Earl Warren, chief justice of the U. S. Supreme Courtwww. HistoryChannel.
com”What moved some misguided wretch to do this horrible deed may never be known to us. ” (September 27, 1964)On September 27, 1964, the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released after a 10-month investigation, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone. The presidential commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, also found that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on live national television, had no prior contact with Oswald. According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally, were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald’s life, including his visit to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives.
Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed. KENNEDY IS ASSASSINATEDSHOT BY SNIPER IN DALLASGOV. CONNALLY HURT IN ATTACK ON MOTORCADEMrs. Kennedy Cradles Husbands Blood-Smeared Head, Cries, Oh, NoSt.
Louis Post-DispatchNovember 22, 1963Confusion reigned in Dallas, Texas, and throughout the United States as the details of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination began to emerge. Because this account was written the day of Kennedy’s death, it may contain information that has been subsequently revised or updated. By Richard DudmanDallas, Nov. 22President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed today as he was riding in an open limousine through the streets of Dallas.
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was riding in a car behind the President’s and was not hurt in the sniper’s attack. When Mr. Kennedy died less than an hour after the shooting, the Texan became the thirty-seventh President of the United States. Mr. Kennedy was 46 years; Johnson is 55.
Two or perhaps three shots were fired at the presidential car as it passed through an intersection known as the Triple underpass. The President and the Governor slumped in their seats and the limousine raced to nearby Parkland Hospital. Senator Ralph W. Yarborough (Dem. ), Texas, who was in the second car behind the President, said that he heard two or three shots that sounded like those of a deer rifle.
Shortly before Mr. Kennedy’s death became known, he was administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. He had been the first Roman Catholic President in American history. As two clergymen hovered over the President in the hospital emergency room, doctors and nurses administered blood transfusions.
He 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 died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Ga. , in April 1945. Roosevelt had been on a vacation when he died.
McKinley had been shaking hands at a reception at an exposition in Buffalo, N. Y. Lived 20 MinutesThe shooting occurred at about 12:45 p. m.
The President, mortally wounded, clung to life for 20 minutes. Assistant White House Secretary Malcolm Kilduff said the President was still alive at 1:05 p. m. Mike Cargile, a student who was standing near the scene of the tragedy, said that he saw the presidential car race past with the President slumped in the back seat and his wife, Jacqueline, lying across his body. Cargile said the Governor was slumped in the front seat. Both men were carried by stretcher into the Hospital emergency room.
Shortly afterward, a carton of blood was rushed to the door and carried inside.Yarborough said he believed that the shots came from behind and to the right of the automobiles.A photographer, who had been riding a few cars behind Yarborough, said the shots apparently came from a rifle pointed out of a fifth or sixth-story window of the Texas Book Depository Building at the
