I've always been fascinated by the Kennedy family. They had all that power; all that audacity.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy added even more to my fascination. It was how it happened; when it happened and where it happened... in Dallas which as a native Texan, was in my own backyard. I've read a great deal about that fateful day in Dallas all those years ago.
I won't bother with who did it or why, but I will share what I've learned about several of aspects of the case that hardly ever get any press.
Permit me to preface this with how I view benchmark dates on the calendar. I consider everything/anything that happened after my birthday in April 1959 to be (as they say) "Modern Times". That stands to reason; that'when my life began.
But I also consider two other dates to be seminal; to be obvious points of reference in my life and that of humanity, really. After all the tragic events took place on September 11, 2001, I everything changed after that day. I also look at November 22, 1963 and in a sense, I feel the same way. Those two events were existential nightmares. We.....and not just Americans.....lost something after those those two infamous days--an innocense, a naïveté, a sense of security. Consequently, those of us beyond a certain age, view life as that which existed before the assassination, before the terrorist attacks, and life after each event.
<b>MY MEMORY OF NOVEMBER 22, 1963</b>
I was exactly four and a half years old that day. My memories are a bit vague, but I do remember the moment the world found out that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. For me, that day began shortly after noon. I'd eaten lunch and it was time for my afternoon nap. My mother who'd just started rocking me to sleep, was watching her favorite soap opera, "As the World Turns", which focused on the many trials and tribulations of the fictitious Hughes family of the fictitious, but perfectly halcyon berg of Oakdale, Any State---U.S.A.
On that day, I remember the soap and at just under age five, I really didn't understand...or remember what the characters were talking about. With the advent of You Tube, history buffs have corrected that for me. Matriarch, Nancy Hughes and her father-in-law "Grandpa" were in the living room <a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jfk-dallas-49-years-ago/jfk1-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-15016"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-15016" title="jfk1" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/jfk1.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>talking about their problematic daughter-in-law, Lisa when the TV screen suddenly went dark and silent. . A solid black screen replaced the picture at first. That was followed by a full screen shot of what was then called a camera card, depicting a network news bulletin. Then, a man's voice pierced the silence. I would later learn it was that of legendary CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite. He relayed that shots had been fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas and there was a report that he'd been wounded. A few minutes later, another update confirming that Kennedy had been shot and was undergoing emergency surgery at Parkland Hospital.
My mother was upset. She was a card-carrying Democrat, as most Texans were back then, but aside from party affiliation, she respected the Kennedy family, especially their elan, their style and<em> in-your-face Catholicism</em>. Additionally, she and Jackie Kennedy were the same age. I remember my mother holding me and saying, "That poor woman. That poor woman!".
A few minutes later, Cronkite appeared in full screen to announce that Kennedy had died of a gunshot wound to the head. That vital young man had been shot dead in the streets of a major metropolitan city. It must have been an incredibly surreal moment for the nation, if the mood in my house was any indication. That's when my mother did what everyone else was doing at that very moment--she cried
<b>OSWALD</b>
Fifty years later, there are still so many questions about what actually happened in Dealey Plaza on that day. And many of them focus on Lee Harvey Oswald, a Communist sympathizer and avowed Marxist who was attested and charged, at least in public opinion, with the murder of the President.
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Many didn't believe Osesld did it then and many still don't believe it today. I suppose it's because we have a tough time grappling with the fact that a sawed-off, Napoleonic sized narcissist and former Marine could buy a 20-year old Italian-made, Manlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle, with a bent scope through the mail, using a fake name: Alex Hiddel. He then supposedly positioned himself in a sniper's nest of corrugated boxes near a window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.; he took his gun, aimed, somehow got off three shots in less than six seconds and killed the most powerful man in the world.
Well, maybe he did.
And maybe he didn't.
Perhaps Oswald was the patsy he claimed he was shortly after his arrest in the Texas Theater that afternoon. Maybe he was part of some vast covert NSA/CIA to force a coup d'état or maybe it was to escalate the Vietnam War, as filmmaker Oliver Stone would have us believe. I don't know and as I mentioned earlier, who pulled the trigger and why won't be the crux of this post.
All I want to accomplish on this, now the 50th anniversary56thbanniversary of JFK's assassination, is to share with you a few, little known facts associated with the sad, bleak day in Dallas.
<h3><strong>A LITTLE BACKGROUND</strong></h3>
Jack and Jackie Kennedy were perceived by most as the 'it' couple. They were young, good-looking, hadbtwo cute children. The office itself and The White Hoise seemed reenergized, After four years of a rather bland Eisenhower administration. The White House had become elegant. JFK was charming; tanned and savvy. Jackie was educated, knew fashion and had an uncanny sense of style. No other modern First Lady came close to matching Jackie's elan.
People flocked to them both to<a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=15017" rel="attachment wp-att-15017"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-15017" title="jfk-jack-and-jackie-at-airport" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/jfk-jack-and-jackie-at-airport.jpg" alt="" width="204" height="299" /></a> witness hopefully catch just a glimmer of their youthful exuberance. And on that fateful autumn day, onlookers in Dallas weren't disappointed. Jackie's now infamous two piece, Channel knock-off in vibrant raspberry pink wool with a blue velvet collar and matching pillbox hat was a huge hit. Mrs. Kennedy finished off her ensemble with white wrist length gloves and corresponding blue pumps.
A little more about that iconic pink suit: It was made in 1961 by the New York dress salon of Chez Ninon. It is reportedly a copy of a Chanel pink boucle wool suit that had an estimated cost of $1,000 in 1963 dollars. In a 2010 Coco Chanel biography, it's claimed that Chanel provided the material for the suit, and that Chez Ninon merely "assembled it." Jackie wore the suit several times between 1961 and 1963.
