Kenneth Drew

In general I would agree with the idea of not confusing the crime and the coverup. However, when it comes to the actions of certain individuals on the day of the crime, such as pre autopsy surgery, change of autopsy venue, I find it hard to believe that these decisions were made by people who were unprepared for the events of the day.

i'd also like to point out to Paul Trejo, and perhaps Mr. O'Neil, that drawing a line between the non-governmental far right wing and parts of our government, such as Hoover and Dulles, as if the private folks are more right wing than the heads of our intelligence agencies or our Joint Chiefs, is ridiculous. Hoover was just as much a racist as Banister. Caufield quotes a few sources that claim that Banister was in close touch with Hoover all through his 'retirement'. That makes sense. They were both in the business of smearing civil rights leaders with the Communist brush, a la McCarthy.

Caufield and Trejo seem very concerned with giving credit to Garrison while making sure to point out how mistaken he was to suspect the CIA. To hear Caufield tell it, Garrison protected the racists because he was one of them. This is the same kind of argument that 'Mafia did it' promoters use to explain why Garrison ignored the evidence pointing at Marcello.

I am curious what proof Caufield will offer. showing Hoover had preknowledge of a right wing assassination plot.

Paul I agree that it seems very hard to believe that all the events that transpired immediately after the assassination were only done on the spur of the moment to prevent the public thinking it was a Cuban or Soviet plot. That there just happened to be a spare 'gray' coffin on Air Force One. That secondary transportation for that coffin, separate from the bronze coffin seems to have been pre-planned. That plans were in place to insure that Jackie was not in the room with the body while it could be moved to the other coffin. All this was put together by Hoover within just a couple hours after the shooting? While I'm willing to give Hoover due credit, I hardly see him as a 'Mastermind". How was it already set up to have two autopsy teams at different facilities? I find it difficult to believe that Edwin Walker had that kind of influence.

I find it refreshing to find at last that rare person who will defend George W. Bush, our ex-president who cannot travel to Europe because he faces being arrested as a war criminal there. All Europe's doors today are open to Kerry, who was defeated for the presidency in 2004 by the lies spread by Corsi and his fellow smear artists laboring in behalf of Bush. Since leaving the White House, George W. Bush's foreign travels have taken him to Africa (enough said) and his internal travels have taken him to New Orleans, where he recently attempted to rewrite history on the 10th anniversary of Katrina by showing at last some compassion for its victims, who were ignored and shunned by his administration in their greatest hour of need and assistance.

Douglas, would you link us to something somewhere that would be proof that GWB was a cocaine user? I just did a Google search and I couldn't find one. Seems as if you are well versed though so I'd guess you have them right in front of you.

The article you cite was written 11 years ago, in 2004 and at the bottom it states:

The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

As far as Kerry/Bush goes I'm not interested in debating. I'm no fan of either one but if push came to shove, one requested duty in South Vietnam while the other clung to his silver spoon.

You do know that Bush requested duty in Vietnam several times. Right? So Kerry had the silver spoon, did I get that right?

I find it refreshing to find at last that rare person who will defend George W. Bush, our ex-president who cannot travel to Europe because he faces being arrested as a war criminal there. All Europe's doors today are open to Kerry, who was defeated for the presidency in 2004 by the lies spread by Corsi and his fellow smear artists laboring in behalf of Bush. Since leaving the White House, George W. Bush's foreign travels have taken him to Africa (enough said) and his internal travels have taken him to New Orleans, where he recently attempted to rewrite history on the 10th anniversary of Katrina by showing at last some compassion for its victims, who were ignored and shunned by his administration in their greatest hour of need and assistance.

I find it equally refreshing to know that we do have some admitted History re-writers here on the forum. I live in Louisiana and I know very well what the situation was with Katrina, and I know that it was primarily a Dim/liberal news bashing, as usual.

At least you have enough integrity to at least not try to back up your assertion that the documents were 'fake but true'.

But as to your statement about Bush, I believe he went to Europe numerous times and I don't recall him being incarcerated. You do know that the 'World Court' has no legal standing in the United States, right? If Bush is guilty of a crime, wouldn't he be extradited for trial?

The crime of treason for Kerry was a US law, not a World court one, so why would they care where he travels?

I provided a couple links about the stories on Kerry, I notice you didn't say which were not true. Do you believe he was in Cambodia on Christmas 1968? Did any of his loyal crewmembers second his statement about that? Was it a lie, or not?

"George W. Bush's foreign travels have taken him to Africa (enough said)" can't figure if you mean that as a bash or a compliment. Is there something wrong with going to Africa?

A Kerry supporter is so unusual, I'm surprised to find one here. I guess you're a lone nutter also.(tho I'm not accusing you of it)

Kerry's Cambodia Whopper

By Joshua Muravchik

Joshua is a "scholar" for the American Enterprise Institute. He was probably sitting on Wolfowitz's lap while he typed this out.

So you're saying that when Kerry said on the floor of the US Senate that he was in Cambodia on Christmas 1968 on the orders of President Nixon and that it is in the Senate record, that someone was sitting on someone's lap in the Senate recording that? I don't think I'd be trying to make a hero out of John Kerry when even the Washington Post said he was a xxxx. If the Washington Post is opposed to a liberal, how bad can that be?

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and an adjunct professor at the DC-based Institute of World Politics. Hmmmm

If you want a different story on how well you can believe John Kerry, here's a little link:

Kerry's Cambodia Whopper

Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A17

: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27211-2004Aug23.html

Realize this is the Washington Post:

Check this link for where he says it was President Nixon at that Christmas of 68

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/aug/9/20040809-090612-9480r/

Douglas, providing a link to a liberal site which serves as a mouthpiece for the NY Times can hardly 'set the record' straight. They didn't point out anything at all that Corsi said that they claim is untrue, all the article does is bash Corsi. Do you believe that Kerry was in Cambodia on his swift boat at President Nixon's order at Christmas 1968? Kerry said he was.

I find it interesting that you chose to provide the link to 'set the record straight on Corsi' instead of providing a link to 'set the record straight' on George Bush.

I will point out that 'when the truth' got all shook out, that Dan Rather and Mapes were out of a job and GW Bush was re'elected president.

I realize I'm not going to change your mind about either of those two persons, and it doesn't matter if you do or do not, but there can be no doubt that Kerry was a traitor to his country. His meeting in Paris in 1970 with both branches of the enemy was clearly treason. G W Bush served 6 years and was a qualified fighter pilot that volunteered for duty in Viet Nam.

In Barry Krusch's video, on one of the hulls are the letters "DA" followed by an angled line that IMHO is a "Y". If true, and JC Day is consistent in how he initials evidence, he has scratched "DAY" in upper case letters.

Tom

while it appears there might be something scratched on it, it's not clear who's mark it might be. a J is not consistent with DAY.

Kenneth,

If you re-read my post, I stated "JC Day" (see above) as the Lieutenant's name. i.e. John Carl Day.

If that is a "J" and IF it was made by JC Day, I can't imagine why he would only use his first initial "J", especially as he went by his middle name Carl. A single initial is unlikely to be considered an acceptable evidence mark. Since there ARE some vertical and horizontal lines to the left of the "J", it seems likely that at least one letter is/was located to the left of the "J." It seems more likely the first initial is illegible, and the "J" represents someone's last name.

To my eye, the "J" is too distinct to be dismissed as ra Tondom scratches.

Tom

I agree Tom and it seems unlikely that Day would use a J since it seemed he traditionally used DAY. It does appear to be a J.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11941&search=carcano#relPageId=30&tab=page

Lt. Day says he initialed the clip. Where are his initials located on the clip in the archives?

Great find, Chris!

Here's a Hi-Res of one side of the clip depicted in CE-575:

Inside the blue rectangle, on the RH side, do I see an upper case letter "J"? On the left there is a straight vertical line as well as some other lines...

In Barry Krusch's video, on one of the hulls are the letters "DA" followed by an angled line that IMHO is a "Y". If true, and JC Day is consistent in how he initials evidence, he has scratched "DAY" in upper case letters.

Tom

while it appears there might be something scratched on it, it's not clear who's mark it might be. a J is not consistent with DAY.

