JFK Assassination

1
JFK Assassination

• By Giselle Surrett
• Period 2

2
How it Happened

• On Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F.
  Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas at
  1230 p.m. He was fatally wounded by gunshots
  while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a
  presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
• Seated in front of Kennedy was the governor of
  Texas, John Connally who was also wounded in the
  gunfire. Although Governor Connally was
  critically injured, he survived.

3
Why go to Texas?

• To help generate more Democratic Party
  presidential campaign fund contributions in
  advance of the November 1964 presidential
  election.
• To begin his quest for re-election because the
  Kennedy-Johnson ticket barely won votes in Texas
  in 1960 and he wanted to get an early start on
  his campaign there.
• To repair political aggressions among several
  Texas Democratic Party members who were fighting
  amongst themselves.

4
Dealey Plaza

• This was the location where President Kennedy was
  assassinated.

5

• This is the path the motorcade took through
  Dealey Plaza.

6
The Prime Suspect

• Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the crime.
  According to the Warren Report, "Oswald was
  trained in the use of the M-1 rifle. On November
  22, 1963 Oswald was at work at the Texas School
  Book Depository located in Dealey Plaza and was
  seen with a package which contained, he says,
  "curtain rods."
• At lunch time most of the employees rushed
  outside to catch a glimpse of President Kennedy's
  motorcade. At the time the President passed by,
  no employee other than Oswald was on the sixth
  floor.

7

• On the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
  Depository, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney finds a
  snipers nest. He sees 3 spent shells and a
  diagonal crease across one box which could be a
  rifle resting place. The employees on the fifth
  floor confirmed that they had heard shots and
  even the shell casings drop above them.
• Deputy Eugene Boone found the gun a short
  distance away, standing upright between two
  stacks of cartons. It was a World War II vintage,
  Italian military carbine called a
  Mannlicher-Carcano. The rifle had a four power
  scope bolted to it. There was one shell left in
  the chamber. At that point, Lee Harvey Oswald
  left the building and was wandering around the
  streets with no plan in mind.
• Officer John D. Tippit saw Oswald walking and
  began questioning him because he fit the
  description of the man police were looking for
  over the radio. Oswald immediately shot Officer
  Tippit dead and ran into the Texas Theater.
  Police quickly converged into the theater and
  arrested Oswald.

8

• Once back at police headquarters, Oswald was
  questioned by Captain Will Fritz of Robbery and
  Homicide. No tape recorder was used for Oswalds
  interrogations and no stenographer was ever
  present.
• It was learned that he mail ordered a
  Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and his prints were
  actually found on the rifle at the depository
  building, even though he kept denying that he
  shot the president.

9

• As Oswald was being transferred to the County
  Jail, Jack Ruby approached him and unexpectedly
  shot him. He died several hours later and the
  truth would never be revealed.

10
The Grassy Knoll

• The "grassy knoll" of Dealey Plaza is this small,
  sloping hill inside the plaza that became
  infamous following the assassination. The knoll
  was above President Kennedy and to his right
  during the assassination.

11

• On the knoll were nine witnesses groundskeeper
  Emmett Hudson and two other men, standing on the
  stairs of a walk going from Elm Street to a
  parking lot
• a young black couple eating lunch on a bench in
  an alcove along that same walk
  
• Abraham Zapruder and his employee Marilyn
  Sitzman, standing on a pedestal on the west end
  of the pergola
  
• and Beatrice Hester and her husband Charles,
  sitting on a bench at the eastern end of the
  pergola.

12
Their Testimonies

• Emmett Hudson, Charles Hester, and Marilyn
  Sitzman were the only witnesses on the grassy
  knoll who gave testimony about the direction of
  the shots, saying that the shots came from the
  direction of the Texas School Book Depository.
• A majority of witnesses who testified on the
  direction of the shots said they came from the
  direction of the Depository. However, many
  witnesses thought the shots came from the
  direction of the knoll. Only five ear witnesses
  thought the shots came from two directions.

13
Single Bullet Theory

• They believed that one bullet traveled from the
  Book Depository building, through Kennedys head,
  curved through the air and hit governor Connally
  in the shoulder. This single bullet then
  supposedly backed out of Connallys thigh and was
  found on his stretcher at Parkland Hospital.

14
The Zapruder Film

• A timeline of the assassination shown by the
  Zapruder film disproves the single bullet theory.
  
  
• The video begins as follows As President Kennedy
  waved to the crowds, a shot entered his upper
  back, penetrated his neck, and exited his throat.
  
• He raised his clutched fists up to his neck and
  leaned forward and to his left, as Jacqueline
  Kennedy put her arms around him in concern.
  
• Governor John Connally, sitting with his wife in
  front of the Kennedys in the limousine, also
  reacted to being shot by a bullet that penetrated
  his back, chest and right wrist, yelling, "Oh,
  no, no, no,"
• The final shot took place when the Presidential
  limousine was passing in front of the John Neely
  Bryan north pergola concrete structure. A
  grapefruit-size hole exploded out from the right
  side of President Kennedy's head, covering the
  interior of the car and a nearby motorcycle
  officer with blood and tissue.
• This was the fatal shot that lead to his death.