It was at President Kennedy's request that she wear the outfit in Dallas. He said she looked<em> "ravishing </em><em>in it."</em>
November 22nd, 1963 dawned rainy in Dallas. One of Texas' famed blue northers was due in later that day and the Presidential party, it would be greeted with Indian Summer's last grasp at somewhat warmer temperatures. The mercury rose to 72 degrees in Dallas that morning. Jackie was probably a bit uncomfortable all decked out in a wool suit.
During the initial campaign three years earlier, Jackie learned to hate political stumping. But weeks earlier, she reluctantly agreed to accompany her husband to mend political fences in the Democratically fractured state of Texas. Even with Texan, Lyndon Johnson on the ticket as Vice President, Texas was undecided and could quite possibly go Republican in the presidential election in November 1964. The party needed Kennedy's deft political touch and Jackie's charm and grace to get it reunified and back on solid Democratic Party footing.
Dallas was the last leg of a three city Texas tour. Earlier in the week, Kennedy had been in Houston and in San Antonio where he was warmly received in both cities.
Air Force One landed at Dallas' Love Field late on the morning of Novermber 22. The President and Mrs. Kennedy were met by then Texas Governor, John Connelly and his wife, Nellie. All four boarded a new, 1964 year model dark blue (known as Kennedy blue to insiders) Lincoln limousine convertible whichknown as the X1 by the secret service. It would take the nine car motorcade from the airport through downtown Dallas to the Trade Mart, where Kennedy was scheduled to appear as a keynote speaker at a luncheon in his honor.
He never made it.
As the limousine carrying the Connallys and the Kennedys wound its way through the friendly crowd that had lined the streets, Texas First Lady, Nellie Connally turned to President Kennedy, who was in a seat behind her, and said, "<em>Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." </em> A fraction of a second after that at 12:30 pm (CST), gunfire erupted in Dealey Plaza.
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When the proverbial smoke had cleared, President Kennedy had been shot in the throat first, then in the head; Connelly was wounded in the chest and <a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jfk-dallas-49-years-ago/zaprudercamera-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-15020"><img class="alignright wp-image-15020" style="width:171px;height:168px;" title="Zaprudercamera" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/zaprudercamera.jpg" alt="" width="172" height="192" /></a>thigh, presumably, by the same "single bullet" that would ultimately kill the president.
Many say that had Kennedy not been wearing his back brace for injuries sustained during the PT-109 incident during WWII, he might have survived since the brace kept him upright, preventing him from either slumping sufficiently enough forward or to his leg to avoid the lethal head shot. But thats’s just fairly common hearsay.
<b>THE ZAPRUDER FILM </b>
<span style="color:var(--color-text);">A Dallas area clothing manufacturer named Abraham Zapruder, filmed the last stretch of the motorcade on his new Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Camera powered by a spring-wound mechanism, hand-held camera. In doing so, he recorded history.</span>
"The Zapruder Film" has become the most viewed piece of celluloid in history. It captures the exact moment when both men were shot, including the very graphic frame 313...the now infamous fatal head shot. Zapruder stood atop one of the concrete pedestals that still jutt out from the John Neely Bryan north pergola overlooking Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. He filmed from the time the presidential limousine turned onto Elm Street about 12:30 pm (CST) until it passed out of view under a railway overpass. The sequence contains 486 frames, or 26.6 seconds of Kodachrome II 8 mm safety film, of which 343 of the frames (18.7 seconds in total ) show the president's limousine.
<a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/112263-other-jfk-assassination-facts/jackie-kennedy-climbs-out-the-back-of-the-limo/" rel="attachment wp-att-13496"><img title="jackie-kennedy-climbs-out-the-back-of-the-limo" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/jackie-kennedy-climbs-out-the-back-of-the-limo.png?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="177" /></a>
In the fleeting seconds after the fatal head wound, the film also shows a frantic Mrs. Kennedy climbing out onto the trunk of the limo, not to shield her husband; not to escape the line of fire and not to help theSecret SecretService Agent Clint Hill climb aboard the moving vehicle, but to instinctively retrieve a portion of his brain where it landed. Her actions are clear in subsequent frames of the film.
As just mentioned, Secret Service agent Clint Hill who'd been riding one car back, rushed to the limo, climbed aboard and threw his body on top of Mrs. Kennedy and her wounded husband, then shouted for driver to head to nearby Parkland Hospital, which was part of the disaster plan, something for which the Service always prepares. The President and Governor Connally were rushed into two separate Operating Rooms. Doctor's worked frantically to save both men, but Kennedy's head wound was mortal. A Catholic priest, named named Father John Huber was called in to administer Last Rites and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States was pronounced dead.
Dallas based Oneal's Funeral Home was called and asked to deliver a high-end bronze casket which would be used to transport the President's body back to Washington on board Air Force One. Lyndon Johnson, fearing foreign attack in the assassination's aftermath, asked to be sworn in as President immediately. Texas Federal Judge, Sarah T. Hughes was called and came aboard the presidential jet to administer the Oath of Office. Johnson asked that Mrs. Kennedy be present and she was, physically anyway. She was still in her blood soaked pink wool suit. She declined several offers to change her clothing, saying she "wanted the world to see what they'd done to Jack."
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Johnson put one hand, not on a Bible, but rather on a Roman Catholic missal that belonged to JFK. It's a book containing all the prayers and responses for celebrating mass through the year. It was found near JFK's bed on board Air Force One. With one hand in the air and in the fleeting seconds before Air Force One took off toward the east late in the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Lyndon Baines Johnson became the 36th President of the United States. This was a perfect example of the transfer of power in a free, Democratic society.
<em>Swift......effortless.....complete.</em>
Network TV cameras were on hand to capture Air Force One when it touched down hours later at Andrews Air Force Base. A shocked nation watched as President Kennedy's casket was removed from the jet and taken to an awaiting hearse. Mrs. Kennedy was helped out of the plane as well. She appeared weak and ragged. The day's trauma had been clearly etched on her face. And then there was all of that blood. The splattering on her legs and skirt was quite visible, but mercifully obscured by the darkened and grainy images of early 1960's black and white broadcast technology.
