JFK Assassination: 100 Moments That Made The World Stand Still

One Moment That Made the World Stand Still: JFK

On November 22nd 1963, with his presidency deep into its third year, John F. Kennedy was one of the most recognisable and powerful people on the planet. He had steered his party (and the country) through variously testing, unprecedented and controversial times, at the height of the Cold War. But, at the dawn of that bright, autumnal day, with an appointment in Dallas to meet, Kennedy may well have been looking ahead to the future with optimism.

And yet, history shows that Kennedy’s time was that day to be cut tragically and brutally short. While travelling in the presidential motorcade, in an unarmoured, convertible 1961 Lincoln Continental Limousine, seated alongside his wife and First Lady, Jackie, Kennedy was shot. First confusion and then panic erupted at the scene. Then, as still today, the question was… how on earth did this happen?

This is WatchMojo. Today we take a closer look at the JFK assassination, including the events leading up to that infamous moment, all that happened during the initial chaos and reaction, and we’ll ask what was the lasting legacy of a president’s murder?

John Kennedy was 43 years old when he became the 35th President of the United States in January 1961 - he was the youngest ever to be elected to the post. Born in 1917, he came from a politically prominent family. But his presidency was shaped not so much by his own past, as by a world in rapid motion. The Cold War, civil rights tensions, the space race… there was change, some turmoil, and undoubted energy coursing through the country at the beginning of the 1960s.

In his short time in office, Kennedy faced multiple major tests. Just a few months into his term, in April 1961, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba underscored the perils of Cold War brinksmanship. He then witnessed rising tensions in Germany and the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. In October ‘62, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world perilously close to nuclear war. By most measures, it was the nearest humankind has ever come to atomic armageddon. In that crisis, though, Kennedy and his advisers managed a diplomatic route that eventually prevented catastrophe. Nevertheless, events left both the president and the world well aware of just how close to the edge we had truly come.

Leadership in the nuclear age meant navigating a complex global chessboard, all while - for Kennedy - ensuring that the US continually retained the upper hand. Domestically, and with this in mind, Kennedy championed boldness and ambition. In his inaugural address, he famously said: “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”. He endlessly called for Americans to engage, innovate and lead. And a major part of his vision was embodied in the new frontier of space travel.

In another historic speech, Kennedy declared in May 1961 that the United States would commit to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the decade was out - a goal that was eventually met, almost six years after Kennedy himself had died. It was a pledge that galvanized NASA, as well as all the nation’s engineers and scientists, symbolising (as it did) a broader (and crucial) rivalry with the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s most famous line relating to the space race came in September 1962, when he doubled down on America’s efforts by insisting that the country had chosen to go to the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

By the autumn of 1963, Kennedy had more than settled into his role as leader. Economically, the United States was in a strong position. Socially, there were ongoing issues, but there was also a growing sense of determination for the future. The president himself had developed a celebrity-like public image. He and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy projected glamour. Kennedy’s supporters, at least, may have felt as though the country was on the precipice of something significant; of better, brighter times.

But beneath the seeming optimism there was continued turbulence, and notably within Kennedy’s own Democratic Party. Not everyone was on board and, in fact, it was this that had led Kennedy to that fateful spot along Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd 1963. The president had travelled south for a meeting between local party members, in a bid to address growing animosity between them. He had arrived in Dallas the evening before, and - at the time of his death - was on his way to sit with his colleagues, aiming to shore up support in Texas ahead of his 1964 re-election campaign.

But then, of course, the sound of gunfire pierced through the air, and history turned within an instant.

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November 22nd, 1963. Dallas, Texas. A beating heart of the American South. The sun was shining. The stock market was up. And the eyes of America - and the world - were on the young president riding through the city in an open-top convertible. Kennedy’s visit to Texas was carefully orchestrated. It was a planned multi-city tour. The purpose: political consolidation. Although America’s next formal election was more than a year away, the 1964 race was now appearing on the horizon. For Kennedy, it may even be said that this was his first unofficial day of campaigning.

Texas Democrats were split: on one side liberal figures, on the other conservative voices. Kennedy needed to unify his party and show strength in the South, all in a bid to build as strong a foundation as possible for a second run at the White House. In the hours before arriving at Dealey Plaza, Kennedy had made multiple scheduled stops for photo ops and to deliver short speeches. And, in Dallas itself, despite a reported lack of support for the president in the city at the time, welcoming and enthusiastic crowds lined the streets.