Ramon,

Best of luck, but count me out. I don't use social media. At age 70, I communicate to various audiences in speaking and writing on professional topics (tax matters). Social media, in my

limited view, is the domain of relatively young individuals. Young persons, in my experience, have no knowledge of, no interest in, the JFK assassination.

You'd be surprised, Jon.

I talk to millennials every now and again and I find that when one sticks to the basic facts they're interested and even down-right insightful

.One time I pointed out to a millennial friend that her generation wasn't interested in the JFK assassination.

"That's because they make it so boring," she said.

A couple weeks later she asks me what I'd been up to, and I said -- "Giving people hell about the basic facts of the Kennedy assassination."

"What are the basic facts of the Kennedy assassination?"

"You don't want to know."

"No -- I want to know. Tell me."

"Okay. He was shot in the back at the level of his third vertebra. The round didn't exit, and no round was discovered during the autopsy. He was shot in the throat from the front, the round didn't exit, and no round was recovered during the autopsy. So the central mystery of the case is -- 'What happened to the bullets that caused the back and throat wounds?'"

"...Well, was it a real autopsy?"

"A lot of problems with the autopsy but the basic facts remain...some people think the bullets were removed prior to the autopsy--"

"Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved!"

Now, about a year later I told this anecdote to another millennial and when I got to the last line -- "Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved" -- she immediately blurted -- "That's what I was gonna say!!"

One could have attended every major JFK conference for the past decade and never get this level of insight into the JFK assassination.

This made me wonder -- how could previously un-interested kids, armed with the basic facts of the case, trump the accumulated research experience of the JFK Assassination Critical Research Community?

It finally dawned on me. Folks born before 1970 or so grew up on James Bond and the notion high tech spy weaponry is the stuff of Hollywood fantasy.

The idea that JFK was struck with a high tech weapon which wouldn't show up in the autopsy -- which is exactly what the autopsists speculated when they had the body in front of them -- strikes the ears of a baby boomer as something silly.

Most boomers simply cannot take this scenario seriously.

Millennials, on the other hand, grew up on The Matrix, by Andy and Lana Wachowski.

Agent Smith vs. Agent 007.

High tech weaponry and government nobility versus high tech weaponry and government perfidy.

To a Boomer the idea of a dissolving bullet is silly.

To a Millennial such a scenario is obvious.

"Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved!" Or, uh it was some stuff that they imported in from the future by time machine and after the shooting it was 'called' back to it's time, so it left no traces behind.

Ah. Contempt prior to investigation.

Quite the common condition hereabouts.

I don't think any of this 'magic dissolving' stuff has been found to exist.

So, how is that "thinking" stuff working out for you?

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol1/pdf/ChurchV1_1_Colby.pdf

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol1/pdf/ChurchV1_6_Senseney.pdf

I'm not a boomer or a millennial, I'm a 'greatest generationer' so maybe that's why I think that way. I'll bet all of those folks at the assassination were communicating by cell phone, or at least that would be obvious to a millennial.

Millennials don't have a problem grasping the information contained in those Church Committee reports.

You might, however....

I know a family that recently visited the 6th floor museum and they just assumed (didn't know any details) that the museum told them the truth, that LHO, a lone nutter, shot JFK with a rifle from the snipers nest. No question about it.

Millennials don't have a problem grasping the information contained in those Church Committee reports.

You might, however....

So Cliff, you think the millennials invented the bright bulbs, eh?

From your photo, I'd say you're not a spring chick either, so tell you what. Get on the internet and take a few of those quizzes along with a millennial, some in 'common sense, some in history, knowledge of JFK, US Constitution, who is president and I will assure you that if you are average, you will outscore all of them. I know I do. Add reasoning and math skills also. Millennials depend on Siri to answer their questions for them and don't know who to call if she doesn't answer. You can give them all the credit you wish.

Ramon,

Best of luck, but count me out. I don't use social media.

Jon, I like to think of myself as an Internet pioneer and co-founder (was lucky enough to be at MIT at the time and worked deploying the network. After that, was appointed Tzar of the Venezuelan branch and worked expanding it to other Latin American countries). I also -like you- always tell folks that despite my early background do not use social media.

What gives?

This is the thing: I do not consider LinkedIn to be social. It is more properly defined as a professional network. I have avoided Tweeter and Facebook like that plague.

Let me put it in another way: the forum that I am describing and this one are not that different, are they?

Congrats on still looking like a youngster in your photos. I was in the Research Triangle Park back in the early 70's where the 'beginnings' of the internet had spread after originating back in the 60's out in California after some of the early concept work of the early 60's at MIT, etc. It was fascinating back in those days with the blazing speeds in the low Kbps. It hadn't improved very much even by the late 80's where it was still in the kbps ranges where I could watch the operating systems from the manufacturing.operations on a laptop at home. Sitting here in my house now with an iphone 5s directly off a cell tower I can download at 40 mbps. Seems almost unbelievable but with Google fiber now hitting 1000mbps, wow.....And I'm sure, that since you were there at MIT back in the early 60's must be even more amazed at the things you are seeing now compared to those pioneering days. I didn't realize Al Gore was that old either.

Greg: I am well aware of Corsi and his underhanded activities. In 2004 he swift-boated John Kerry's tour in Vietnam using a pack of lies so that George W. Bush, whose days in the Alabama National Guard were cocaine- filled, would be re-elected. He appears frequently on coasttocoastam and I find his reporting there almost always biased.

I would not have posted the article except that it gave equal time to Jefferson Morley, for whom I have the highest regard. Morley's writing are fact-filled while Corsi's are error-filled.

Greg: I am well aware of Corsi and his underhanded activities. In 2004 he swift-boated John Kerry's tour in Vietnam using a pack of lies so that George W. Bush, whose days in the Alabama National Guard were cocaine- filled, would be re-elected. Swift boated? Kerry did a pretty good job of that on himself, he didn't need Corsi's efforts. Kerry committed treason against his country and needs no propping up. I find it strange you are still repeating the story that got Dan Rather fired from one of the highest profile jobs in the country, along with his partner in crime. You ever wonder why the Air National Guard would let a cocaine addict fly a fighter jet and do you think he could do that repeatedly and effectively while high on cocaine? With the high fatality rate amongst fighter pilots, you'd think those high on Coke would be most likely to plant themselves into the ground. Let's see, the documents were 'fake but accurate'.

Ramon,

Best of luck, but count me out. I don't use social media. At age 70, I communicate to various audiences in speaking and writing on professional topics (tax matters). Social media, in my

limited view, is the domain of relatively young individuals. Young persons, in my experience, have no knowledge of, no interest in, the JFK assassination.

You'd be surprised, Jon.

I talk to millennials every now and again and I find that when one sticks to the basic facts they're interested and even down-right insightful

.One time I pointed out to a millennial friend that her generation wasn't interested in the JFK assassination.

"That's because they make it so boring," she said.

A couple weeks later she asks me what I'd been up to, and I said -- "Giving people hell about the basic facts of the Kennedy assassination."

"What are the basic facts of the Kennedy assassination?"

"You don't want to know."

"No -- I want to know. Tell me."

"Okay. He was shot in the back at the level of his third vertebra. The round didn't exit, and no round was discovered during the autopsy. He was shot in the throat from the front, the round didn't exit, and no round was recovered during the autopsy. So the central mystery of the case is -- 'What happened to the bullets that caused the back and throat wounds?'"

"...Well, was it a real autopsy?"

"A lot of problems with the autopsy but the basic facts remain...some people think the bullets were removed prior to the autopsy--"

"Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved!"

Now, about a year later I told this anecdote to another millennial and when I got to the last line -- "Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved" -- she immediately blurted -- "That's what I was gonna say!!"

One could have attended every major JFK conference for the past decade and never get this level of insight into the JFK assassination.

This made me wonder -- how could previously un-interested kids, armed with the basic facts of the case, trump the accumulated research experience of the JFK Assassination Critical Research Community?

It finally dawned on me. Folks born before 1970 or so grew up on James Bond and the notion high tech spy weaponry is the stuff of Hollywood fantasy.