Consequently, Judge Hughes has so far been the only woman to legally swear-in a US President in history.
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<h3><strong>WHAT HAPPENED TO JACKIE'S SUIT?</strong></h3>
Once she arrived back at the White House, Mrs. Kennedy insisted that she remain in the suit as she began making arrangements for a State Funeral. There were matters of protocol to sort through, plans of all kinds she had to make. She had impromptu meetings to attend and important phone calls jk
to make. She didn't take off the suit until 5:00 the next morning. She handed it to her private attendant who folded it--still blood soaked--then put it in a brown cardboard box.
Several months after that terrible day in Dallas, that same box arrived at the National Archives in Washington, DC. The return address was on O Street, the Georgetown residence of Jacqueline Kennedy's mother. Packed inside was the Jackie's pink wool suit, her stockings....the navy pumps she wore that afternoon. At the bottom of the box, were dark-colored flecks. At first, officials thought it was rust. It was actually flecks of dried blood.
The contents of the box were in their original packaging until the early 1990's. That's when efforts were made to preserve the outfit. The skirt and jacket ---a perfect size 6--- now lie flat, with a suggestion of a human form created by acid-free tissue paper, carefully folded inside the sleeves. The dark shell blouse that Jackie wore underneath the jacket is there as well, so are her blue pumps, a matching purse and her hose. The box is kept in a windowless room. The air inside is changed six times an hour and the temperature is kept at a temperature that never dips below 65-degrees and never hovers higher than 68-degrees. Humidity is maintained at 40-percent. Officials believe that in this environment, the suit will last indefinitely.
And there it remains today. It's stored in a custom-designed corrugated board box which rests on a gray steel shelf in a secured area of an annexed warehouse in Maryland belonging to the National Archives. It's never been cleaned, nor will it be.
In the mid-1990s, the suit was moved to a new, second Archives building in College Park. In 2003, a deed of gift was secured from Caroline Kennedy schlossberg, by that time, the sole surviving Kennedy heir. She stipulated that the suit not be displayed for the life of the deed - 100 years. When it runs out in 2103, the right to display it can be renegotiated by thesurviving linear family members.
No one knows what happened to the blood soaked gloves. The famous pillbox hat — removed at Parkland Hospital while Mrs. Kennedy waited for doctors to confirm what she already knew — was last known to be in the hands of her personal secretary, Mary Gallagher. She was with Jackie at Parkland Hospital.
<blockquote>
<h3>"<em>While standing there I was handed Jackie’s pillbox hat and couldn’t help noticing the strands of her hair still beneath the hat pin. I could almost visualize her yanking it from her head.”</em></h3>
</blockquote>
What happened to the hat after that is unknown.
<h3><strong>ABOUT THE ORIGINAL CASKET</strong></h3>
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OnceKennedy’s the bronze,Secret silk-linedService casketdetail carryingbrought Presidentthe Kennedy'scasket bodyon arrived at Bethesdaboard Air Force Base for an autopsyOne, afrantically newremoving casketseats wasto acquiredmake fromway Gawler's, a D.C. based funeral home. This isfor the one in which the President would eventually be buriedcasket. And the original casket? TheKeep onein obtainedmind from Oneal's Funeral Homethat in Dallas? Well1963, afterAF-1 hagglingwas to reducejust a sizable charge for themodified bronzeBoeing model707, theslightly billlonger wasthan finallya paid-contemporary 737,--$4000.00--- a fewbut yearsmore laternarrow.
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Gawler's came into possession of the Dallas casket when it replaced it with one of their own; a top of the line mahogany coffin. A few days after the funeral, Gawler's turned the Oneal coffin over to the National Archives, where it was kept in a secure vault in the basement.
At the Kennedy family's insistence, the polished bronze casket used to initially transport the president's body, should be dumped into the ocean. Despite concerns that the casket was government property, Robert Kennedy believed it belonged to the family and demanded that, "we can get rid of it any way we want to," according to a memo recounting their telephone conversation.conversations
About two weeks later, on February 18, 1966, an Air Force van picked up the casket at the National Archives building in downtown Washington. To make sure that it would sink, the casket was loaded with three 80-pound bags of sand. Numerous holes were drilled into the coffin and a pine box that encased it. It was bound with metal banding tape and rigged with parachutes to break the impact of hitting the water.
At 8:38 a.m., a C-130 cargo plane airplane carryingpicked up the casket leftat Andrews Air Force Base and flew off the Maryland-Delaware coast. The plane descended to 500 feet and at 10 a.m., the tail hatch of the plane was opened and the 660-pound load was pushed out. The parachutes opened shortly before impact and the entire rigged load remained intact and sank sharply, clearly and immediately. The aircraft circled the drop point for some 20 minutes at 500 feet to ensure that it sank and didn't return to the surface.
The drop point -- in 9,000 feet of water just beyond the continental shelf -- was chosen because it was away from regularly traveled air and shipping lines and would not be disturbed by trawling and other broom of the sea activities.
The drop point -- in 9,000 feet of water beyond the continental shelf -- was chosen because it was away from regularly traveled air and shipping lines and would not be disturbed by trawling and other broom of the sea activitiesTHEV
ISecretSecret Service Agents Jim Sibert and Frances X. O'Neill, met the casket At Andrews AFB and accompanied it to Bethesda for the autopsy. They were assigned to stay with the body and, be present "to obtain bullets reportedly in the president's body."
