This historical photo was taken on November 22, 1963, minutes before President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas during a presidential motorcade.[1] This photo was taken by Walt Cisco who was reporting for the Dallas Morning News. Cisco, along with the rest of America, was not prepared for what came next. The motorcade was surrounded and watched by a crowd of thousands of Americans cheering on the 35th US president. In this photo, President John F. Kennedy is accompanied by his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, the Governor of Texas, John B. Connally and Nellie B. Connally, his wife. President Kennedy is seen with a smile on his face observing the crowd of Americans watching him. President Kennedy’s convertible car is driven by Secret Service agent William R. Greer accompanied with Agent Roy H. Kellerman. The car proceeding Kennedy’s is driven by Agent Sam A. Kinney. Despite the high security surrounding the President, he was fatally shot at 12:30 pm and pronounced dead at 1:00 pm.[2] The news of the President’s death spread fairly quickly. In a questionnaire given to Americans, 82% of the sample heard news about the shooting before the President was pronounced dead.[3] One man, named Lee Harvey Oswald, watched the motorcade from the sixth-floor window of the Texas Book Depository with intent to assassinate the President. Before arriving to Texas, Kennedy knew it could end dangerously. His life already was threatened by over thirty Texans before stepping foot in Dallas. JFK even warned his wife saying, “If somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”[4]
President Kennedy’s death impacted the United States in a variety of ways. Americans felt sympathy for the Kennedy’s and felt personally and emotionally affected by this tragedy. The Assassination of President Kennedy: A Preliminary Report on Public Reactions and Behavior states that nine out of ten Americans were immediately compassionate for Jackie Kennedy and the President’s children. To add, four out of five Americans felt as if they had just lost someone remarkably close to them after hearing about the President’s death.[5] Around 50% of the Americans had trouble sleeping at night and over 40% of Americans did not want to eat after hearing about the assassination of the President.[6] This tragic event is significant to American history because it did not only have effects on the American people, but also caused significant changes to the United States legislation. Firstly, the federal law at the time required that Kennedy’s investigation must be done by Texas’ jurisdiction, and not the FBI’s. Against this protocol, the FBI immediately began investigating Kennedy’s death. The FBI investigation legally began based on Oswald’s assault of a Dallas police officer. Without the FBI’s resources, they would have not been able to declare Oswald the shooter in less than 24 hours. Lyndon B. Johnson was unsatisfied by the performance of the Texas authorities and declared Executive Order No. 11130 to gain access to all information relating to JFK’s assassination and to proceed under a federal investigation. This order was called the Warren Commission.[7] In addition, conspiracy that Oswald had an accomplice still remain relevant. Since Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered two days after President Kennedy was fatally shot, he was never tried for the President’s murder. The evidence uncovered against Oswald was counterbalanced by the evidence that proves his innocence. Finding Oswald’s fingerprints on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository could be viewed as useless because that is where he worked and does not put him there specifically at the time of the assassination. Eyewitnesses also claim to have seen him less than ten minutes before it happened and two minutes after the shooting. There is also significant medical, ballistic, and physical evidence that shows that more than one gunman fired at Kennedy and Connally.[8] The assassination of President Kennedy will continue to leave a lasting effect on Americans for centuries to come.
[1] Cisco, Walt. [President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy in Motorcade, Dallas, Texas], 1963, Dallas Morning News, Dallas, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JFK_limousine.png.
[2] Jacob J. Feldman & Paul B. Sheatsley, “The Assassination of President Kennedy: A Preliminary Report on Public Reactions and Behaviors,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 28, Number 2 (1964): 192.
[3] Thomas J. Banta, “The Kennedy Assassination: Early Thoughts and Emotions,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 28, Number 2 (1964): 218.
[4] David Emory Shi, America: A Narrative History 12, Volume 2 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2021), 1194.
[5] Jacob J. Feldman & Paul B. Sheatsley, “The Assassination of President Kennedy: A Preliminary Report on Public Reactions and Behaviors,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 28, Number 2 (1964): 195.
[6]Ibid., 198.
[7] Michael L. Kurtz, “The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Historical Perspective,” The Historian 45, Number 1 (1982): 1-4
[8] Ibid., 12-13