The idea that JFK was struck with a high tech weapon which wouldn't show up in the autopsy -- which is exactly what the autopsists speculated when they had the body in front of them -- strikes the ears of a baby boomer as something silly.

Most boomers simply cannot take this scenario seriously.

Millennials, on the other hand, grew up on The Matrix, by Andy and Lana Wachowski.

Agent Smith vs. Agent 007.

High tech weaponry and government nobility versus high tech weaponry and government perfidy.

To a Boomer the idea of a dissolving bullet is silly.

To a Millennial such a scenario is obvious.

"Or it was some government [stuff] that dissolved!" Or, uh it was some stuff that they imported in from the future by time machine and after the shooting it was 'called' back to it's time, so it left no traces behind. I don't think any of this 'magic dissolving' stuff has been found to exist. I'm not a boomer or a millennial, I'm a 'greatest generationer' so maybe that's why I think that way. I'll bet all of those folks at the assassination were communicating by cell phone, or at least that would be obvious to a millennial.

I know a family that recently visited the 6th floor museum and they just assumed (didn't know any details) that the museum told them the truth, that LHO, a lone nutter, shot JFK with a rifle from the snipers nest. No question about it.

Ramon,

Best of luck, but count me out. I don't use social media. At age 70, I communicate to various audiences in speaking and writing on professional topics (tax matters). Social media, in my limited view, is the domain of relatively young individuals. Young persons, in my experience, have no knowledge of, no interest in, the JFK assassination.

I agree with your statement. I've not joined linkedin or twitter, both 'not my thing' mostly for 'cute comments' both are severely limited in no of characters per post, so not much interchange.

Also quite interesting that Smith keeps referring to the "bubbletop," which wasn't installed on the car for the motorcade.

Almost everybody in the news business referred to the SS-100-X limo as the "Bubbletop" or the "Famous bubbletop from Washington", regardless of whether the car had the "bubble" affixed to it or not. Walter Cronkite called the car the "bubbletop" on numerous occasions during his initial assassination bulletins on 11/22.

So none of the LNers had a clue?

From patspeer.com, chapter 6:

Merriman Smith, a reporter for UPI, sat next to the driver of the blue Impala. After the shots rang out, he picked up the car phone and called the Dallas UPI bureau. As a result his first reports were on the wire before the president's limo even reached the hospital. (11-22-63, 12:34, earliest UPI teletype) "Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas." (11-22-63, 12:39 UPI teletype) “Kennedy seriously wounded, perhaps seriously, perhaps fatally, by assassin's bullet." (11-22-63, 12:45 UPI teletype) "Reporters about five car lengths behind the Chief Executive heard what sounded like three bursts of gunfire. Secret Service agents in a follow-up car quickly unlimbered their automatic rifles. The bubble top of the President's car was down. They drew their pistols, but the damage was done. The President was slumped over in the backseat of the car face down. Connally lay on the floor of the rear seat. It was impossible to tell at once where Kennedy was hit, but bullet wounds in Connally's chest were plainly visible, indicating the gunfire might possibly have come from an automatic weapon. There were three loud bursts. Dallas motorcycle officers escorting the President quickly leaped from their bikes and raced up a grassy knoll." (11-22-63, 12:46 UPI teletype) “It was impossible to tell at once where Kennedy was hit, but bullet wounds in Connally’s chest were plainly visible, indicating the gunfire might possibly have come from an automatic weapon. There were three loud bursts. Dallas motorcycle officers escorting the President quickly leaped from their bikes and raced up a grassy hill.” (11-22-63, a 12:54 Smith dispatch to UPI) “Some of the Secret Service agents thought the gunfire was from an automatic weapon fired to the right rear of the president's car, probably from a grassy knoll to which police rushed." (11-22-63 statement regarding the number of shots while on the flight back from Dallas, as recalled by reporter Charles Roberts in The Truth About the Assassination, 1967) "Smith had heard three." (Smith’s 11-23-63 Pulitzer-prize winning eyewitness account, published in hundreds of papers) “The procession cleared the center of the business district and turned into a handsome highway that wound through what appeared to be a park. I was riding in the so-called White House press “pool” car, a telephone company vehicle equipped with a mobile radio-telephone. I was in the front seat between a driver from the Telephone Company and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary for the President’s Texas tour. Three other pool reporters were wedged in the back seat. Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painfully loud cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker. But the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire. The President’s car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the Chief Executive’s bubble-top limousine…Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime.” (4-14-64 interview with William Manchester, as represented in The Death of a President, 1967) "Smith was not as astute a reporter as he seemed. Despite extensive experience with weapons he had thought the sounds in the plaza were three shots from an automatic weapon, and in a subsequent message he identified them as 'bursts.'" (11-14-66 UPI article found in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. This version of the article was published in the 11-20-66 Washington Post as well.) “I was only a few hundred feet from John F. Kennedy when he was shot in Dallas. I would swear there were three shots and only three shots fired at his motorcade. The car In which I rode as a press association reporter was not far from the presidential vehicle Itself, and in clear view of it. We were at the point of coming out of an underpass when the first shot was fired. The sound was not entirely crisp and it seemed for a split second like a firecracker, a big one. As we cleared the underpass, then came the second and third shots. The shots were fired smoothly and evenly. There was not the slightest doubt on the front seat of our car that the shots came from a rifle to our rear (and the Book Depository at this point was directly to our rear). We remarked about rifle fire before we knew what had happened to Kennedy, although we had seen him slide from view in the rear of the open White House car...Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who raced from the follow-up car to the presidential vehicle to shield the fallen leader and his shocked wife, Jacqueline, heard only three shots.” (11-14-66 UPI article found in the Bucks County Courier Times, with the references to the underpass removed from the more prevalent version above. Presumably, an alert editor at this paper caught Smith's mistake.) "I was only a few hundred feet from John F. Kennedy when he was shot in Dallas. I would swear there were three shots and only three fired at his motorcade. The car In which I rode as a press association reporter was not far from the presidential vehicle Itself, and in clear view of it when the first shot was fired. The sound was not entirely crisp and it seemed for a split second like a firecracker, a big one. Then came the second and third shots. The shots were fired smoothly and evenly. There was not the slightest doubt on the front seat of our car that the shots came from a rifle to our rear (and the Book Depository at this point was directly to our rear). We remarked about rifle fire before we knew what had happened to Kennedy, although we had seen him slide from view in the rear of the open White House car." Analysis: Smith’s reporting of bursts and automatic weapon fire, and his subsequent representation of the last two shots together, indicates he probably heard the last two shots together. His dispatch stating that Connally’s chest wounds indicated the use of an automatic weapon suggests, moreover, that he at least briefly suspected that shots had come from the grassy knoll. Intriguingly, given Smith's subsequent suicide, his 1966 article shows that either he’d “corrected” his impressions to match the official version, or was beginning to lose his mind. There was, of course, no underpass to “clear” which might account for the different sound of the first shot. Clint Hill, of course, had consistently claimed he'd heard but two shots, not three. The Texas School Book Depository “directly" to Smith's rear during the last two shots was, for that matter, in front of him or to his right as late as frame 265, the beginning of the Wiegman film. Smith's recollection that the depository was to his rear when the second and third shots were fired can therefore be taken as an indication that the second shot he heard was seconds after frame 265, and quite possibly the head shot. Probable first shot hit 190-224. Last two shots probably bunched together.

It's strange to me that apparently Smith got a Pulitizer Prize for that story and it was all phony baloney. Anyone that read it the first time would know it was all made up. He could barely see the bubble top, he could barely make out something pink, Jackie's dress? 'inside a bubble top', then he could see it clearly. I wonder why DVP posted this total hog wash story. Must fit the LN criteria for authenticity.

Also quite interesting that Smith keeps referring to the "bubbletop," which wasn't installed on the car for the motorcade.

I think the problem here is he had written this up beforehand when they were supposed to have the bubble top on the car. They only removed it at the last minute. He didn't know that. His total story is phony, made up.

Roberts and I were given seats on another 'copter bound for the White House lawn

The other 'copter, with the President was bound where?