<a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jfk-dallas-49-years-ago/jfks-shirt-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-15019"><img class="alignleft wp-image-15019" style="width:240px;height:259px;" title="jfks-shirt" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/jfks-shirt.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>When Kennedy's body was removed from its casket, it was nude, wrapped only in white sheets. The one around his head was blood soaked. His eyes were fixed open, Sibert recalled. The suit Kennedy wore in the open-topped limousine had been cut off in the ER at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and presumably saved for evidence. His suit, pin striped button down shirt, shoes and his back brace are all in the National Archives, in the exact same condition they were in Dallas almost five decades earlier.
It should also be mentioned that Texas Governor, John Connally who was also in the limo that day in Dallas, was shot as well. Interesting though that almost immediately following the assassination, Connally's jacket was sent to the dry cleaners, completely destroying its value as evidence. It's believed that his family still has the jacket.
<h3><strong>THE PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE </strong></h3>
<div>The Secret Service dubbed the 1961 four-door Lincoln Continental as the 100-X. On November 22, 1963 it was driven by Secret Service Agent, Bill Greer and Agent Roy Kellerman was in the right front passenger seat. Is that relevant? No, but they've rarely ever been mentioned in assassination investigations.</div>
<div></div>
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As for the presidential limo itself, It was modified to a convertible (probably not a great idea in retrospect) and also featured an array of high-tech gadgets including a radio link back to the White House. The car featured a variety of tops that could be popped on when needed and by the time the car was finished being modified, a 1962 grill and bumper assembly was added to keep the car up to date. At the time of the assassination, the car was a dark navy blue. In the photo above, the color is obvious. The color was often referred to as Kennedy Blue.
It was however, painted black following JFK's murder.
It was also modified again when officials returned it to a closed-in sedan, but this time with bulletproof armor. For some reason, the car (and I have to admit, I find this fact <em>incredibly</em> morbid considering the bloody reality that happened in that backseat) continued on as a presidential limousine until 1967 and was finally retired from government service in 1978.
It's now on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
<strong>THAT ICONIC PHOTO AND OSWALD'S LAST WORDS</strong>
EYewitness accounts say Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Office, J.D? TIppett jus a few blocks from Oak Cliff rooming house he sometimes called home. He changed clothes, grabbed a jacket and a revolver and headed to a a bus stop.
presumable for a safe house and
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Jack Ruby drove into downtown Dallas to send a money order to one of his employees. He then walked to the nearby police headquarters where Oswald was about to be transferred by armored car, to the nearby county jail. He made his way to the basement.
At 11:15 AM Oswald had a final conversation with Inspector, Thomas J. Kelley with the US Secret Service. He approached Oswald and said that as a Secret Service agent, he was anxious to talk with him as soon as he secured counsel, because Oswald was charged with the assassination of the President but had denied guilt.
Oswald said, "<em>I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and that after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you</em>." Oswald was then handcuffed to a Dallas detective. The pair walked out into the carport in the basement.
At 11:21 am, Jack Ruby stepped out from a crowd of reporters and photographers and fired a Colt Cobra .38 into Oswald’s abdomen, fatally wounding him. Millions of Americans saw it as it actually happened live on a nationally televised broadcast shown on all three TV networks.
Why exactly Ruby killed Oswald still aren't clear, even 50 years later. Some think it was all part of the massive conspiracy to keep Oswald from talking. After all, the 24-year- old had insisted while in custody that he was 'a patsy'. There's also evidence which suggests that the shooting was performed on a whim, because Ruby left his beloved Dachsund, Sheba, in the car. It's been said that he told authorities that he did it to help the city of Dallas “redeem” itself in the eyes of the public and that Oswald’s death would spare Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of appearing at his murder trial. It's been said that by shooting allowed Ruby, in his mind, avenge Kennedy's assassination.
He was eventually convicted of Oswald’s murder.
During the six months following the assassination, Ruby repeatedly asked to speak to the members of the Warren Commission, which initially showed no interest in having any conversations whatsoever. Only after Ruby's sister Eileen wrote letters to the commission, did members agree to talk to him. In June 1964, Chief Justice Earl Warren and then n-Representative Gerald Ford and other commission members went to Dallas to see Ruby. He asked Warren several times to transfer him for facilities in Washington, DC, insisting that his life was in danger in Dallas, plus he wanted an opportunity to make additional statements, something he felt he couldn't do in Texas. Warren told Ruby that a transfer was virtually impossible due to so many legal barriers, security and intense public interest.
Ruby's cell was isolated from the rest of the prisoners, near the chief's office, with full-time security. He liked special attention. He particularly enjoyed his daily shipment of fan mail, over 50 letters a day congratulating him, calling him a hero. But eventually, the fan mail stopped arriving and Ruby lapsed into a deep depression.
He later developed a severe case of pnuemonia and tests revealed he had lung cancer. He was taken to Parkland Hospital, the same location where both Kennedy and his alleged assassin died from their gunshot wounds, almost four years earlier. He only added to the hospital's historical significance when he died there on January 3, 1967. Jack Ruby was 55 years-old.
Considering the relatively short time period between the time of the assassination and his death, some suspected that Ruby knew of his terminal cancer when he shots Oswald. When asked by the House Select committee on Assassinations if Ruby could have known about his cancer, Dallas County medical examiner Dr. Earl Rose, who performed the autopsy on Ruby, replied, "no".
Ruby stated publicly that he was convinced he'd been injected with cancer cells. He was buried in Westlawn Cemetery in Chicago beside the graves of his parents.
Shortly before his death, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his death sentence for Lee Harvey Oswald's murder and granted him a new trial. The new trial was scheduled to be held in Wichita Falls however no date had been set when Ruby died.