15
Warren Commission

• This was the first official investigation of the
  assassination was established by President
  Johnson on November 29,1963, The commission was
  headed by Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the
  United States.
• In late September 1964, after a 10 month
  investigation, the Warren Commission Report was
  published.
  
• The Commission concluded that it could not find
  any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign
  conspiracy involving any other person's, group's,
  or countries.
• The Commission also found that Lee Harvey Oswald
  acted alone in the murder of Kennedy, and that
  Jack Ruby acted alone in the murder of Oswald.

16
More conclusions made by the Warren Commission

• The commission also concluded that only three
  bullets were fired during the assassination, and
  that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three bullets
  from the Texas School Book Depository behind the
  motorcade.
• The Commission also laid out several scenarios
  concerning the timing of the shots, but that the
  three shots were fired in a time period ranging
  from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds.
  
• The commission also concluded that one shot
  likely missed the motorcade (it could not
  determine which of the three) and the first shot
  to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the upper back,
  exited near the front of his neck and likely
  continued on to cause all of Governor Connally's
  injuries.
• They concluded that the last shot to hit anyone
  struck Kennedy in the head, fatally wounding him.
  
  

17
Suspicious Government Behavior

• Just before the 1964 presidential election,
  President Johnson ordered the Warren Commission
  documentations to be sealed against public
  availability for 75 years until the year 2039.
• In 1992 Congress enacted the President John F.
  Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of
  1992 and Congress questioned the legitimate need
  for continued protection of those records after
  three decades of secrecy.
• The purpose of the Act was to gather and hurry
  the public release of assassination related
  documents. The Act requires all documents related
  to the assassination that have not been destroyed
  to be released to the public by no later than
  2017.

18
Key Evidence Lost

• Several key pieces of evidence and documentation
  are described to have been lost, cleaned, or
  missing from the original chain of evidence
  (e.g., limousine cleaned out at hospital,
  Connally's suit dry-cleaned, Oswald's Marine
  Corps service record file lost, Connally's
  Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink
  missing, forensic autopsy photos missing, etc.)

19
Conspiracy Theories

• A number of theories exist with regard to the
  assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
  Many of these theories propose a criminal
  conspiracy involving parties such as the Central
  Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Mafia, the
  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J.
  Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson,
  Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush,
  Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro
  government and the military and the government
  interests of the United States.

20

• This is Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as
  President on board Air Force One, only a few
  hours after Kennedys death.

21

• Moments after the previous photo was taken,
  future Speaker Of The House Carl Albert winks at
  a quickly smiling LBJ while Jackie Kennedy
  continues to cry next to him.

22

• The missing evidence and suspicious government
  behavior has led several people, including
  myself, to believe that the assassination of
  President Kennedy was a conspiracy enacted to
  removed him from presidency and allow Lyndon B.
  Johnson to become president.
• At the time of Kennedy's death, Johnson was the
  subject of four major criminal investigations
  involving government contract violations,
  misappropriation of funds, money laundering and
  bribery. Because of all these accusations, there
  was talk of Kennedy removing Johnson from his
  ticket for the 1964 election. Since Johnson took
  over the presidency, all these investigations
  were terminated.

23
House Select Committee on Assassinations

• Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued
  its report, the House Select Committee on
  Assassinations reviewed the Warren Commission
  report and the underlying FBI report on which the
  Commission heavily relied. The Committee
  criticized the performance of both the Warren
  Commission and the FBI for failing to investigate
  whether other people conspired with Oswald to
  murder President Kennedy.
• The Committee Report concluded that The FBI's
  investigation of whether there had been a
  conspiracy in President Kennedy's assassination
  was seriously flawed. The conspiracy aspects of
  the investigation were characterized by a limited
  approach and an inadequate application and use of
  available resource."
• The Committee found the Warren Commission's
  investigation equally flawed The subject that
  should have received the Commission's most
  probing analysis whether Oswald acted in
  concert with or on behalf of unidentified
  co-conspirators the Commission's performance, in
  the view of the committee, was in fact flawed."

24
Conclusion

• An official investigation by the House Select
  Committee on Assassinations conducted from 1976
  to 1979, concluded that Oswald assassinated
  President Kennedy as a result of a probable
  conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely
  conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion
  by the Warren Commission that the President was
  assassinated by a lone gunman.
• The public will never know the whole truth about
  the assassination of President Kennedy until the
  year 2017 when documents can be released. So
  until then, all questions will be left
  unanswered.

25
References

• "John F. Kennedy assassination." Wikipedia, the
  free encyclopedia. 20 May 2007 a.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination.
  
• "Kennedy assassination theories." Wikipedia, the
  free encyclopedia. 20 May 2007 a.org/wiki/Kennedy_assassination_theories.
  
• "Kennedy Assassination - Lee Harvey Oswald." The
  Fifties Web - Your Retro 50s, 60s and 70s Source
  . 20 May 2007 ee-harvey-oswald.htm.
• "Warren Commission ." Britannica Concise
  Encyclopedia. 20 May 2007 topic/warren-commission.

26
Citations for Graphics

• http//mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dealey.htm
• http//mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sbt.htm
• www.britannica.com/ebi/art-57174
• www.resist.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID345
• www.answers.com/.../john-f-kennedy-assassination