I believe at least one chopper transported the grey coffin to one of the medical centers for the 'early' autopsy and alterations.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF

PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION

BY UPI's MERRIMAN SMITH:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 1963 (UPI) -- It was a balmy, sunny noon as we motored through downtown Dallas behind President Kennedy. The procession cleared the center of the business district and turned into a handsome highway that wound through what appeared to be a park.

I was riding in the so-called White House press "pool" car, a telephone company vehicle equipped with a mobile radio-telephone. It was in the front seat between a driver from the telephone company and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary for the President's Texas tour. Three other pool reporters were wedged into the back seat.

Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painfully loud, cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker, but the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire.

The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the chief executive's bubble-top limousine.

Next in line was the car bearing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Behind that, another follow-up car bearing agents assigned to the vice president's protection. We were behind that car.

Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. One sees history explode before one's eyes and for even the most trained observer, there is a limit to what one can comprehend.

I looked ahead at the President's car but could not see him or his companion, Gov. John B. Connally of Texas. Both men had been riding on the right side of the bubble-top limousine from Washington. I thought I saw a flash of pink which would have been Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.

Everyone in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car, but at this moment, we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed.

We screamed at our driver, "Get going, get going." We careened around the Johnson car and its escort and set out down the highway, barely able to keep in sight of the President's car and the accompanying Secret Service follow-up car.

They vanished around a curve. When we cleared the same curve we could see where we were heading--Parkland Hospital, a large brick structure to the left of the arterial highway. We skidded around a sharp left turn and spilled out of the pool car as it entered the hospital driveway.

I ran to the side of the bubble-top.

The President was face down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the President's head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him.

Governor Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting in the arms of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs. Blood oozed from the front of the Governor's suit. I could not see the President's wound. But I could see blood splattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the President's dark gray suit.

From the telephone car, I had radioed the Dallas bureau of UPI that three shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. Seeing the bloody scene in the rear of the car at the hospital entrance, I knew I had to get to a telephone immediately.

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent in charge of the detail assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, was leaning into the rear of the car.

"How badly was he hit, Clint?" I asked.

"He's dead," Hill replied curtly.

I have no further clear memory of the scene in the driveway. I recall a babble of anxious, tense voices -- "Where in hell are the stretchers . . . get a doctor out here . . . he's on the way . . . come on, easy there." And from somewhere, nervous sobbing.

I raced down a short stretch of sidewalk into a hospital corridor. The first thing I spotted was a small clerical office, more of a booth than an office. Inside, a bespectacled man stood shuffling what appeared to be hospital forms. At a wicket much like a bank teller's cage, I spotted a telephone on the shelf.

"How do you get outside?" I gasped. "The President has been hurt and this is an emergency call."

"Dial nine," he said, shoving the phone toward me.

It took two tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number. Quickly I dictated a bulletin saying the President had been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured by an assassin's bullets while driving through the streets of Dallas.

Litters bearing the President and the Governor rolled by me as I dictated, but my back was to the hallway and I didn't see them until they were at the entrance of the emergency room about 75 or 100 feet away.

I knew they had passed, however, from the horrified expression that suddenly spread over the face of the man behind the wicket.

As I stood in the drab buff hallway leading into the emergency ward trying to reconstruct the shooting for the UPI man on the other end of the telephone and still keep track of what was happening outside of the door of the emergency room, I watched a swift and confused panorama sweep before me.

Kilduff of the White House press staff raced up and down the hall. Police captains barked at each other, "Clear this area." Two priests hurried in behind a Secret Service agent, their narrow purple stoles rolled up tightly in their hands. A police lieutenant ran down the hall with a large carton of blood for transfusions. A doctor came in and said he was responding to a call for "all neurosurgeons."

The priests came out and said the President had received the Last Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. They said he was still alive, but not conscious. Members of the Kennedy staff began arriving. They had been behind us in the motorcade, but hopelessly bogged for a time in confused traffic.

Telephones were at a premium in the hospital and I clung to mine for dear life. I was afraid to stray from the wicket lest I lost contact with the outside world.

My decision was made for me, however, when Kilduff and Wayne Hawks of the White House staff ran by me, shouting that Kilduff would make a statement shortly in the so-called Nurses Room a floor above and at the far end of the hospital.

I threw down the phone and sped after them. We reached the door of the conference room and there were loud cries of "Quiet!" Fighting to keep his emotions under control, Kilduff said, "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy died at approximately one o'clock."

I raced into a nearby office. The telephone switchboard at the hospital was hopelessly jammed. I spotted Virginia Payette, wife of UPI's Southwest Division manager and a veteran reporter in her own right. I told her to try getting through on pay telephones on the floor above.

Frustrated by the inability to get through the hospital switchboard, I appealed to a nurse. She led me through a maze of corridors and back stairways to another floor and a lone pay booth. I got the Dallas office. Virginia had gotten through before me.

Whereupon I ran back through the hospital to the conference room. There, Jiggs Fauver of the White House transportation staff grabbed me and said Kilduff wanted a pool of three men immediately to fly back to Washington on Air Force One, the presidential aircraft.

"He wants you downstairs, and he wants you right now," Fauver said.

Down the stairs I ran and into the driveway, only to discover Kilduff had just pulled out in our telephone car.

Charles Roberts of Newsweek Magazine, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting and I implored a police officer to take us to the airport in his squad car. The Secret Service had requested that no sirens be used in the vicinity of the airport, but the Dallas officer did a masterful job of getting us through some of the worst traffic I've ever seen.

As we piled out of the car on the edge of the runway about 200 yards from the presidential aircraft, Kilduff spotted us and motioned for us to hurry. We trotted to him and he said the plane could take two pool men to Washington; that Johnson was about to take the oath of office aboard the plane and would take off immediately thereafter.

I saw a bank of telephone booths beside the runway and asked if I had time to advise my news service. He said, "But, for God's sake, hurry."

Then began another telephone nightmare. The Dallas office rang busy. I tried calling Washington. All circuits were busy. I then called the New York bureau of UPI where the General News Desk seemed quite shocked to hear from me. I told them about the impending installation of a new president aboard the airplane.

Kilduff came out of the plane and motioned wildly toward my booth. I slammed down the phone and jogged toward the runway. A detective stopped me and said, "You dropped your pocket comb."

Aboard Air Force One on which I had made so many trips as a press association reporter covering President Kennedy, all of the shades of the larger main cabin were drawn and the interior was hot and dimly lighted.

Kilduff propelled us to the President's suite two-thirds of the way back in the plane. The room is used normally as a combination conference and sitting room and could accommodate eight to 10 people seated.

I wedged inside the door and began counting. There were 27 people in this compartment. Johnson stood in the center with his wife, Lady Bird. U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, 67, a kindly-faced woman stood with a small black Bible in her hands, waiting to give him the oath.

The compartment became hotter and hotter. Johnson was worried that some of the Kennedy staff might not be able to get inside. He urged people to press forward, but a Signal Corps photographer, Capt. Cecil Stoughton, standing in the corner on a chair, said if Johnson moved any closer, it would be virtually impossible to make a truly historic photograph.

It developed that Johnson was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy, who was composing herself in a small bedroom in the rear of the plane. She appeared alone, dressed in the same pink wool suit she had worn in the morning when she appeared so happy shaking hands with airport crowds at the side of her husband.

She was white-faced but dry-eyed. Friendly hands stretched toward her as she stumbled slightly. Johnson took both of her hands in his and motioned her to his left side. Lady Bird stood on his right, a fixed half-smile showing the tension.

Johnson nodded to Judge Hughes, an old friend of his family and a Kennedy appointee.

"Hold up your right hand and repeat after me," the woman jurist said to Johnson.

Outside a jet could be heard droning into a landing.

Judge Hughes held out the Bible and Johnson covered it with his large left hand. His right arm went slowly into the air and the jurist began to intone the constitutional oath, "I do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States..."

The brief ceremony ended when Johnson, in a deep firm voice, repeated after the judge, ". . . and so help me God."

Johnson turned first to his wife, hugged her about the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned to Kennedy's widow, put his left arm around her and kissed her cheek.

