Today In History [Reader Post]

Loading

47 years ago today…

Nov. 22, 1963: The Death of a President

Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was waving to the cheering crowd as his motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository on Elm Street when gunfire was heard.

The president slumped into the back seat of his open limousine with gaping wounds in his head and neck.

He lost consciousness immediately.


JFK’s Secret Service agents reflect on loss of a president

A newly detailed account of the assassination is laid out in the new book “The Kennedy Detail,” by former agent Jerry Blaine, written with journalist Lisa McCubbin, based on interviews with many of the agents who covered Kennedy. Former agent Hill, who has rarely granted interviews about the shooting, wrote a foreword.

Front pages largely ignore today’s anniversary of JFK assassination

“Younger people who are used to greater security measures since 9/11 look at photographs of Kennedy riding in an open car and say, ‘That was crazy. Why would he do that?’ ” Mack says. “Well, it wasn’t considered crazy at the time, and that’s something we have to explain.”

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
5 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

What were you doing that day?….if you were alive you remember it clearly.
I had gone to school with a bad headache because I needed to take a test in the first class of the day.
After that I went to the nurse who sent me home.
Back then there was only 1/2 hour of local news per morning and evening plus 1/2 hour of national news in the evening.
But we got a phone call to turn on the TV or radio.
When we did live news was covering Kennedy’s assassination…..on every channel….all six of them.
Some of the news men were crying.
We cried, too.
The news coverage went on all day…..a first.
I remember noticing that the coffin loaded onto the plane was different from the one off loaded later.
I saw the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV, too.
When I went back to school everyone was stunned.
Later I met one of the men who was ”on the grassy knoll,” that day.
He came to our college to prove he was simply an out-of-work guy and not mafia or a CIA agent or a commie.
The conspiracy theories were widely debated on campus.
When I took a criminalistics lab class many of the teachers believed that the bullet found on the stretcher that was supposed to have gone through both the TX Gov Connaly’s bones and Pres Kennedy’s skull could NOT have ended up looking pristine, but it was pristine.

Is that all still being debated?
I am out of that loop.

I was sitting in the 4th seat in the next to the last row in Miss Hartman’s English Class. Neither of my parents had voted for Kennedy even though my Mother was a registered Democrat. The office put the radio broadcast over the intercom. All of us were stunned!

All week end, there was coverage of the shooting and the follow up. They moved Oswald out of the police station through a lower level door. Jack Ruby walked up and just shot him! We were back in the wild west again.

I remember watching John John salute his father’s casket. I also remember wondering how any government can kick a newly widowed lady and her two kids out of their home.

I doubt we will ever know the full truth about that week!

When the mob gets you elected POTUS; don’t bite the hand that fed you. JFK found out the hard way.

While I think he was a pig, I wouldn’t have wished death upon him. What’s a bit ironic is that my existence is directly tied to his Bay of Pigs failure. Had they Not blown it so completetly, I wouldn’t be here today.
As for his assassination, there was no conspiracy or anything other than some leftist loser taking advantage of poor security.
I will repeat what I said elsewhere. He was the last Dem president serious about protecting America from it’s enemies.

I was at work estimating jobs for Alpha Metals for preforms to be used by semiconductor firms all over the world, including Texas Instruments. (Back then I had to use a very fancy hi-tech Monroe calculator with a carriage that jumped around impressively doing the calculations I needed. Loved that thing.) One of my people working in the stock room, where there is always a radio on, called me with the news that Kennedy had been shot. Some time later he was standing in front of me, out of breath, to say the President was dead. Jersey City, N.J..

On the day that Oswald was shot, I was out in front of my apartment in Jersey City, washing my brand new Volvo 122/3 S with the car radio on. Back then Volvo owners would honk the horn as we passed each other.

On Sunday (I think it was Sunday) my friend and I took a long ride (in my new Volvo) down to South Jersey, and then through the Pennsylvanian countryside and back north to Essex County and listened to the funeral on the radio.

There you have it folks. The whole very sad saga, one of America’s saddest tragedies. A more recent one was the election of a non-American Fraud.