<span style="text-decoration:underline;">SIDE NOTE:</span> The above photograph is one we've all seen over the years. It's become fairly representative of those five days in November, 1963. It was shot by a local news photographer on a Sunday morning, less than 48 hours after Kennedy was killed, in the basement of the Dallas Police Department , just a few blocks from where the assassination had occurred. The man behind the lens that morning was Dallas Times-Herald reporter, Robert H. Jackson who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography for the photo, which Pulitzer judges say showed “<em>the hunched determination of the assassin, the painful gasp of the handcuffed victim, and the shock of helplessness on the face of a policeman".</em>
<h3><strong>PERIPHERAL ASSASSINATION TIDBITS</strong></h3>
Abraham Zapruder would later recall that he immediately knew that President Kennedy's wound was fatal as he saw his head "...explode like a firecracker".
A Dallas reporter had seen Zapruder filming the event and asked him for the film. Eventually, it landed in the hands of the FBI. Once night fell on November 22, Zapruder was contacted at home by editors of Life magazine who arranged to view the film, after which Zapruder sold the print rights to the magazine for $50,000. On November 24, Life purchased all rights to the film for a total of $150,000 (approximately $1,176,000 today.
Zapruder said that he had nightmares following the assassination. He decided that, while he was willing to make money from the film, he didn't want the public to see the full horror he'd seen. So, he sold the film to Life under the conditions that frame 313, which showed the fatal shot, would never be published. Zapruder later donated $25,000 to the widow of Officer J. D. Tippit, the Dallas police officer who was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald 45 minutes after President Kennedy was killed.
In 1975, Time, Inc., which owned Life magazine, sold the film back to the Zapruder family for $1. In 1978, the Zapruders allowed the film to be stored at the National Archives and Records Administration where it remains. In 1999, the Zapruders donated the copyright of the film to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Zaprudervsaid he was severely traumatized by what he'd witnessed and had nightmares. He determined that, while he was willing to profit from the film, he didn't want the public to see the full horror of what he had seen. Therefore, a condition of the sale to Life was that frame 313, showing the fatal shot, would be withheld. He later donated $25,000 to the widow of Officer J. D. Tippit, thebDallas police officer who was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald 45 minutes after President Kennedy was killed.
In 1975, Time, Inc. , which owned Life magazine, sold the film back to the Zapruder family for one dollar. In 1978, the Zapruders allowed the film to be stored at the National Archives and Records Administration where it remains. In 1999, the Zapruders donated the copyright of the film to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Abraham Zapruder stayed in Dallas where he died in August, 1970. It's said he never picked up another camera again.
OSWALD'S WESPONARY AND HIS BURIAL.
As previously mentioned, the rifle Oswald used, a 1940's era Italian bolt-action, Mannlicher Carcano, was purchased in March of 1963. An investigation of his possessions revealed a receipt for the money order heused to purchase the rifle. . The purchase amount totalled $21.45. This was for one rifle and scope, but no clip or bullets. No receipt was were ever found for the .38 pistol in his belongings.. He allegedly used to shoot officer, TIppit. The rifle and gun are in the National Archives.
Oswald is buried in Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park in Fort Worth. The original tombstone, which included Oswald's full name and dates of birth and death, was stolen; today, the grave is marked by a stone which reads simply, <em>Oswald. </em>
Other than Oswald's immediate family, there were few mourners at his burial. There were no pallbearers which is why funeral director Paul Groody drafted seven reporters to help carry the coffin.
It 's worth noting that Oswald was killed before standing trial for the murder of President Kennedy, so under due process, he's still presumed innocent by the law.
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<b>COLLECTORS AND THEIR MORBID FASCINATION </b>
In 1994, Oswald's morgue toe tag and a lock of his hair fetched $8,800 at a Dallas auction. In 2009, the gray fedora worn by Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald has sold for $53,775 at an auction of items linked to Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The shackles Ruby wore when he lay dying at Parkland Memorial Hospital sold for $11,054 and an X-ray of his head garnered $776. At this same auction, a front page of The Dallas Morning News that Kennedy had signed for a maid at a Fort Worth hotel on the morning of his death sold for $38,837. The paper was worth a nickel when it came off the presses in November, 1963.
<strong>THE RIDERLESS HORSE IN JFK'S FUNERAL PROCESSION</strong>
The horse and the boots fascinated me as a kid. I never understood the meaning until I composed this post. It seems the custom of a horse following a caison bearing a casket dates back to the time of Genghis Khan when a horse was sacrificed to serve the fallen warrior in the next world. The horse later came to symbolize a warrior who would ride no more.
The empty boots facing backward in the stirrups has two meanings. First, being empty indicated the individual would ride no more. Secondly, they suggested the deceased was reversed in the saddle, taking one last look back at the troops he commanded.
The riderless horse is an honor given to an officer in the Army of Marine Corp who ranked as colonel or higher. This includes presidents, whether they served in the military are not. This is, of course, by virtue of having been the country's commander in chief . The Secretary of Defense can also be given the honor,. Abraham Lincoln was the first president of the United States to be officially honored by the inclusion of the caparisoned horse (as its called) in his funeral cortege.<a href="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jfk-dallas-49-years-ago/jfk-riderlesshorse/" rel="attachment wp-att-15025"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-15025" title="jfk RiderlessHorse" src="https://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/jfk-riderlesshorse.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="222" /></a>
The most famous riderless horse used iJFK's funeral was Black Jack, a half Morgan horse named for General of the Armies, John "Black Jack" Pershing. Black Jack took part in the state funerals of Presidents Kenendy, Hoover and Johnson And also for the funeral of General Douglas MacArthur.
Black Jack was born in Oklahoma--oddly enough--on November 22, 1952. He was the last of the Quartermaster-issue horses branded with the Army's U.S. insignia (on the left shoulder) and his Army serial number on the left side of his neck. He died in early 1976, and was buried on the parade ground of Fort Myer's Summerall Field with full military honors, one of only two US Army horses to be given that honor
<strong>A TREAURE TROVE DISCOVERED </strong>
In 2006, 15 boxes of assassination files and artifacts, which basically hadn't seen the light of day since the mid 60's, were found in a huge safe in the the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. It included Jack Ruby’s gun holster and the certain items of clothing belonging to Oswald on the day he was shot and killed. The items were kept secret from the public for decades — although their existence was certainly no secret to every Dallas County D.A. since 1963.
