friendly, when he looked up at the offices of the big companies and corporations of Dallas, he never saw a smiling face. The driver of his car was Texas state trooper Hurchel Jacks, and Secret Service agent Rufus W. Youngblood rode to the right of him. Their car was trailed by Johnson’s Secret Service guards and the rest of the motorcade, consisting of five cars for local dignitaries, three cars for press photographers, one bus for White House staff, and two press buses.

  A pilot car, which preceded the motorcade by a quarter of a mile checking for “motor vehicle accidents, fires and obstructions along the route,” contained Dallas deputy police chief G. L. Lumpkin, two Dallas homicide detectives, and Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmayer, commander of the local Army Intelligence reserve unit.

  Oddly, while a press-pool station wagon had been designated to follow Kennedy’s Secret Service follow-up car (it had the number 5 taped on its side), for some unexplained reason it was shoved farther back in the motorcade. This prevented the media representatives from witnessing the assassination or capturing it on film.

  Everyone in the presidential limousine appeared to be enjoying the open-air ride and the cheering admiration of the crowd, although Mrs. Kennedy was beginning to feel warm in her pink wool suit and pillbox hat. As the motorcade cruised into the downtown area, apprehensions of the Dallas visit seemed to dissipate as quickly as the morning’s overcast.

  Bob Hollingsworth, veteran Washington correspondent for the Times Herald, had accompanied the Washington press corps to Dallas. He noted, “The amazement over the size of the crowd turned to awe. For those of us who had been with the President since he left the White House for Texas Thursday morning, this was the largest, the most enthusiastic and the best reception he had received in Texas.”

  Up ahead clear blue sky could be seen past the long, dark corridor of tall buildings as the presidential car entered a small, triangular plaza at the end of Main Street.

  The motorcade broke into the open space of Dealey Plaza, named after George Bannerman Dealey, a pioneer Dallas civic leader and founder of the Dallas Morning News. The 3.07-acre plaza, the site of the first home in Dallas as well as the first courthouse, post office, store, Masonic lodge, and hotel, has been called the “birthplace of Dallas.” It was acquired by the city for the construction of the Triple Underpass, which allows railroad traffic to pass over Commerce, Main, and Elm Streets. The property was christened “Dealey Plaza” in 1935 and placed under the authority of the city’s Park Board in 1936 with the official opening of the underpass.

  Both incoming and outgoing traffic between downtown Dallas and the major freeway systems to the west is channeled through Dealey Plaza. It is bounded on the east by Houston Street. Turning north from Main Street at the historic red, ornate County Court House, Houston was flanked to the east by the Criminal Courts Building, containing the county jail and the sheriff’s office. In the same block to the north was the white Dallas County Records Building. Opposite the records building across Elm Street was the Dal-Tex Building. To its west was the redbrick building that in 1963 contained the Texas School Book Depository.

  Bisecting Dealey Plaza is Main Street, with Commerce Street branching off to the south and Elm Street curving in on the north. These three main arteries converge on the west side of the plaza at the railroad bridge known as the Triple Underpass. Facing Houston Street on the west are fountains and monuments to Dealey. On the north and south sides of the plaza are two small arbors or pergolas, flanked on the east by a line of trees and shrubs and on the west by a wooden stockade fence about five feet high.

  With a phalanx of Dallas motorcycle police officers clearing the way ahead, the blue Lincoln limousine carrying the Kennedys made a ninety-degree turn from Main onto Houston in front of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. Almost two dozen deputies and other lawmen stood on the sidewalk watching. All had been ordered not to take part in motorcade security.

  The bright sun began warming the car’s occupants as they approached the Texas School Book Depository. Atop the building was a large Hertz Rent-A-Car sign containing a digital time and temperature display. In front of the Depository, the limousine slowed to a crawl to make a 120-degree turn onto Elm Street, although turns of more than 90 degrees were prohibited by the Secret Service. The turn was so tight that Greer almost ran the limousine up onto the north curb near the Depository’s front door, according to Depository superintendent Roy Truly.

  The car continued a slow glide down the incline of Elm deeper into Dealey Plaza, maintaining its position in the center lane of the three-lane street. The crowds thinned out as the Triple Underpass approached, and security men began to relax. About three car lengths ahead of the presidential limousine in the lead car, Agent Lawson, a former Army counterintelligence man now with the Secret Service White House detail, was sitting in the right front seat. He looked at his watch. It was 12:30 p.m. Picking up the car’s microphone, he radioed the Trade Mart saying, “We’ll be there in about five minutes.”

  In the presidential limousine, Kennedy was waving to his right at a group of people standing near a large green sign reading STEMMONS FREEWAY. His right arm and hand were extended slightly over the side of the car. Mrs. Kennedy had been waving to her left, but her thoughts were on the Texas heat. Mrs. Kennedy later told the Warren Commission, “And in the motorcade, you know, I usually would be waving mostly to the left side and he was waving mostly to the right, which is one reason you are not looking at each other very much. And it was terribly hot. Just blinding all of us.” Sensing her discomfort, Mrs. Connally turned and said, “We’ll soon be there.”

