60th Anniversary of a Very Dark Moment in American History

[Henry]

Sixty years ago today, President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a convertible in Dallas. Two days after that, Lee Harvey Oswald would also be assassinated while in jail. I remember my father telling me how he heard of the news when he was a high school senior in Chicago, and even today he still remembers it like it was yesterday, which is one that he'd like to forget but never could.

Does anyone else here (or their parents) have a memory of where they were when this all occurred?

[ozarkman417]

My father told me he was on his way to a college Biology class when the news broke. He lived in Illinois at the time.

[tmoore952]

I don't know about the presidential assassination wrt my family, but my father told me that he saw Oswald get shot on live TV.

I have seen CBS footage of the Oswald shooting. Harry Reasoner was on the air, reporting on Oswald being transferred out of the police station through the basement, when Ruby unexpectedly did what he did.
(he wasn't shot while in jail, he was being transferred -- in retrospect they (Dallas police) should not have announced that ahead of time)

[bulldog1979]

There is an interesting, but minor, road-related connection to the assassination. The Marquette Bypass (for US 41/M-28) was opened to traffic on November 22, 1963. During construction of the expressway, veins of jasper were unearthed, and the local chamber of commerce was giving jewelry with the stone to various dignitaries. A set of jasper cufflinks from Marquette were supposed to be sent to President Kennedy, but he was killed just 90 minutes after the roadway opened.

https://www.miningjournal.net/news/front-page-news/2013/12/at-50-us-41-bypass-still-does-the-job/

[catch22]

I was in my 7th grade math class when the principal got on the PA and called all the teachers to the office.  A few minutes later, my teacher returned, visibly shaken, and told us the news.  About 15 minutes later, we were dismissed for the day.  When I got home, my mother asked me why I was home early, and I told her the news.  She almost fainted.

Like many others, I was watching the news coverage pretty much non-stop and got to see Oswald shot on live TV.  Crazy times.

[nexus73]

Having visited the grassy knoll area, if you go there you will see 3 equidistant spots for snipers where fence pieces were removed.  Three is a "magic number" to give the best chance at something you want to be done to come forth.  Going past that hits the point of diminishing returns. 

Watch the original CBS broadcast during the assassination and you will see a family being interviewed who reported shots from behind their place on the grassy knoll.  Other witnesses stated they saw men running away from the area too.

[tmoore952]

Having visited the grassy knoll area, if you go there you will see 3 equidistant spots for snipers where fence pieces were removed.  Three is a "magic number" to give the best chance at something you want to be done to come forth.  Going past that hits the point of diminishing returns. 

Watch the original CBS broadcast during the assassination and you will see a family being interviewed who reported shots from behind their place on the grassy knoll.  Other witnesses stated they saw men running away from the area too.

As someone a few years too young tor remember, it was nice to see actual rebroadcasts of that day later on (40th or 50th anniversaries). I know I've seen the NBC coverage, not sure about CBS.

Around the 50th anniversary, I reread the Warren Commission report book that we had sitting in my parent's house, which I had read as a youngster, and frankly it raised more questions than answers. It was not clear about Kennedy's head wound (many of the interviewees who were in the motorcade were "talking around" its severity, which is understandable given what I now know). From reading that (and for a few years I believed this) you'd think he had a chance to survive (e.g., he didn't die at 1:00 like the official statement said; the truth is he died immediately). Also, the (early) interview with Oswald's mother about her son being set up was very interesting to read and presaged what I read later about that from other sources.

I still have not visited the site. It's not something I think about very much, usually nowadays only on the anniversary.

[mgk920]

The only 'conspiracies' regarding that event that make any sense to me involve LBJ (JFK's über-corrupt VP) as the chief instigator.  Yes, that's all long been water over the dam now.

Mike

[Rothman]

Nah, it was Castro.

[hbelkins]

Mac Kilduff, the assistant presidential press secretary who made the announcement of JFK's death and recorded the swearing-in of LBJ on a Dictaphone recorder, retired to Beattyville. He met and married a local girl from here who was working in DC and they retired to her childhood home on a hill overlooking the railroad tracks and the North Fork of the Kentucky River. I knew Mac from the time he moved here and worked with him for about four years. I've heard all the stories.

He never really tried to cash in on his proximity to history. He didn't sell access to interviews and he never wrote a tell-all book. He frequently spoke about his role on that day, but never to make a profit.

He had an interesting theory in that Oswald was actually shooting at John Connally instead of JFK, because Connally had signed his other-than-honorable discharge papers as secretary of the Navy. Mac never bought into the "grassy knoll shooter" theory.

[kkt]

The only 'conspiracies' regarding that event that make any sense to me involve LBJ (JFK's über-corrupt VP) as the chief instigator.  Yes, that's all long been water over the dam now.

Mike

I don't believe that.  LBJ was a rough, overbearing politician, but I don't see him going for assassination.  Also, if there was a conspiracy, it would be amazing that it hasn't gotten exposed by now.  That points to either a highly professional group that knew how to eliminate all loose ends, or else it really was a lone gunman.

My grandmother made Christmas cookies every year, and on the recipe card she'd write something about how making the cookies had gone - needed another 5 minutes, or dough had to be rolled out twice.  Sometimes family things.  1963 my mom had gotten married.  Noteworthy to her as my mom was the oldest and the only daughter so their relationship was particularly close.  Also "We lost the president".

[J N Winkler]

As a sort of commemoration, I Googled some facts connected to the assassination.