Among the documents is an alleged transcript of a conversation between Oswald and Jack Ruby, planning the assassination together on behalf of the Mafia. This document is considered by most assassination experts as “highly suspect” and dismissed as either a fake or possibly, even a possible movie script.
<strong>THE OFFICER IN THE TAN SUIT AND STETSON HAT</strong>
In the iconic photo of Oswald's murder, former Dallas homicide detective James Leavelle, is the man escorting the alleged assassin through the Dallas Police headquarters to an awaiting car for transfer to Dallas County Jail. Ruby appeared from their left, stuck a .38 revolver in Oswald's abdomen. Seconds before that fatal shot, Leavelle jokingly told Oswald, 'Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they're as good a shot as you are.' Leavelle said Oswaled just smirked and replied, ‘Nobody’s going to shoot at me.’ ”
Leavelle knew Ruby by sight. In fact, many cops knew Ruby. He was something of a police groupie. Apparently, it wasn't uncommon to see him hanging around the police station, plus he owned the Carousel Club, a burlesque night club in downtown Dallas. It was a cop hangout.
After Leavelle watched Ruby approach and fire a muffled shot into Oswald's stomach, he says he tried to wrestle Oswald out of the way, but he was still shot. Oswald moaned in pain as Leavelle eased him to the basement floor. Eyewitnesses say someone shouted, “Jack, you son-of-a-bitch!” after the shot was fired. Ruby was wrestled to the ground. Leavelle, still handcuffed to Oswald, rode in the ambulance with him. He testified that Oswald never regained consciousness. At the ER at Parkland, Leavelle says he asked for the bullet. It was removed and he testified that he asked the surgeon to inscribe the initials LHO on it. He wrapped it in tissue, put it in his pocket and later turned it over to the feds as evidence.
Although this contradicts what the Warren Report states, Leavelle claims he was one of the first detectives to interview Oswald after his arrest at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff a few hours after the assassination, mainly for the murder of Dallas Police Officer Tippitt earlier that afternoon.
The veteran detective who retired from the DPD in 1976, is still alive as of this update, but nearing 100 years of age. As of a few years ago, he was still quite lucid and gave the occasional interview. He's stated many times that he personally believes Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy.
The famous tan Stetson and his matching suit he wore that day, were donated to the Sixth Floor Museum at the former school book depository in Dallas. They're on display there, along with Zapruder's camera and hundreds of other artifacts and items related to those horrific three days in November, 1963.
<strong>THE ALLEGED "STRANGE DEATHS" OF SO MANY WITNESSES</strong>
I've heard about this for years---that an inordinately large number of witnesses to the assassination in Dallas, mainly those who testified before the Warren Commission, died under strange and mysterious circumstances. In the late 60's, The London Sunday Times reported that the odds of these witnesses dying in such unusual ways be February of 1967 was something like a one hundred thousand trillion to one. That number almost sounds like a Bushism. The author admitted before the Select Committee on Assassinations a few years later that by including that number, he had made a "careless journalistic mistake."
Here's the letter in which the author recanted. It was read before the Committee:
<blockquote><em>Our piece about the odds against the deaths of the Kennedy witnesses was, I regret to say, based on a careless journalistic mistake and should not have been published. This was realized by The Sunday Times' editorial staff after the first edition — the one which goes to the United States and which I believe you have — had gone out, and later editions were amended.</em>
<em>There was no question of our actuary having got his answer wrong. It was simply that we asked him the wrong question. He was asked what were the odds against 15 named people out of the population of the United States dying within a short period of time to which he replied — correctly — that they were very high. However, if one asks what are the odds against 15 of those included in the Warren Commission index dying within a given period, the answer is, of course, that they are much lower. Our mistake was to treat the reply to the former question as if it dealt with the latter — hence the fundamental error in our first edition report, for which we apologize.</em>
<em>None of the editorial staff involved in this story can remember the name of the actuary we consulted, but in view of what happened you will, I imagine, agree that his identity is hardly material.</em></blockquote>
The letter admitting the 'mistake' , was signed by the newspaper's lawyer.
Interesting.
In his book, Crossfire, Jim Marrs included a list of 103 witnesses who he claim died in strange, mysterious circumstances between 1963 and 1976. They're too many to mention here, so please go to this<strong><a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeaths.htm"> link </a></strong>later to read about the deaths. It is interesting indeed.
<h3><strong>THE DOROTHY KILGALLEN CONNECTION</strong></h3>
(<em>The bulk, but not all of the following was taken from </em><strong><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=180737&mesg_id=191525">DemocraticUnderground.com</a></strong>).
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Dorothy Kilgallen was a journalist and to an even greater degree, a television game show panelist on the classic TV game shoe, "What's My Line?"
She was the only reporter to interview Jack Ruby. Not only that, she found fault with what the Warren Commission gave as the official story regarding who killed Kennedy...how and why.
She had a good contact within the Dallas Police Department, who gave her a copy of the original police log that chronicled the minute-by-minute activities of the department on the day of the assassination. . This allowed her to report that the first reaction of Chief Jesse Curry to the shots in Dealey Plaza was: "Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there." Kilgallen noted that he lied when he told reporters the next day that he initially thought the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository.
Dorothy challenged the credibility of Howard Brennan (who supposedly gave police a description of the shooter). She wrote articles about how important witnesses had been intimidated by the Dallas police or FBI.