In what transpired to be his final moments, the president appeared relaxed and was smiling. The open-top limousine that carried him through Dallas offered visibility and connection with the public - but also increased risk. The motorcade entered Dealey Plaza at about 12:30 p.m., on time, as scheduled, with the route itself having been published in local newspapers in the days beforehand. This was a well-known, public place surrounded by historic buildings, including the Texas School Book Depository. Here, on the sixth floor, according to official lines, there was a sniper laying in wait.

As the limousine rolled past the Depository, along Elm Street, the atmosphere was upbeat. But then gunfire. And all the good feeling evaporated into fear and pandemonium. The exact sequence of shots has long been debated and analysed (as well as the precise number of shots taken) but the basic facts are clear. First, Kennedy was struck in the top of the back, with the bullet exiting through his throat. A second (and fatal) shot followed moments later, hitting him in the head. Amidst the chaos, Governor John Connally - seated in front of Kennedy - was non-fatally wounded in the chest, wrist and thigh.

The motorcade swerved. Spectators screamed. As the car accelerated away, immediately making for the nearest medical facility - Parkland Memorial Hospital - Mrs Kennedy, in shock, reached toward her husband. The president’s body had slumped. Jackie, although she reportedly could not recall doing so afterwards, reached across the back of the limo, apparently in a desperate attempt to retrieve part of John Kennedy’s skull. Governor Connally, wounded but conscious, called out from his seat, “My God, they’re going to kill us all!”.

The next thirty minutes is a blur of frantic activity. The president was rushed to the emergency room at Parkland, arriving at 12:38. Hurried attempts were made by surgeons to save him, all while Kennedy’s personal physician oversaw. But, at 01:00 p.m., he was officially declared dead.

Politics moves quickly, and never more so than now. By 1:30 p.m., Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson - Kennedy’s successor - was being strongly advised to immediately leave Dallas for Washington. Those advising him initially feared that the president’s second-in-command might also be targeted as part of a wider plot. Johnson, however, refused, reportedly saying that he wouldn’t leave until he could do so with Kennedy’s now-widow, Jackie, who herself wouldn’t depart without Kennedy’s body on the same flight.

Over the following sixty minutes, this caused a huge amount of tension, with Texas state law requiring that an autopsy should be performed. It’s said that Kennedy’s team almost came to blows with the local lawmakers, before officials backed down and allowed for the body to be taken onto Air Force One. Then, at 02:38 p.m., shortly before take-off to Washington, Johnson was officially inaugurated while on board the presidential plane, and while standing next to Jaqueline Kennedy. In a famous photograph of the momentous event, the former First Lady can be seen in the same blood-marked Chanel suit as she had been wearing at the time of the shooting, all while Johnson takes his oath. The transfer of power under such somber circumstances became one of the defining images of the day.

Meanwhile, with the crowds on the ground in Dallas still reeling, the world received the news of Kennedy’s fate almost immediately. Television audiences all over the country rushed to their nearest sets to get updates, with CBS’s Walter Cronkite famously delivering the critical bulletin. There was widespread disbelief. There were countless questions but, at the time, very few answers. And, naturally, for many watching on, and for the entirety of the police and security services, the first matter at hand was to find and capture whoever it was behind the trigger.

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Lee Harvey Oswald was a twenty-four year old veteran of the US marines. He was born in October, 1939, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and his unstable childhood was marked by frequent moves and emotional isolation from his mother. Oswald continually changed schools but was often truant and had few friends as, from an early age, he showed signs of social withdrawal and an inclination toward radical ideas. Psychologists who assessed him during his youth variously described Oswald as emotionally disturbed.

At around the age of 15, while he was otherwise failing in school, Oswald’s mind turned to politics, when it’s said he started reading socialist literature - a somewhat unusual pursuit for an American teenager at the time. And yet, in 1956, at the age of seventeen, Oswald’s political persuasion appeared to take a different direction as he enlisted in the US Marines. This decision may have been influenced by a desire of Oswald’s for stability and purpose. But, whatever the reasoning, in the Marines he received training as a radar operator, a position that gave him access to classified information. He also learned to shoot, although his marksmanship scores were only average. And at one stage he was even court-martialed after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized weapon.

In September 1959, claiming that he needed to care for his mother, Oswald was granted a hardship discharge, excusing him from service. In reality, after months of reading and research, this was his first step toward defecting to the Soviet Union. Just days before his twentieth birthday in October 1959, and having pooled his savings and learnt Russian to a competent level, Oswald left the US, travelled to France, the UK and Finland, before finally arriving in Moscow on October 16th. There, he immediately sought to denounce America and join the USSR, but was initially unsuccessful. In response to the rejection, Oswald apparently attempted to take his own life, which in turn meant that he was allowed to remain in the Soviet Union for a few more days to recover. During this period, Oswald’s bid for Soviet citizenship improved, with officials eventually allowing him to stay indefinitely.