  Mrs. Kennedy recalled seeing the Triple Underpass ahead. “We could see a tunnel in front of us. Everything was really slow then. And I remember thinking it would be so cool under that tunnel.”

  Mrs. Connally had wanted to mention the warm and enthusiastic welcome for some time, but she had held back. Now she could contain herself no longer. Turning to Kennedy, she said, “Mr. President, you can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you.” According to Mrs. Kennedy, the president smiled and replied, “No, you certainly can’t.”

>   Soon after his remark, Mrs. Connally heard a frightening noise off to her right. She looked in that direction and caught a peripheral glimpse of Kennedy raising both hands to his neck. She heard no sound from the president but noticed a blank, “nothing” expression on his face.

  Kellerman, sitting directly in front of Connally and Kennedy, noticed they had just passed a highway sign when he heard a “pop” to his right and immediately looked in that direction, surveying the easternmost slope of the Grassy Knoll. Kellerman told the Warren Commission:

  As I turned my head to the right to view whatever it was . . . I heard a voice from the back seat and I firmly believe it was the President’s [saying] “My God, I am hit,” and I turned around and he has got his hands up here like this [indicating both hands up near the throat]. . . . [It] was enough for me to verify that the man was hit. So, in the same motion I come right back and grabbed the speaker and said to the driver, “Let’s get out of here; we’re hit,” and grabbed the mike and I said, “Lawson, this is Kellerman . . . we are hit; get us to the hospital immediately.” Now in the seconds that I talked just now, a flurry of shells come into the car.

  Mrs. Connally testified she heard Kellerman say, “Pull out of the motorcade. Take us to the nearest hospital.” The limousine indeed pulled out of the motorcade, accelerated through the Triple Underpass, up the entrance ramp to Stemmons Freeway, and raced toward Parkland Hospital.

  Driver Greer said he was busy looking ahead to the railroad overpass and never looked back. This is inconsistent with a film of the assassination that clearly shows Greer looking back over his right shoulder prior to the head shot. Greer then testified he heard a noise he thought was a motorcycle backfire. Then he heard the noise again and caught a glimpse of Connally starting to slump over. He then heard two more noises that seemed to come one on top of the other. Greer said that after the second noise and a glance over his right shoulder at Connally, he stepped on the accelerator. However, film taken that day shows the limousine brake lights remained on until after the fatal head shot to Kennedy.

  Mrs. Connally recalled that after the first sound “very soon there was the second shot which hit John [Connally].”

  Connally, in testimony consistent both with that of Mrs. Connally and with films made that day, confirmed he was not hit by the first shot. The governor said just after making the turn onto Elm he heard a noise he took to be a shot from a high-powered rifle. He turned to his right because the sound appeared to come from over his right shoulder, but he couldn’t see anything. He began to turn to his left when he felt something strike him in the back.

  Although critically wounded, Connally was conscious of shots being fired other than the one that struck him. Realizing that he had been hit a second or so after hearing a shot, Connally told the Warren Commission, “There were either two or three people involved or more in this or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle.” Connally then heard a final boom and heard the bullet hit home. He later recalled, “It never entered my mind that it ever hit anyone but the President. . . . He never uttered a sound that I heard.”

  Connally noticed blue brain tissue covering his suit and knew Kennedy was dead. He also noticed blood on the front of his shirt and realized he was hurt badly, perhaps fatally. Crumpling into the arms of his wife, Connally screamed out, “My God, they’re going to kill us all!” Connally heard his wife saying over and over, “Be still, you’re going to be all right,” and he felt the car accelerate. He then lost consciousness.

  During the initial phase of the shooting, Mrs. Kennedy did not realize what was happening. She was accustomed to the sounds of motorcycle escorts backfiring and the motorcade had been a cacophony of sirens, racing motors, cheering, and shouting. She did hear Connally shout, “Oh, no, no, no!” She heard “terrible noises” to her right and turned to see Kennedy with his hand at his throat and a “quizzical look on his face.” Then the chief executive was struck in the head and fell into her lap. All she could do was cradle him and say, “Oh, my God, they’ve shot my husband. I love you, Jack.”

  Over the years a great deal of misinformation has been presented about her next actions. Many persons have stated she tried to climb out of the car in panic or to help Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who had run to the president’s limousine. Actually, she crawled onto the trunk of the limousine and, reaching out, picked up a piece of her husband’s head. Mrs. Connally told the Warren Commission she recalled hearing Mrs. Kennedy crying out, “I have got his brains in my hand.”

  Mrs. Kennedy next climbed back into the limousine under her own power as Hill was desperately clinging to the car’s trunk as it accelerated.