On September 25, 1964, Kilgallen ran an interview with one of the witnesses to the shooting of Officer Tippit whom the Warren Commission never questioned. Clemons told Kilgallen that she saw two men running from the scene, neither of whom fit Oswald's description. Dorothy also approached one of Jack Ruby's lawyers, Joe Tonahill to get his client to agree to an interview. Surprisingly, Ruby agreed to talk with her. Some have speculated that Ruby wouldn't have told her anything important, but Tonahill strongly disagrees. "This interview with her was a very significant point in his classless life," Tonahill asserts. He affirmed that Ruby "cooperated with her in every way that he could, and told her the truth as he understood it to be. It was a very agreeable conversation between them. I just can't understand people doubting the sincerity of that interview."
The attorney, who observed the two in conversation, said that "I don't think there was any doubt about it, Jack was highly impressed with Dorothy Kilgallen. Of all the writers that were down there during the Ruby trial -- about 400 from all over the world -- she probably was the one that to him, was the most significant."
Kilgallen never published any information she obtained from her conversation with Jack Ruby, but some feel sure that was because she was "saving it for a book." She was under contract to Random House, which was owned by her What's My Line? co-panelist, Bennett Cerf. The intention was to produce a tome that was supposedly going to be a collection of stories about the famous murder trials she had covered.
But all that changed after the Ruby interview, She claimed that to be one of the biggest scoops of her career, in additional tomobtaining the 102-page transcript of Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission. Kilgallen was shocked at the hopelessly inept questioning of Ruby by Chief Justice Warren, and by Warren's failure to follow-up on the leads Ruby was feeding him. Famed Attorney Melvin Belli called Dorothy's scoop "the ruin of the Warren Commission."
Kilgallen claimed to have extremely relevant information gleaned from her private interview with Jack Ruby that could stop the presses. She told no one, save for her husband, and kept notes with her at all times. As stated earlier, everyone believed she was saving the news for an upcoming book, bound to be a blockbuster.
But that never happened.
On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story townhouse, just 12 hours after she appeared, live, on "What's My Line". Her hairdresser, Marc Sinclaire, found her body when he arrived the next morning. Her death was attributed to a fatal drug overdose. What's interesting here is that no one knows for sure whether her death was considered a suicide or an accidental death.
By the way, the notes on the Jack Ruby interview, the ones she never allowed out of her sight, were nowhere to be found after her death. It's also been reported that after the Ruby interview, several threats on her life had been made, but none were ever investigated.
Because of her open criticism of the Warren Commission and other US government entities, and her association with Jack Ruby and that "explosive" 1964 private interview with him, some speculate that she was murdered by members of the same alleged conspiratorial cabal that murdered JFK. Her claims that she was under surveillance by the FBI led to a theory that some people had a motive for killing her. This is partially based on the fact that throughout her career she consistently refused to identify any of her sources
Her death certificate cites the cause of death as "undetermined".
Incredibly, information from the Freedom of Information Act, accessed by reporters in the years following her death indicate that the CIA had 53 field offices around the world watching her on her foreign travels. Given this context, it's difficukt to view her untimely death as accidental. But that's just more hearsay.
Speaking ofnpossibke hearsy, I'm not sure if it's true or not, but it's been said that on May 19, 2044, the 50th anniversary of the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, providing Caroline, her last surviving child has died and considering she was born in 1957, I feel its extremely safe to assume she will be, the Kennedy Library has been instructed to release to the public a 500-page transcript of an oral history about John F. Kennedy given by Mrs. Kennedy before her death in 1994. It supposedly involves some aspect of disclosure regarding the assassination. Again, I don't know if this is true or not, but it would be lovely to think that my great nieces and nephews might someday know what I never will. Something tells me that if this revelation should ever come to fruition, the list of names and the entities involved would be astonishing and much larger than we ever thought possible.
Dorothy Kilgallen once wrote, "Justice is a big rug. When you pull it out from under one person, a lot of others fall, too."
<h3><strong>A PERSONAL NOTE</strong>/</h3>
I was working as a Reporter in Houston in 1993 and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination I was granted the unique opportunity to interview the very gracious, Dr. Marian "Pepper" Jenkins, the anesthesiologist on duty in the Emergency Room at Parkland Hospital on November 22nd, 1963.
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Once the President arrived in the ER, Jenkins began manual intubation with a breathing bag as his fellow doctors tried frantically to save Kennedy' life.. Dr. Jenkins and I talked at great length about all the things regarding his role as a person peripherally involved in one of his most important patients and one of the biggest murder mysteries of all time. He told me his opinion was that the Warren Commission's findings were correct.
But what he told me next was a story that's never really been publicized.
For reasons Jenkins couldn't recall, Mrs. Kennedy was allowed to remain in the ER that day. He remembers looking up at her once as she stood in the corner of the room, motionless. Her eyes were fixed upon her husband's body. She was cupping her hands by her upper chest. Her once white gloves, now crimson.
As doctors prepared to call the time of death , Mrs. Kennedy slowly walked over to Dr. Jenkins. She looked at him and silently, extended her arms, her hands still cupped. He asked quietly, "Yes, Mrs. Kennedy?" And with that, he held out his hand and in it, she placed a small, two-inch portion of the president's brain that she'd been holding since the shooting, almost two hours earlier.
Dr. Jenkins said she just stood there looking at him. Shock had removed all traces of life in her eyes. He remembers them being big, brown and vacant. She turned, walked away and was escorted out of the ER by several Secret Service agents.
I also asked Dr. Jenkins what his thoughts were on that day in general. He said at the time, he didn't concern himself with anything other than trying to save a man's life. He never admitted any regrets about not being able to do that, but there was a discernible wistfulness in his voice when he spoke. Obviously, the doctors did all they could, but even though medical science was limited as compared to the technology we have today, President Kennedy had been sho<em>t through</em> the head with what the subsequent Warren Commission claimed, was an entry and exit wound. Part of his grey matter was missing. Kennedy was virtually dead on arrival. Tecbology wouldn't have made a difference.