As others in the group -- some Texas Democratic House members, members of the Johnson and Kennedy staffs -- moved toward the new president, he seemed to back away from any expressions of felicitation.

The two-minute ceremony concluded at 2:38 p.m., CST, and seconds later, the President said firmly, "Now, let's get airborne."

Col. James Swindal, pilot of the plane, a big gleaming silver and blue fan-jet, cut on the starboard engines immediately. Several persons, including Sid Davis of Westinghouse, left the plane immediately. The White House had room for only two pool reporters on the return flight and these posts were filled by Roberts and me, although at the moment we could find no empty seats.

At 2:47 p.m., CST, the wheels of Air Force One cleared the runway. Swindal roared the big ship up to an unusually high cruising altitude of 41,000 feet where at 625 MPH ground speed the jet hustled toward Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

When the President's plane reached operating altitude, Mrs. Kennedy left her bedchamber and walked to the rear compartment of the plane. This was the so called Family Living Room, a private area where she and Kennedy, family and friends had spent many happy airborne hours chatting and dining together.

Kennedy's casket had been placed in this compartment, carried aboard by a group of Secret Service agents.

Mrs. Kennedy went into the rear lounge and took a chair beside the coffin. There she remained throughout the flight. Her vigil was shared at times by four staff members close to the slain chief executive -- David Powers, his buddy and personal assistant; Kenneth P. O'Donnell, appointments secretary and key political adviser; Lawrence O'Brien, chief Kennedy liaison man with Congress; and Brig. Gen. Godfrey McHugh, Kennedy's Air Force aide.

Kennedy's military aide, Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, was busy most of the trip in the forward areas of the plane, sending messages and making arrangements for arrival ceremonies and movement of the body to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

As the flight progressed, Johnson walked back into the main compartment. My portable typewriter was lost somewhere around the hospital and I was writing on an over-sized electric typewriter which Kennedy's personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, had used to type his speech texts.

Johnson came up to the table where Roberts and I were trying to record the history we had just witnessed.

"I'm going to make a short statement in a few minutes and give you copies of it," he said. "Then when I get on the ground, I'll do it over again."

It was the first public utterance of the new chief executive, brief and moving:

"This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help -- and God's."

When the plane was about 45 minutes from Washington, the new President got on a special radio-telephone and placed a call to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, the late President's mother.

"I wish to God there was something I could do," he told her. "I just wanted you to know that."

Then Mrs. Johnson wanted to talk to the elder Mrs. Kennedy.

"We feel like the heart has been cut out of us," Mrs. Johnson said. She broke down for a moment and began to sob. Recovering in a few seconds, she added, "Our love and our prayers are with you."

Thirty minutes out of Washington, Johnson put in a call for Nellie Connally, wife of the seriously wounded Texas governor.

The new President said to the governor's wife:

"We are praying for you, darling, and I know that everything is going to be all right, isn't it? Give him a hug and a kiss for me."

It was dark when Air Force One began to skim over the lights of the Washington area, lining up for a landing at Andrews AFB. The plane touched down at 5:59 p.m., EST.

I thanked the stewards for rigging up the typewriter for me, pulled on my raincoat and started down the forward ramp. Roberts and I stood under a wing and watched the casket being lowered from the rear of the plane and borne by a complement of armed forces body bearers into a waiting hearse. We watched Mrs. Kennedy and the President's brother, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, climb into the hearse beside the coffin.

The new President repeated his first public statement for broadcast and newsreel microphones, shook hands with some of the government and diplomatic leaders who turned out to meet the plane, and headed for his helicopter.

Roberts and I were given seats on another 'copter bound for the White House lawn. In the compartment next to ours in one of the large chairs beside a widow sat Theodore C. Sorensen, one of Kennedy's closest associates with the title of special counsel to the President. He had not gone to Texas with his chief but had come to the air base for his return.

Sorensen sat wilted in the large chair, crying softly. The dignity of his deep grief seemed to sum up all of the tragedy and sadness of the previous six hours.

As our helicopter circled in the balmy darkness for a landing on the White House south lawn, it seemed incredible that only six hours before, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been a vibrant, smiling, waving and active man.

[source Link: CLICK HERE]

"How do you get outside?" I gasped. "The President has been hurt and this is an emergency call."

"Dial nine," he said, shoving the phone toward me.

It took two tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number.

I'm guessing the Dallas UPI office had a Medical Emergency Team standing by? This whole story is such phony baloney.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF

PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION

BY UPI's MERRIMAN SMITH:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 1963 (UPI) -- It was a balmy, sunny noon as we motored through downtown Dallas behind President Kennedy. The procession cleared the center of the business district and turned into a handsome highway that wound through what appeared to be a park.

I was riding in the so-called White House press "pool" car, a telephone company vehicle equipped with a mobile radio-telephone. It was in the front seat between a driver from the telephone company and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary for the President's Texas tour. Three other pool reporters were wedged into the back seat.

Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painfully loud, cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker, but the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire.

The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the chief executive's bubble-top limousine.

Next in line was the car bearing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Behind that, another follow-up car bearing agents assigned to the vice president's protection. We were behind that car.

Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. One sees history explode before one's eyes and for even the most trained observer, there is a limit to what one can comprehend.

I looked ahead at the President's car but could not see him or his companion, Gov. John B. Connally of Texas. Both men had been riding on the right side of the bubble-top limousine from Washington. I thought I saw a flash of pink which would have been Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.

Everyone in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car, but at this moment, we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed.

We screamed at our driver, "Get going, get going." We careened around the Johnson car and its escort and set out down the highway, barely able to keep in sight of the President's car and the accompanying Secret Service follow-up car.

They vanished around a curve. When we cleared the same curve we could see where we were heading--Parkland Hospital, a large brick structure to the left of the arterial highway. We skidded around a sharp left turn and spilled out of the pool car as it entered the hospital driveway.

I ran to the side of the bubble-top.

The President was face down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the President's head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him.

Governor Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting in the arms of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs. Blood oozed from the front of the Governor's suit. I could not see the President's wound. But I could see blood splattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the President's dark gray suit.

From the telephone car, I had radioed the Dallas bureau of UPI that three shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. Seeing the bloody scene in the rear of the car at the hospital entrance, I knew I had to get to a telephone immediately.

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent in charge of the detail assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, was leaning into the rear of the car.

"How badly was he hit, Clint?" I asked.

"He's dead," Hill replied curtly.

I have no further clear memory of the scene in the driveway. I recall a babble of anxious, tense voices -- "Where in hell are the stretchers . . . get a doctor out here . . . he's on the way . . . come on, easy there." And from somewhere, nervous sobbing.

I raced down a short stretch of sidewalk into a hospital corridor. The first thing I spotted was a small clerical office, more of a booth than an office. Inside, a bespectacled man stood shuffling what appeared to be hospital forms. At a wicket much like a bank teller's cage, I spotted a telephone on the shelf.

"How do you get outside?" I gasped. "The President has been hurt and this is an emergency call."

"Dial nine," he said, shoving the phone toward me.

It took two tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number. Quickly I dictated a bulletin saying the President had been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured by an assassin's bullets while driving through the streets of Dallas.

Litters bearing the President and the Governor rolled by me as I dictated, but my back was to the hallway and I didn't see them until they were at the entrance of the emergency room about 75 or 100 feet away.

I knew they had passed, however, from the horrified expression that suddenly spread over the face of the man behind the wicket.

As I stood in the drab buff hallway leading into the emergency ward trying to reconstruct the shooting for the UPI man on the other end of the telephone and still keep track of what was happening outside of the door of the emergency room, I watched a swift and confused panorama sweep before me.

Kilduff of the White House press staff raced up and down the hall. Police captains barked at each other, "Clear this area." Two priests hurried in behind a Secret Service agent, their narrow purple stoles rolled up tightly in their hands. A police lieutenant ran down the hall with a large carton of blood for transfusions. A doctor came in and said he was responding to a call for "all neurosurgeons."

The priests came out and said the President had received the Last Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. They said he was still alive, but not conscious. Members of the Kennedy staff began arriving. They had been behind us in the motorcade, but hopelessly bogged for a time in confused traffic.