  When talking to the Warren Commission on June 5, 1964, Mrs. Kennedy did not even recall this activity. But her action was captured in the films taken that day, and later, sitting in Parkland Hospital, she had the object still clutched in her hand. Dr. Marion T. Jenkins encountered a “shell shocked” Mrs. Kennedy in the hospital hallway. “I noticed her hands were cupped in front of her, as if she were cradling something,” he recalled. “As she passed by, she nudged me with an elbow and handed me what she had been nursing in her hands—a large chunk of her husband’s brain tissues.” Perhaps the reason this dramatic incident has been confused in the early years is that if brain matter flew to the rear, this clearly evinces a shot from the front.

  In the lead car, which was just about to enter the Triple Underpass when the firing began, Agent Lawson was trying to signal a policeman standing with a group of people on top of the underpass. He didn’t like the idea of the president’s car passing directly below these people, so he was trying to get the officer to move them to one side. The policeman never noticed him. Lawson may have recalled the security measures in Fort Worth earlier that morning when overpasses were cleared of bystanders and windows facing the president’s route were closed by security personnel.

  Just then, Lawson heard a loud report to his rear. It sounded more like a bang instead of a crack and Lawson didn’t think it was a rifle shot. His first impression was that it was a firecracker. This description was to be repeated by nearly everyone in Dealey Plaza, with some notable exceptions, one being Forrest V. Sorrels, head of the Dallas office of the Secret Service. Like Connally, Sorrels was certain the first sound was a gunshot. After a brief pause, Sorrels heard two more shots coming close together. He shouted to Chief Curry, “Let’s get out of here!”

  On hearing the first burst of fire, Sheriff Decker glanced back and thought he saw a bullet bouncing off the street pavement. Motorcycle officer James Chaney told newsmen the next day that the first shot missed.

  Another Dallas motorcycle officer, Starvis Ellis, in 1978 told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that as he rode alongside the car in which Decker was riding, he, too, saw a bullet hit the pavement. Neither Decker nor Ellis was ever questioned about this extraneous bullet by the Warren Commission.

  Curry saw a “commotion” in the presidential limousine. Then a motorcycle officer drew up alongside. “Anybody hurt?” asked Curry. “Yes,” replied the officer. Stepping on the accelerator, Curry shouted, “Lead us to the hospital.” Both Decker and Curry took the car’s radio and ordered their men to rush to the top of the underpass and the adjacent railroad yards where they thought the shots had originated.

  Those witnesses deep in the Dealey Plaza believed shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll, while those farther back in the motorcade—still on Houston and Main Streets—believed shots came from the direction of the Depository.

  Motorcycle policeman Marrion L. Baker was riding near one of the press cars. He had just turned onto Houston and his cycle was about to tip over because of a gust of wind and the slow speed. He had just returned from a deer-hunting trip and recognized the first sound as a high-powered rifle shot. He thought the sound came from either the Depository or the Dal-Tex building. Seeing pigeons fluttering off the Depository’s roof, he gunned his motor and roared up to the entrance of the building. Within seconds, he a
nd Depository superintendent Roy Truly would encounter Lee Harvey Oswald calmly standing in the second-floor lunchroom of the Depository.

  Secret Service agent Paul Landis was riding in the right rear of the Secret Service follow-up car when he heard the report of a high-powered rifle. He saw Kennedy turn to look in the direction of the shot, which Landis believed came from “somewhere towards the front, right-hand side of the road.”

  With Landis was Secret Service agent Glen Bennett, who thought the sound was a firecracker. But then he looked at the president. In notes he said were made later that day, Bennett wrote, “[I] saw a shot that hit the Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder; a second shoot [sic] followed immediately and hit the right rear high [side] of the Boss’s head.”

  The Secret Service agents assigned to Kennedy all acted with remarkable sluggishness when the firing began. Perhaps it was due to the visit they had paid to a “beatnik” nightspot in Fort Worth, where they drank until early that morning.

  The only agent to react quickly was Clint Hill. Interestingly, Hill had not been scheduled to make the Dallas trip, but joined at the last moment only after Mrs. Kennedy made a personal request. Hill also thought the initial sound was a firecracker and began looking to his right for the source of the sound when he saw Kennedy grab at himself and lurch forward slightly. He then realized something was wrong and jumped off the follow-up car. He was racing the few feet to the limousine when he heard more shots. Hill had just secured a grip on a handhold when the car began accelerating. Looking into the backseat of the limousine, Hill saw that the right rear portion of the president’s head was missing.

  Nearly everyone present recalled a pause of several seconds between the first burst of fire and the final two shots, these coming rapidly, one on top of the other. It was the third and final shot, or volley of shots, that killed President John F. Kennedy. Until then, he had been immobile and quiet, only sagging slightly to his left. Then his head pitched forward violently for a split second only to be pushed hard to the left and rear. A halo of crimson liquid and tissue surrounded his head momentarily and then fell to the rear. The head shot lifted him slightly, then threw him against the car’s backseat. He bounced forward and over into his wife’s lap.