He was sent to the industrial city of Minsk, where he worked as a lathe operator in a radio factory. And, despite his initial enthusiasm for communism, Oswald soon became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union. He found the bureaucratic system oppressive, the surveillance constant, and the society less ideal than what he had imagined. In his diary, just three months into his new life, Oswald bemoaned that there was nowhere to spend the money he’d earned. Around the same time, in early January 1961, he also experienced another rejection, this time from one Ella German - a Belarusian colleague of his, who he dated. Oswald asked her to marry him, but she declined.

Weeks later, in March 1961, Oswald struck up another romantic relationship, this time with Marina Prusakova, and they were promptly married after less than two months together. The couple had a daughter, June, in February 1962. With his life having taken another different direction, it was now that Oswald applied to return to the United States, this time bringing his wife and daughter with him. The US government allowed him back, and he settled in the Dallas–Fort Worth area - close to his mother and brother. As he had done with schools, Oswald moved through jobs, never truly holding anything down. Meanwhile, he reportedly retained a general interest in communist politics, fostering links with the Russian émigrés who had also settled nearby.

Oswald was never truly accepted into the Russian community, but his political sympathies remained. And, when he purchased a rifle for $21.45 in March, 1963, his story took a violent turn. On April 10th, 1963, a shot was fired at the former US Major General, Edwin Walker, as he sat at his desk at home. Although Oswald was not a suspect at the time, in the days following the Kennedy assassination later that same year, analysis reportedly showed that he almost certainly had been the would-be assassin of Walker, as well. Given that Walker was prominently anti-communist, it’s said that Oswald viewed him with disdain as a fascist leader. He took his shot, Walker survived, but Oswald escaped any further consequences.

In the weeks between then and November 22nd at Dealey Plaza, it’s known that Oswald visited Mexico City, seemingly in a bid to travel from there to Cuba and again to the Soviet Union. He was denied passage to Cuba, however, and so returned to the US, and to Dallas. His wife, Marina, was pregnant at the time, and in late October gave birth to the couple’s second daughter, Audrey. A job had opened up at the Texas School Book Depository, which Oswald took, and for the next few weeks his life might even have begun to appear settled.

But then came Kennedy’s visit to the city, and the published route of his motorcade, set to pass right by Oswald’s new place of work. On that morning, Oswald waited by a window on the sixth floor. Propped up by packed boxes, he set his sights, and the 1961 Lincoln Continental promptly rolled into view.

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Within hours of Kennedy’s death, police had identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the prime suspect, largely because he worked at the Book Depository, which was where early intel suggested the shots had been fired from. And Oswald’s actions before and after the assassination only served to deepen suspicion.

He was reportedly seen entering the building that day carrying a long, thin package, which Oswald is said to have claimed contained curtain rods. Really, it’s thought that those “rods” were actually his disassembled rifle. Oswald was also last seen on the sixth floor of the Book Depository around 35 minutes before the shooting took place, and he was seen leaving the building shortly afterwards. From there, he boarded a bus, returned to a nearby room he rented, and left again on foot. At around 1:15 p.m. - 45 minutes after Kennedy was shot - a patrolling Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippit, passed Oswald and stopped to question him, realising that Oswald matched the profile of the Kennedy suspect, based on early descriptions that had already been broadcast. When Tippit exited his police car… Oswald shot and killed him with a concealed revolver.

Oswald was arrested in a movie theater later that afternoon and charged with both murders. He had snuck into the Texas Theater without paying, and was reportedly watching the 1961 film, “War is Hell” at the time of his capture. Under interrogation, Oswald denied all charges, famously proclaiming, “I’m just a patsy”. He insisted that he had not shot anyone and claimed he was being set up, due to his links to communism and the Soviet Union. Despite extensive questioning, no definitive confession was ever obtained from Oswald. And, as history shows, just two days after Kennedy died, Oswald was also killed. While he was being transferred between jails, an event that was broadcast on live television, he was shot in the stomach at point-blank range by the nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital - the same hospital where Kennedy had himself been pronounced dead - but he succumbed to his injuries within an hour.

Ruby, a local figure with ties to both law enforcement and organized crime, claimed that he had acted out of grief and rage, wanting to spare Mrs. Kennedy the extra ordeal of a trial. Nevertheless, his actions fueled countless conspiracy theories, as many believed that Oswald’s death was meant to silence him before he could reveal more about the assassination. Of course, many of those theories are debated still today.

