Jfk Assasination Essay Research Paper The JFK

Jfk Assasination Essay, Research Paper

The JFK Assassination

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is known for many things throughout his life. From becoming the youngest president at the age of 43 to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. However, the biggest thing that sticks out during his short life is that he was assassinated. What makes his assassination so interesting to people is the fact that there are so many unanswered questions. Nobody knows exactly what happened in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. There are many ideas of what took place that day as told by the government, and possible theories and cover up, but the effect of Kennedy.s death and his legacy will live on in the minds of the people.

On November 22, 1963 Air Force One landed at Love Field in Dallas Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and the Connallys met the people when they arrived and shook their hands. Then it became time to begin the motorcade. It would be lead by four motorcycle policemen, then a car with Dallas police force, next the lead car with the chief of police, sheriff, and a Secret Service agent. After that would come the president.s convertible with John and Jackie sitting on the back seat, Governor Connally and his wife in front of them, and two Secret Service agents in the driver and passenger seats. Then came four more motorcycle policemen, a follow-up car with more Secret Service agents, the vice presidents convertible, and the rest of the 24-motorcade included more Secret Service agents. (Netzley, 26-7)

The motorcade was then off on its route to the Trade Mart where the president would make his speech. A few seconds after Governor Connally said to Kennedy .You sure can.t say Dallas doesn.t love you, Mr. President.(Netzley, 29). Shoots rang out and Kennedy was shot along with Governor Connally. Secret Service agents ran to the president.s car but they were to late the president had already been shot in the head, throat and upper back. Then at one P.M. Central Standard Time the president was pronounced dead.

In no time the local and federal officials had the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was arrested and quested for the murder of the president and an officer. Oswald was identified in a lineup by an eyewitness as the murder and by a man who had seen him in the Depository window. However, he denied killing president Kennedy or Officer Tippit. Oswald also denied that the rifle was his but it was shipped to a Dallas post office box in his name. Then on November 22 at 7:00 P.M. Oswald was officially charged with the murder of Officer Tippit and the assassination of President Kennedy. (Netzley, 44-52)

On November 24 at 11:00 A.M. Oswald was being transferred to the county jail. There were many reports there to record this event and some how Jack Ruby got into the crowd. He then took a gun and shot Oswald in the stomach. Oswald would later die at 1:07 P.M.

The Warren Commission was named as the group of people who would investigate the assassination of the president. They spent ten months investigating and presented almost a nine hundred page report called the Warren Report. The Warren report stated .Only three shots had been fired at President Kennedy and Governor Connally, all of them from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository; Oswald killed both the president and Officer Tippit; Jack Ruby had never known either Tippit or Oswald; and no one in the Dallas Police Department had helped Ruby kill Oswald.(Netzley, 71-2). The findings by the Warren Commission were then put into a vault at the National Archives and ordered to be sealed for 75 years by President Johnson.

The Commission also ignored testimony that did not go along with what they believed. Many people were not even interviewed because they said that they had seen another gunman or heard gun shots come from a grassy knoll. The Warren Commission also went with the Bethesda Naval Hospital autopsy, which many believed contained errors, but said that the president was shot from the back. Instead of the Parkland Hospital report, which stated that, the president had been shot from the front. Another thing was the single-bullet theory, that stated .the first bullet hit the president in his upper back and came out through his throat It then went into the governor.s back, came out his chest, passed through his wrist, and ended up in his thigh.(Netzley, 75). This might have happened, but the likely hood due to all the different places one bullet would have to go, and position that both men would have to be in is questionable.

Many people also believe that there was another person involved in the assassination of JFK. This is because of video of the shooting that was released to the public later and shows that the president.s head moves back when he was hit with the fatal shot to the head. For his head to move in this motion the only possible conclusion is that he was also shot from the front. This would mean that most likely there was a conspiracy to kill the president, because Oswald was in a building behind Kennedy and his shots hit him in the rear of his body.

Further reasons to believe that the Warren Commission was wrong in their findings is because of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. They investigated the Warren findings, interviewed witnesses, and reviewed many documents. They found that based on testimony and tape recordings of the shots fired that