Telephones were at a premium in the hospital and I clung to mine for dear life. I was afraid to stray from the wicket lest I lost contact with the outside world.

My decision was made for me, however, when Kilduff and Wayne Hawks of the White House staff ran by me, shouting that Kilduff would make a statement shortly in the so-called Nurses Room a floor above and at the far end of the hospital.

I threw down the phone and sped after them. We reached the door of the conference room and there were loud cries of "Quiet!" Fighting to keep his emotions under control, Kilduff said, "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy died at approximately one o'clock."

I raced into a nearby office. The telephone switchboard at the hospital was hopelessly jammed. I spotted Virginia Payette, wife of UPI's Southwest Division manager and a veteran reporter in her own right. I told her to try getting through on pay telephones on the floor above.

Frustrated by the inability to get through the hospital switchboard, I appealed to a nurse. She led me through a maze of corridors and back stairways to another floor and a lone pay booth. I got the Dallas office. Virginia had gotten through before me.

Whereupon I ran back through the hospital to the conference room. There, Jiggs Fauver of the White House transportation staff grabbed me and said Kilduff wanted a pool of three men immediately to fly back to Washington on Air Force One, the presidential aircraft.

"He wants you downstairs, and he wants you right now," Fauver said.

Down the stairs I ran and into the driveway, only to discover Kilduff had just pulled out in our telephone car.

Charles Roberts of Newsweek Magazine, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting and I implored a police officer to take us to the airport in his squad car. The Secret Service had requested that no sirens be used in the vicinity of the airport, but the Dallas officer did a masterful job of getting us through some of the worst traffic I've ever seen.

As we piled out of the car on the edge of the runway about 200 yards from the presidential aircraft, Kilduff spotted us and motioned for us to hurry. We trotted to him and he said the plane could take two pool men to Washington; that Johnson was about to take the oath of office aboard the plane and would take off immediately thereafter.

I saw a bank of telephone booths beside the runway and asked if I had time to advise my news service. He said, "But, for God's sake, hurry."

Then began another telephone nightmare. The Dallas office rang busy. I tried calling Washington. All circuits were busy. I then called the New York bureau of UPI where the General News Desk seemed quite shocked to hear from me. I told them about the impending installation of a new president aboard the airplane.

Kilduff came out of the plane and motioned wildly toward my booth. I slammed down the phone and jogged toward the runway. A detective stopped me and said, "You dropped your pocket comb."

Aboard Air Force One on which I had made so many trips as a press association reporter covering President Kennedy, all of the shades of the larger main cabin were drawn and the interior was hot and dimly lighted.

Kilduff propelled us to the President's suite two-thirds of the way back in the plane. The room is used normally as a combination conference and sitting room and could accommodate eight to 10 people seated.

I wedged inside the door and began counting. There were 27 people in this compartment. Johnson stood in the center with his wife, Lady Bird. U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, 67, a kindly-faced woman stood with a small black Bible in her hands, waiting to give him the oath.

The compartment became hotter and hotter. Johnson was worried that some of the Kennedy staff might not be able to get inside. He urged people to press forward, but a Signal Corps photographer, Capt. Cecil Stoughton, standing in the corner on a chair, said if Johnson moved any closer, it would be virtually impossible to make a truly historic photograph.

It developed that Johnson was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy, who was composing herself in a small bedroom in the rear of the plane. She appeared alone, dressed in the same pink wool suit she had worn in the morning when she appeared so happy shaking hands with airport crowds at the side of her husband.

She was white-faced but dry-eyed. Friendly hands stretched toward her as she stumbled slightly. Johnson took both of her hands in his and motioned her to his left side. Lady Bird stood on his right, a fixed half-smile showing the tension.

Johnson nodded to Judge Hughes, an old friend of his family and a Kennedy appointee.

"Hold up your right hand and repeat after me," the woman jurist said to Johnson.

Outside a jet could be heard droning into a landing.

Judge Hughes held out the Bible and Johnson covered it with his large left hand. His right arm went slowly into the air and the jurist began to intone the constitutional oath, "I do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States..."

The brief ceremony ended when Johnson, in a deep firm voice, repeated after the judge, ". . . and so help me God."

Johnson turned first to his wife, hugged her about the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned to Kennedy's widow, put his left arm around her and kissed her cheek.

As others in the group -- some Texas Democratic House members, members of the Johnson and Kennedy staffs -- moved toward the new president, he seemed to back away from any expressions of felicitation.

The two-minute ceremony concluded at 2:38 p.m., CST, and seconds later, the President said firmly, "Now, let's get airborne."

Col. James Swindal, pilot of the plane, a big gleaming silver and blue fan-jet, cut on the starboard engines immediately. Several persons, including Sid Davis of Westinghouse, left the plane immediately. The White House had room for only two pool reporters on the return flight and these posts were filled by Roberts and me, although at the moment we could find no empty seats.

At 2:47 p.m., CST, the wheels of Air Force One cleared the runway. Swindal roared the big ship up to an unusually high cruising altitude of 41,000 feet where at 625 MPH ground speed the jet hustled toward Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

When the President's plane reached operating altitude, Mrs. Kennedy left her bedchamber and walked to the rear compartment of the plane. This was the so called Family Living Room, a private area where she and Kennedy, family and friends had spent many happy airborne hours chatting and dining together.

Kennedy's casket had been placed in this compartment, carried aboard by a group of Secret Service agents.

Mrs. Kennedy went into the rear lounge and took a chair beside the coffin. There she remained throughout the flight. Her vigil was shared at times by four staff members close to the slain chief executive -- David Powers, his buddy and personal assistant; Kenneth P. O'Donnell, appointments secretary and key political adviser; Lawrence O'Brien, chief Kennedy liaison man with Congress; and Brig. Gen. Godfrey McHugh, Kennedy's Air Force aide.

Kennedy's military aide, Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, was busy most of the trip in the forward areas of the plane, sending messages and making arrangements for arrival ceremonies and movement of the body to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

As the flight progressed, Johnson walked back into the main compartment. My portable typewriter was lost somewhere around the hospital and I was writing on an over-sized electric typewriter which Kennedy's personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, had used to type his speech texts.

Johnson came up to the table where Roberts and I were trying to record the history we had just witnessed.

"I'm going to make a short statement in a few minutes and give you copies of it," he said. "Then when I get on the ground, I'll do it over again."

It was the first public utterance of the new chief executive, brief and moving:

"This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help -- and God's."

When the plane was about 45 minutes from Washington, the new President got on a special radio-telephone and placed a call to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, the late President's mother.

"I wish to God there was something I could do," he told her. "I just wanted you to know that."

Then Mrs. Johnson wanted to talk to the elder Mrs. Kennedy.

"We feel like the heart has been cut out of us," Mrs. Johnson said. She broke down for a moment and began to sob. Recovering in a few seconds, she added, "Our love and our prayers are with you."

Thirty minutes out of Washington, Johnson put in a call for Nellie Connally, wife of the seriously wounded Texas governor.

The new President said to the governor's wife:

"We are praying for you, darling, and I know that everything is going to be all right, isn't it? Give him a hug and a kiss for me."

It was dark when Air Force One began to skim over the lights of the Washington area, lining up for a landing at Andrews AFB. The plane touched down at 5:59 p.m., EST.

I thanked the stewards for rigging up the typewriter for me, pulled on my raincoat and started down the forward ramp. Roberts and I stood under a wing and watched the casket being lowered from the rear of the plane and borne by a complement of armed forces body bearers into a waiting hearse. We watched Mrs. Kennedy and the President's brother, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, climb into the hearse beside the coffin.

The new President repeated his first public statement for broadcast and newsreel microphones, shook hands with some of the government and diplomatic leaders who turned out to meet the plane, and headed for his helicopter.

Roberts and I were given seats on another 'copter bound for the White House lawn. In the compartment next to ours in one of the large chairs beside a widow sat Theodore C. Sorensen, one of Kennedy's closest associates with the title of special counsel to the President. He had not gone to Texas with his chief but had come to the air base for his return.

Sorensen sat wilted in the large chair, crying softly. The dignity of his deep grief seemed to sum up all of the tragedy and sadness of the previous six hours.