There was an official investigation, in a bid to determine the truth. The Warren Commission was established by the incoming President Johnson, and in 1964 it concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for killing Kennedy, and that he had acted alone. The report was met with skepticism at the time, however, and has been severely questioned ever since. Counter theories involving CIA coverups have always dogged the findings of the Warren Commission. It’s alleged that the CIA only partially cooperated with the investigation, offering very little information about its own ongoing, anti-communist activities - which many believe may have led all the way back to the Kennedy assassination itself.

Arguably the two most infamous and contentious issues revolve around first the “grassy knoll” and second the “magic bullet”. Despite the Warren Commission finding that Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from the book depository building, there has always been interest in a nearby “grassy knoll” because multiple witnesses and researchers have suggested that there was actually a second gunman positioned that day on a small, sloping hill, set just back from the road. Located to the right-front of the motorcade as it passed through, many argue that it was from here that the final fatal shot was fired at Kennedy - and not from the book depository behind. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, many bystanders rushed to the knoll, so certain were they that the shooter would be positioned there. More broadly, the theory posits that this second shooter was part of a broader conspiracy to kill Kennedy, potentially involving (again) the CIA, organized crime, or other political enemies.

Meanwhile, the "magic bullet" (or "single-bullet") theory represents another critical and controversial component of the Warren Commission's official explanation. According to the Commission, a single bullet - designated Commission Exhibit 399 - caused seven entry and exit wounds to both Kennedy and Governor Connally, passing through the back of Kennedy’s neck, before striking Connally in the chest, wrist and thigh. And all while remaining intact enough for the bullet to be easily identifiable later in the day, when it was found on the side of a gurney that had carried the stricken Connally to Parkland. The bizarre and (for many) unlikely trajectory of the bullet is crucial to the idea that Oswald acted alone; that only he was responsible for the death and injury of that day. But, for critics, the bullet’s journey is just too implausible. They argue that it would’ve required impossible mid-air changes in direction. And so, along with the mystery surrounding the “grassy knoll’, the “magic bullet” is also used by some as proof that, with the Kennedy assassination, all is not as it was reported to be; that there has always been a conspiracy and coverup afoot.

Other prominent investigations were launched alongside the Warren Commission. The FBI conducted its own search into the assassination, reportedly staging upwards of 25,000 interviews before reaching a conclusion that matched a preliminary report delivered by the FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, within 24-hours of Kennedy’s death; that Oswald had acted alone. On the other hand, a later investigation - running from 1976 to 1978, and conducted by the then-newly-formed United States House Select Committee on Assassinations - found differently. In its report, the HSCA determined that the events of November 22nd, 1963, likely were the result of a conspiracy, and that there likely was a second shooter in attendance that day, most probably positioned on (or near) the grassy knoll.

Ultimately, while the official line is still that Kennedy was killed by one man acting alone, the truth (for many) remains disturbingly blurred. What is clear is that Kennedy’s murder was a major turning point in twentieth century history. It shattered any sense of invulnerability that may have previously accompanied the position of US President. In general, it conjured a dark and uncertain vision of the future for an entire generation of Americans. And, of course, what happened that day directly changed the shape of US politics from that point, as well with Kennedy’s Vice-President Johnson stepping into the helm. Johnson, during his term, will have made decisions that Kennedy perhaps wouldn’t have done, and so the timeline of history constantly evolves.

But, perhaps more than anything else, the assassination brought into the light urgent questions about secrecy, the role of intelligence agencies at home and abroad, and government transparency. It accelerated geopolitical concerns at the time, and contributed to a growing distrust in institutions and world leaders. Suspicion, doubt and unease all became part of the cultural fabric of the late 1960s and beyond.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s unsettling story highlights the fraught and fragile nature of the Cold War era. There were deep and dangerous ideological divides at the time. And, whether Oswald is viewed as a lone, disturbed gunman, as a pawn in a larger, hidden plot, or as a political defector unfairly framed… he became a major part in one of America’s darkest ever chapters.

For John Kennedy, his was a life suddenly ended just as he was preparing to hit the campaign trail again. His killing transpired to be the first of four major assassinations in the 1960s. Malcolm X was shot and killed in 1965. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Kennedy’s brother, Robert, were both slain in 1968. This was a decade of unprecedented political violence.

It started on that notorious November day, in the early afternoon sun, as a smiling, waving President was greeted by the waiting crowds.