*  JFK's death certificate is easy to find online.  It was issued by the State of Texas with a "nonresident" stamp in the upper right corner, gives the street address of the White House as his residence, and identifies his occupation as President of the United States.  The informant was Evelyn Lincoln, his personal secretary.  After he took office, LBJ gave her just 30 minutes to clean out her desk.  She later spoke of a conversation in which JFK had told her he wanted a VP candidate who was on the same page as him about institutional reform in Congress, and that while he was thinking about Terry Sanford (then governor of North Carolina), it wouldn't be LBJ.

*  Not being up on assassination lore and not wishing to slide down the tunnel of conspiracy theories, I had a vague notion that the assassination rifle had been shipped to Oswald as a kit with some assembly required.  That was not the case.  It was manufactured in 1940 at the Regia Fabbrica d'Armi di Terni as an ordinary infantry rifle, and the Italian army auctioned it off to an American sporting-goods wholesaler as surplus about 20 years later.  It was chambered for the 6.5×52 mm Model 1895 cartridge, which (depending on bullet mass) has muzzle velocities well north of 2,000 ft/sec (for comparison, the speed of sound is around 1,125 ft/sec).  Oswald fired the fatal shot from a range of about 265 feet.  Though there are lingering questions as to whether he would have been able to aim with the scope attached to the rifle, multiple tests have demonstrated this shot can be made by marksmen of varying degrees of proficiency.  Though the cartridge is considered suitable for whitetail deer with a pointed bullet, in Italian military service it typically had a round-nosed bullet which tumbles on impact and does massive tissue damage.

[Scott5114]

JFK's death certificate is easy to find online.  It was issued by the State of Texas with a "nonresident" stamp in the upper right corner, gives the street address of the White House as his residence, and identifies his occupation as President of the United States.

I think it's kind of funny the Social Security number was left blank. Even odds of whether this was because the person preparing the certificate knew they were preparing a historical document, or because nobody wanted to be the one to call up the White House and ask about the President's Social Security number...

[1995hoo]

I find it interesting to see that because my birth certificate is from Texas and the death certificate looks strikingly similar (with appropriate adjustments, of course), but I guess that shouldn't be much of a surprise—it makes eminent sense that the forms would be of a similar design.

Regarding the part about it listing his occupation as president, that's similar to the late Queen Elizabeth's, which lists her occupation as "Her Majesty The [sic] Queen."

[Evan_Th]

Regarding the part about it listing his occupation as president, that's similar to the late Queen Elizabeth's, which lists her occupation as "Her Majesty The [sic] Queen."

I'm surprised the death certificate listed her surname as "Windsor". I was under the impression the actual royal family in direct line didn't have any surname; I'd heard that Prince William and Prince Harry used "Wales" in school.

And now that you prompted me to look it up, Prince George's birth certificate is also online, with no surname listed for the baby or either parent.

[Scott5114]

Regarding the part about it listing his occupation as president, that's similar to the late Queen Elizabeth's, which lists her occupation as "Her Majesty The [sic] Queen."

I find the way the dates are done on that form to be deeply unsatisfying.

[J N Winkler]

I think it's kind of funny the Social Security number was left blank. Even odds of whether this was because the person preparing the certificate knew they were preparing a historical document, or because nobody wanted to be the one to call up the White House and ask about the President's Social Security number...

It's an interesting question--I don't know if his SSN (026-22-3747) was deliberately withheld because there was a plan to release the death certificate soon after it was issued.  (Texas is among the states that make death certificates publicly available after a certain number of years.  Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, and North Carolina are among the others, but Kansas is not.)

There is also the aspect that recordkeeping can vary considerably even within a given Texas county.  At some point in the 1940's, when my second great-grandmother was in her late nineties and living in Delta County, her daughter and youngest child (my great-grandaunt) boarded her with a woman who provided nursing care out of her home.  Neither of my ancestor's two (!!!!) death certificates had the actual street address, and I couldn't find her with a name search in the 1950 Census when it was released last year, because of bad OCR.  So I dredged up a death certificate for her nurse's husband, who died in 1951.  That did have the house number and street I needed.

Oswald's and Ruby's death certificates are also available and, unlike Kennedy's, have more information that is handwritten.

I find it interesting to see that because my birth certificate is from Texas and the death certificate looks strikingly similar (with appropriate adjustments, of course), but I guess that shouldn't be much of a surprise—it makes eminent sense that the forms would be of a similar design.

I would expect your Texas birth certificate to be fairly similar to mine from Kansas, though probably with minor differences in layout.  Although registration of births and deaths is a state function, the CDC has manuals that provide guidance on the types of information to be collected and on how to describe cause of death.

Regarding the part about it listing his occupation as president, that's similar to the late Queen Elizabeth's, which lists her occupation as "Her Majesty The [sic] Queen."

Until it was released, there was doubt her death would be formally registered at all.  She died in Scotland (becoming the first British monarch to do so since James V in 1542), where the statute providing for registration applies to all living persons that die in that country.  The equivalent enactment in England and Wales applies only to the monarch's subjects, and the sovereign is generally not considered his or her own subject.

There was also hope that a death registration, if carried out and publicly released, would state a specific medical cause of death.  For example, it was widely speculated that she had peripheral arterial disease.  In the US, CDC guidance discourages vague references like "natural causes" (which have been used on death certificates anyway).  However, the Queen's registration says just "old age," which in Scotland is considered acceptable if the decedent is over the age of 80 and death follows a progressive decline in health in which no specific disease or syndrome can be pinpointed.