I wondered if this incredibly accomplished man of science had ever been bothered by the fact that he couldn't help save the life of the President of the United States. I wondered, but never asked if what happened in the ER at Parkland Hospital that day, made him question his skills or the validity of his Hippocratic Oath. I wondered if thoughts like this plagued him in the quiet of night or in the rush of dawn.
I didn't ask, because sometimes a reporter knows when not to delve deeper, but I got the distinct feeling this man had probably thought about November 22, 1963 quite a bit. He was a brilliant physician, but still human, after all.
Ironically, Dr. Marion "Pepper" Jenkins died a year later; on November 21, 1994, just one day before the 31st anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
May the good doctor rest in peace.
I certainly hope he is.
Laurie Kendrick 
Great piece, as always, Laurie!
Now to fill you in on a few pieces of information from ‘my side of the story’ that I’m not sure I ever shared with you when we worked together at KTRH-AM.
I was 6 years old and in first grade at University Park Elementary School in Dallas. My parents took me out of school for the day so that I could see the POTUS. My parents – both staunch Republicans – still felt it was their patriotic duty to welcome the POTUS to the city of Dallas. I distinctly remember my father saying “Seeing the POTUS ‘in person’ is a big deal. You may never see a POTUS in person the rest of your life.” Little did my father know that I would become a reporter and see every POTUS ‘in person’ from 1977-2004.
My parents and I stood at the corner of Lemmon Ave. and Inwood Road, just a couple of miles from Love Field, and watched the motorcade drive by. I waved at the Kennedys and the Connellys from my perch on the curbside in front of Friendly Chevrolet. To this day, I believe that Jackie waved back directly at me. After the motorcade passed, we returned home. My parents had purchased a stereo console a couple of weeks earlier and my father decided to turn it on and listen to the FM radio. When he turned it on all he got was ‘dead air’ on all the FM channels. He then turned it over to the AM band and the announcer on KRLD said something about President Kennedy being shot on the streets of downtown Dallas. My father walked down the hall of our house and yelled out “The sons of bitches finally did it!” and then punched a hole in the wall. He thought the Russians had shot the POTUS to start WWIII.
The next couple of days I was glued in front of our television set watching everything that was being reported and I believe that is what influenced me to go into news reporting as a career (even though I’ve now left that field). When I returned to Dallas in 2004, I began reconnecting with lots of friends from my school days. One of them is Martha Nichols whose father was H. Louis Nichols. He was a highly-respected attorney in Dallas and he is the ONLY attorney who spoke to Lee Harvey Oswald while he was in the Dallas city jail. If you watch the PBS documentary about how the events of those days forever changed the news business, you’ll see him talking about speaking to Oswald. If Oswald had gone to trial, there was a very good possibility that Mr. Nichols would have been his court-appointed attorney. Martha has told me that her mother began packing suitcases for Martha and her brother so that they could go stay with relatives who did not live in Dallas because Mr. Nichols had already started receiving ‘death threats’ in the likelihood that he would defend Oswald at trial.
My wife Betsy and I have discussed the events of that day quite often. She also attended University Park Elementary School but was in class that day. However, her mother and her aunt were also standing on Lemmon Ave. watching the motorcade drive by. For all I know they could have been only a few feet away from me. I also went to school with Bruce Shipp (he would later become my roommate and fraternity brother at Sam Houston State) whose father was Bert Shipp, the assignments editor at WFAA-TV Ch. 8 (ABC) in Dallas. Mr. Shipp was the first person that Abraham Zapruder approached about developing his now-famous film. Bert writes in great detail about this fateful encounter in his book “Details at 10” that was published in the past year. I highly recommend that anyone who is a ‘news buff’ or who has been in the news business read “Details at 10”. Mr. Shipp has an unedited copy of the Zapruder film. When Bruce and I were in high school, Bruce would take the film ‘out of wraps’ on the Kennedy assassination anniversary and show it to anyone who would come over to his house and had ‘the guts’ to watch Frame 313.
This annual observance built up over the years to the point that our senior year Bruce decided to ‘recreate’ the assassination on the street in front of the Shipps’ house complete with someone firing off a blank gun from the second floor window of their house. For years and years, Bruce held strong to the ‘conspiracy theory’ surrounding the Kennedy assassination.
Then something odd happened. Bruce became involved in the development of The Sixth Floor Museum near Dealey Plaza. And now – because of all the research and documentation that’s on display in the museum – Bruce believes that only one person was responsible for Kennedy’s death: Lee Harvey Oswald.
One last note: my father worked at a car dealership near downtown Dallas. There were nights that he would ‘work late’. Years later he confessed to me that those nights were when he would frequent some of the local bars (this is when I discovered his alcoholism) and one of them was The Carousel across the street from the Dallas Police Department headquarters. The same Carousel that was owned by Jack Ruby. We were all watching the TV at my grandmother’s house in Waco when Ruby shot Oswald. When he was shown on TV my father said “I know that guy!” Now I know why.
Like you, Laurie, there are 3 days that stick out in my mind as ‘life-changing’ events: the JFK assassination, the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the terrorist attack on the United States on 9/11. I pray to God that there won’t be any others.
Peace be with you and Happy Thanksgiving.
Reblogged this on Marina Sleeps's Blog and commented:
I am obsessed with the Kennedy assassination. So this was very informative for me. Loved it!!
What was the mans name that led the horse Black.-Jack in JFK prossesion
It was Arthur Carlson
I live in New Zealand, and was not even born when President Kennedy was assassinated. However, I find this subject fascinating and my fascination with it somewhat morbid. Although his death happened 8 years before I was born, somehow, I too think the world changed after this, A loss of innocence or something similar that I can’t quite put my finger on. This is one of the finest pieces I’ve read on the subject to date. Thanks for sharing.