As our helicopter circled in the balmy darkness for a landing on the White House south lawn, it seemed incredible that only six hours before, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been a vibrant, smiling, waving and active man.

[source Link: CLICK HERE]

I ran to the side of the bubble-top. what? where was this guy? is he having a problem with memory? is this the only thing his memory is faulty on?

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF

PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION

BY UPI's MERRIMAN SMITH:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 1963 (UPI) -- It was a balmy, sunny noon as we motored through downtown Dallas behind President Kennedy. The procession cleared the center of the business district and turned into a handsome highway that wound through what appeared to be a park.

I was riding in the so-called White House press "pool" car, a telephone company vehicle equipped with a mobile radio-telephone. It was in the front seat between a driver from the telephone company and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary for the President's Texas tour. Three other pool reporters were wedged into the back seat.

Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painfully loud, cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker, but the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire.

The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the chief executive's bubble-top limousine.

Next in line was the car bearing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Behind that, another follow-up car bearing agents assigned to the vice president's protection. We were behind that car.

Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. One sees history explode before one's eyes and for even the most trained observer, there is a limit to what one can comprehend.

I looked ahead at the President's car but could not see him or his companion, Gov. John B. Connally of Texas. Both men had been riding on the right side of the bubble-top limousine from Washington. I thought I saw a flash of pink which would have been Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.

Everyone in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car, but at this moment, we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed.

We screamed at our driver, "Get going, get going." We careened around the Johnson car and its escort and set out down the highway, barely able to keep in sight of the President's car and the accompanying Secret Service follow-up car.

They vanished around a curve. When we cleared the same curve we could see where we were heading--Parkland Hospital, a large brick structure to the left of the arterial highway. We skidded around a sharp left turn and spilled out of the pool car as it entered the hospital driveway.

I ran to the side of the bubble-top.

The President was face down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the President's head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him.

Governor Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting in the arms of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs. Blood oozed from the front of the Governor's suit. I could not see the President's wound. But I could see blood splattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the President's dark gray suit.

From the telephone car, I had radioed the Dallas bureau of UPI that three shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. Seeing the bloody scene in the rear of the car at the hospital entrance, I knew I had to get to a telephone immediately.

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent in charge of the detail assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, was leaning into the rear of the car.

"How badly was he hit, Clint?" I asked.

"He's dead," Hill replied curtly.

I have no further clear memory of the scene in the driveway. I recall a babble of anxious, tense voices -- "Where in hell are the stretchers . . . get a doctor out here . . . he's on the way . . . come on, easy there." And from somewhere, nervous sobbing.

I raced down a short stretch of sidewalk into a hospital corridor. The first thing I spotted was a small clerical office, more of a booth than an office. Inside, a bespectacled man stood shuffling what appeared to be hospital forms. At a wicket much like a bank teller's cage, I spotted a telephone on the shelf.

"How do you get outside?" I gasped. "The President has been hurt and this is an emergency call."

"Dial nine," he said, shoving the phone toward me.

It took two tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number. Quickly I dictated a bulletin saying the President had been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured by an assassin's bullets while driving through the streets of Dallas.

Litters bearing the President and the Governor rolled by me as I dictated, but my back was to the hallway and I didn't see them until they were at the entrance of the emergency room about 75 or 100 feet away.

I knew they had passed, however, from the horrified expression that suddenly spread over the face of the man behind the wicket.

As I stood in the drab buff hallway leading into the emergency ward trying to reconstruct the shooting for the UPI man on the other end of the telephone and still keep track of what was happening outside of the door of the emergency room, I watched a swift and confused panorama sweep before me.

Kilduff of the White House press staff raced up and down the hall. Police captains barked at each other, "Clear this area." Two priests hurried in behind a Secret Service agent, their narrow purple stoles rolled up tightly in their hands. A police lieutenant ran down the hall with a large carton of blood for transfusions. A doctor came in and said he was responding to a call for "all neurosurgeons."

The priests came out and said the President had received the Last Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. They said he was still alive, but not conscious. Members of the Kennedy staff began arriving. They had been behind us in the motorcade, but hopelessly bogged for a time in confused traffic.

Telephones were at a premium in the hospital and I clung to mine for dear life. I was afraid to stray from the wicket lest I lost contact with the outside world.

My decision was made for me, however, when Kilduff and Wayne Hawks of the White House staff ran by me, shouting that Kilduff would make a statement shortly in the so-called Nurses Room a floor above and at the far end of the hospital.

I threw down the phone and sped after them. We reached the door of the conference room and there were loud cries of "Quiet!" Fighting to keep his emotions under control, Kilduff said, "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy died at approximately one o'clock."

I raced into a nearby office. The telephone switchboard at the hospital was hopelessly jammed. I spotted Virginia Payette, wife of UPI's Southwest Division manager and a veteran reporter in her own right. I told her to try getting through on pay telephones on the floor above.

Frustrated by the inability to get through the hospital switchboard, I appealed to a nurse. She led me through a maze of corridors and back stairways to another floor and a lone pay booth. I got the Dallas office. Virginia had gotten through before me.

Whereupon I ran back through the hospital to the conference room. There, Jiggs Fauver of the White House transportation staff grabbed me and said Kilduff wanted a pool of three men immediately to fly back to Washington on Air Force One, the presidential aircraft.

"He wants you downstairs, and he wants you right now," Fauver said.

Down the stairs I ran and into the driveway, only to discover Kilduff had just pulled out in our telephone car.

Charles Roberts of Newsweek Magazine, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting and I implored a police officer to take us to the airport in his squad car. The Secret Service had requested that no sirens be used in the vicinity of the airport, but the Dallas officer did a masterful job of getting us through some of the worst traffic I've ever seen.

As we piled out of the car on the edge of the runway about 200 yards from the presidential aircraft, Kilduff spotted us and motioned for us to hurry. We trotted to him and he said the plane could take two pool men to Washington; that Johnson was about to take the oath of office aboard the plane and would take off immediately thereafter.

I saw a bank of telephone booths beside the runway and asked if I had time to advise my news service. He said, "But, for God's sake, hurry."

Then began another telephone nightmare. The Dallas office rang busy. I tried calling Washington. All circuits were busy. I then called the New York bureau of UPI where the General News Desk seemed quite shocked to hear from me. I told them about the impending installation of a new president aboard the airplane.

Kilduff came out of the plane and motioned wildly toward my booth. I slammed down the phone and jogged toward the runway. A detective stopped me and said, "You dropped your pocket comb."

Aboard Air Force One on which I had made so many trips as a press association reporter covering President Kennedy, all of the shades of the larger main cabin were drawn and the interior was hot and dimly lighted.

Kilduff propelled us to the President's suite two-thirds of the way back in the plane. The room is used normally as a combination conference and sitting room and could accommodate eight to 10 people seated.

I wedged inside the door and began counting. There were 27 people in this compartment. Johnson stood in the center with his wife, Lady Bird. U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, 67, a kindly-faced woman stood with a small black Bible in her hands, waiting to give him the oath.

The compartment became hotter and hotter. Johnson was worried that some of the Kennedy staff might not be able to get inside. He urged people to press forward, but a Signal Corps photographer, Capt. Cecil Stoughton, standing in the corner on a chair, said if Johnson moved any closer, it would be virtually impossible to make a truly historic photograph.

It developed that Johnson was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy, who was composing herself in a small bedroom in the rear of the plane. She appeared alone, dressed in the same pink wool suit she had worn in the morning when she appeared so happy shaking hands with airport crowds at the side of her husband.

She was white-faced but dry-eyed. Friendly hands stretched toward her as she stumbled slightly. Johnson took both of her hands in his and motioned her to his left side. Lady Bird stood on his right, a fixed half-smile showing the tension.

Johnson nodded to Judge Hughes, an old friend of his family and a Kennedy appointee.

"Hold up your right hand and repeat after me," the woman jurist said to Johnson.

Outside a jet could be heard droning into a landing.

Judge Hughes held out the Bible and Johnson covered it with his large left hand. His right arm went slowly into the air and the jurist began to intone the constitutional oath, "I do solemnly swear I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States..."

