On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, died in an attack that has not yet been fully investigated. Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin, was shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after his arrest, while he was being taken away by the police and interviewed by the press. Oswald remains the prime suspect in the Kennedy murder to this day, but conspiracy theories see no single culprit behind the assassination attempt on charismatic US President Kennedy.
According to conspiracy theorists, the CIA, the Mafia or the industrial-military complex are responsible for his terrible death. According to speculation, John F. Kennedy wanted to uncover state UFO secrets and that was one of the reasons for his planned death. Kennedy was only 46 years old and the critical phase of the Cold War was ruling during his tenure. He was able to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis, experienced a disaster in the Bay of Pigs invasion and saw the Vietnam War escalate. Kennedy promised the population the manned moon landing until 1970 and experienced how the Berlin Wall was built. In this article, we highlight the assassination attempt on the 35th President of the United States.
What happened on the day of the John F. Kennedy attack?
November 22, 1963 was a sunny day. Together with his wife Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy, John F. Kennedy landed in Dallas and wanted to usher in his Texas trip. The goal of his trip was to win over citizens for his 1964 reelection, settle the dispute within the Texas Democratic Party, and collect donations for his upcoming presidential election. Before his visit, leaflets were circulating in Texas accusing him of treason, and Dallas was generally heated by parts of the population, not all of whom were sympathetic to Kennedy. Four days earlier, a president’s car parade in Miami had to be canceled because the police became aware of plans to attack.
While security measures in Dallas were strengthened, 350 city police officers were inadequate. The security personnel were supplemented by 40 men from the state police and 15 deputy sheriffs from Dallas County. Kennedy himself was protected by 28 Secret Service agents, but only a dozen of them accompanied the US President’s motorcade. In contrast to the visit to Tampa, the roofs along the route in Dallas were neither checked nor secured. John F. Kennedy drove in a black state limousine, a Lincoln Continental X100 with an open top. Kennedy was seen as willing to take risks and wanted to be close to the citizens. Although he saw the danger of an attack, he took the threat lightly.
He sat in Kennedy’s limousine, his wife Jacqueline, the Texas governor John Connally, his wife Nellie, the driver William Greer and a bodyguard. The driver and bodyguard were part of the Secret Service. When the car turned into Elm Street, gunfire rang out at 12:30 p.m. and John F. Kennedy was hit by three bullets. The first bullet was a miss, according to the Warren Commission analysis, the second bullet hit Kennedy’s neck, chest, and Connally’s wrist and thigh.
The third shot hit Kennedy in the head, causing the right half of the head to burst open. Jackie Kennedy climbed onto the back of the car and collected some of her husband’s brain mass that had landed there when the bullet hit. The limousine driver acted with his mind, stepped on the gas and initiated the escape. Some eyewitnesses saw a gun barrel by the window on the fifth floor of the nearby textbook warehouse. At 12:35 p.m., a medical team at Parkland Memorial Hospital tried to save Kennedy’s life, but 25 minutes later he died and his body was transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital. On board Airforce One, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States after Kennedy’s death.
Assassination theories
A number of conspiracy theories have emerged in the past decades since the Kennedy attack. One theory says that Kennedy wanted to contain the military-industrial complex, a second thesis that he wanted to reveal UFO secrets. Not only Lee Harvey Oswald, but the CIA, the Mafia and other Kennedy enemies are responsible for the murder. Oswald was seen on the morning of November 22, 1963, carrying a long, wrapped object with him when he entered the school book warehouse. It is said to have been a curtain rod for his apartment, although it already had one.
Shortly before the Kennedy shots, one of the films showing the assassination attempt shows a man with a black umbrella. The umbrella opens and shortly after the shots are fired. His identity is still unknown, and the name of the Babushka lady who filmed everything is also unknown. She is considered an important witness, but has not been found to date. According to the conspiracy theories, Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, the Mafia, Lyndon B. Johnson, Fidel Castro, the former Soviet Union, Cuban exiles, Israel, FBI director Edgar Hoover or the military-industrial complex were involved in the murder of Kennedy. To date, however, Lee Harvey Oswald’s single perpetrator theory is considered the most credible.