The brief ceremony ended when Johnson, in a deep firm voice, repeated after the judge, ". . . and so help me God."

Johnson turned first to his wife, hugged her about the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned to Kennedy's widow, put his left arm around her and kissed her cheek.

As others in the group -- some Texas Democratic House members, members of the Johnson and Kennedy staffs -- moved toward the new president, he seemed to back away from any expressions of felicitation.

The two-minute ceremony concluded at 2:38 p.m., CST, and seconds later, the President said firmly, "Now, let's get airborne."

Col. James Swindal, pilot of the plane, a big gleaming silver and blue fan-jet, cut on the starboard engines immediately. Several persons, including Sid Davis of Westinghouse, left the plane immediately. The White House had room for only two pool reporters on the return flight and these posts were filled by Roberts and me, although at the moment we could find no empty seats.

At 2:47 p.m., CST, the wheels of Air Force One cleared the runway. Swindal roared the big ship up to an unusually high cruising altitude of 41,000 feet where at 625 MPH ground speed the jet hustled toward Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

When the President's plane reached operating altitude, Mrs. Kennedy left her bedchamber and walked to the rear compartment of the plane. This was the so called Family Living Room, a private area where she and Kennedy, family and friends had spent many happy airborne hours chatting and dining together.

Kennedy's casket had been placed in this compartment, carried aboard by a group of Secret Service agents.

Mrs. Kennedy went into the rear lounge and took a chair beside the coffin. There she remained throughout the flight. Her vigil was shared at times by four staff members close to the slain chief executive -- David Powers, his buddy and personal assistant; Kenneth P. O'Donnell, appointments secretary and key political adviser; Lawrence O'Brien, chief Kennedy liaison man with Congress; and Brig. Gen. Godfrey McHugh, Kennedy's Air Force aide.

Kennedy's military aide, Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, was busy most of the trip in the forward areas of the plane, sending messages and making arrangements for arrival ceremonies and movement of the body to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

As the flight progressed, Johnson walked back into the main compartment. My portable typewriter was lost somewhere around the hospital and I was writing on an over-sized electric typewriter which Kennedy's personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, had used to type his speech texts.

Johnson came up to the table where Roberts and I were trying to record the history we had just witnessed.

"I'm going to make a short statement in a few minutes and give you copies of it," he said. "Then when I get on the ground, I'll do it over again."

It was the first public utterance of the new chief executive, brief and moving:

"This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help -- and God's."

When the plane was about 45 minutes from Washington, the new President got on a special radio-telephone and placed a call to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, the late President's mother.

"I wish to God there was something I could do," he told her. "I just wanted you to know that."

Then Mrs. Johnson wanted to talk to the elder Mrs. Kennedy.

"We feel like the heart has been cut out of us," Mrs. Johnson said. She broke down for a moment and began to sob. Recovering in a few seconds, she added, "Our love and our prayers are with you."

Thirty minutes out of Washington, Johnson put in a call for Nellie Connally, wife of the seriously wounded Texas governor.

The new President said to the governor's wife:

"We are praying for you, darling, and I know that everything is going to be all right, isn't it? Give him a hug and a kiss for me."

It was dark when Air Force One began to skim over the lights of the Washington area, lining up for a landing at Andrews AFB. The plane touched down at 5:59 p.m., EST.

I thanked the stewards for rigging up the typewriter for me, pulled on my raincoat and started down the forward ramp. Roberts and I stood under a wing and watched the casket being lowered from the rear of the plane and borne by a complement of armed forces body bearers into a waiting hearse. We watched Mrs. Kennedy and the President's brother, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, climb into the hearse beside the coffin.

The new President repeated his first public statement for broadcast and newsreel microphones, shook hands with some of the government and diplomatic leaders who turned out to meet the plane, and headed for his helicopter.

Roberts and I were given seats on another 'copter bound for the White House lawn. In the compartment next to ours in one of the large chairs beside a widow sat Theodore C. Sorensen, one of Kennedy's closest associates with the title of special counsel to the President. He had not gone to Texas with his chief but had come to the air base for his return.

Sorensen sat wilted in the large chair, crying softly. The dignity of his deep grief seemed to sum up all of the tragedy and sadness of the previous six hours.

As our helicopter circled in the balmy darkness for a landing on the White House south lawn, it seemed incredible that only six hours before, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been a vibrant, smiling, waving and active man.

[source Link: CLICK HERE]

Everyone in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car, but at this moment, we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed. "we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle" what does that mean? What was the 'big bubble-top'? Is someone making it up as he goes along?

There was one researcher who did a very good, very detailed report on the chain of custody of all the ammo (and the fragments) and if my memory serves me correctly, claimed that one unspent Carcano round found it's way to Capt. Fritz's desk drawer and lived there for an extended period of time. I'll have to dig to find it and I'll link it here if I do.

Thanks, Chris. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have. IIRC, it is alleged that Fritz kept one of the hulls found in the "sniper's nest" in his desk drawer. I've never found much of a trail for the live round.

Maybe unrelated but in a broader sense maybe not:

I've seen this clip before. My reaction in watching it is the same now as it was the first time I watched it. At least two of the hulls at NARA are NOT the ones allegedly found on the 6th floor. With this photographic evidence obtained by Barry Krusch, how can this fact be refuted by anyone?

Tom

I certainly want to acknowledge that Barry Krusch did an excellent job on proving that there was no case against LHO. His tracking of the shells from the TSBD was excellent.

It's unfortunate that better documentation was not done so that we wouldn't have to guess and speculate so much on 'what might have been true'.

By "better documentation", I assume you mean just more documentation or better quality documentation? Or are you willing to concede that some documentation is manipulated, contrived, falsified or destroyed?

We don't have any photographic or video record of the live round being removed from the weapon on the sixth floor of the TSBD. We only have testimony and documentation. Some of that documentation is already controversial as far as the number of spent rounds recovered.

To suggest that there are other possibilities for the what we see in the Alyea film vs. the weapon that was presented on the sidewalk outside but we won't discuss those because they present a different paradigm, is a little dishonest, no?

By "better documentation", I assume you mean just more documentation or better quality documentation? Or are you willing to concede that some documentation is manipulated, contrived, falsified or destroyed? All the above. The president of the USA was assassinated. you would think they would immediately put someone in charge to make sure no detail got overlooked. Well, they did put someone in charge but it was for the opposite reason. To insure that nothing was detailed enough to even allow it to be used as evidence. The rifle from the TSBD was/is not evidence. It had nothing to do with the assassination. It was just a diversion, no shots were fired from there. There were at least two rifles removed from the floor, one or more of those disappeared. There was no clip, there was a clip. Why don't we know the answer to that? No one has ever proved that a Manlicher Carcano rifle was associated with the assassination other than as plants. No bullet that was fired from a MC on 11/22 has ever been recovered. LHO never owned a MC rifle. Until some one proves he did, then he didn't.

Posted for Gary Murr:

These images are from the 4th roll of film William Allen took on November 22nd, exposures number 17 and 18. The clip "theoretically" found in the rifle from the TSBD can plainly be seen projecting from the bottom of the housing. These images are quite rare and probably have not been seen by too many people. If nothing else they definitely confirm the presence of "a" clip in the weapon as Day walked it across the street to the DPD.

Image 1:-

Image 2:-

Image 3:-

What I'm wondering is how the f* photos like these are so overlooked for 50 years?

Maybe it's because it's not really evidence in the assassination. Only in the diversion.

After much thought about the location of the clip when the rifle was found there is an alternative explanation that we might consider.

We've presumed one of these scenarios:

1. The clip got stuck inside the rifle when the last round was chambered instead of falling out.

2. The clip fell out when the last round was chambered. It was found but not documented and re-inserted in the weapon.

3. There was no clip.

or

4. There were two live rounds in the rifle and therefore the clip was functioning as it should and was still inside the rifle. When both rounds were removed the clip was then re-inserted to keep it together with the rifle on it's trip to DPD.

All good enough theories, however I've never heard that there were 2 live rounds at the scene. It's unfortunate that better documentation was not done so that we wouldn't have to guess and speculate so much on 'what might have been true'.