John F.

Kennedy assassination
The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday,
November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) in Dealey Plaza.
Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade.

The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963–1964, the United States House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979, and other government investigations concluded that the
President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was subsequently murdered by Jack Ruby, before
he could stand trial. This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public; however, polls
conducted from 1966 to 2004 concluded approximately 80% of the American public have held beliefs contrary
to these findings.[1][2] The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous
conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)
found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The
HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired, that there was a "high probability" that two
gunmen fired at the President, and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed.[3] Later studies, including one
by the National Academy of Sciences,[4] have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the
HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

Assassination
Just before 12:30 p.m. CST, Kennedy’s limousine entered Dealey Plaza and slowly approached the Texas
School Book Depository. Nellie Connally, then the First Lady of Texas, turned around to Kennedy, who was
sitting behind her, and commented, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." which President
Kennedy acknowledged.[5][6]

When the Presidential limousine turned and passed the Depository and continued down Elm Street, shots were
fired at Kennedy; a clear majority of witnesses recalled hearing three shots.[7] A minority of the witnesses did
recognize the first gunshot blast they heard as a weapon blast, but there was hardly any reaction from a majority
in the crowd or riding in the motorcade itself to the first shot, with many later saying they heard what they first
thought to be a firecracker or the exhaust backfire of a vehicle just after the president started waving.[8][9]

Within one second of each other, President Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and Mrs. Kennedy, all
turned abruptly from looking to their left to looking to their right, between Zapruder film frames 155 and
169.[10] Connally, like the president a WWII military veteran (and unlike the president, a longtime hunter),
testified he immediately recognized the sound of a high-powered rifle, then he turned his head and torso
rightward attempting to see President Kennedy behind him. Connally testified he could not see the president, so
he then started to turn forward again, and was hit in his upper right back by a bullet that he testified he did not
hear the muzzle blast from. He then shouted, "Oh, no, no, no. My God. They're going to kill us all!"[11][12]

Mrs. Connally testified that right after hearing a first loud, frightening noise that came from somewhere behind
her and to her right, she immediately turned towards President Kennedy and saw him with his arms and elbows
already raised high with his hands already close to his throat. She then heard another gunshot and John
Connally started yelling. Mrs. Connally then turned away from President Kennedy towards her husband, then
another gunshot sounded and she and the limousine's rear interior were covered with fragments of brain, blood,
and bone matter.

According to the Warren Commission[13] and the House Select Committee on Assassinations,[14] as President
Kennedy waved to the crowds on his right with his right arm upraised on the side of the limo, a shot entered his
upper back, penetrated his neck, slightly damaged a spinal vertebra and the top of his right lung, exited his
throat nearly centerline just beneath his Adam's apple, then nicked the left side of his suit tie knot. He then
raised his arms and clenched fists around his head and neck, then leaned forward and towards his left. Mrs.
Kennedy (already facing him) then put her arms around him in concern. Governor Connally also reacted after
the same bullet penetrated his back creating an oval entry wound, impacted and destroyed four inches of his
right, fifth rib bone, exited his chest just below his right nipple creating a two-and-a-half inch oval sucking-air
chest wound, then entered just above his right wrist, impacted and cleanly fractured his right wrist bone, exited
just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm, and entered his left inner thigh.[15][16] The Warren
Commission theorized that the "single bullet" struck between Zapruder frames 210 and 225, while the House
Select Committee theorized it occurred exactly at Zapruder frame 190.
According to the Warren Commission, a second shot struck at Zapruder film frame 313 (the Commission made
no conclusion as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired) when the Presidential limousine was
passing in front of the John Neely Bryan north pergola concrete structure (the House Select Committee
concluded that the final shot was the fourth shot). They each concluded that this shot entered the rear of
President Kennedy's head (the House Select Committee determined the entry wound to be four inches higher
than the Warren Commission), then exploded out a roughly oval shaped hole from his head's rear and right side.
Head matter, brain, blood, and skull fragments covered the interior of the car, the inner and outer surfaces of the
front glass windshield and raised sun visors, the front engine hood, the rear trunk lid, the followup Secret
Service car and its driver's left arm, and motorcycle officers riding on both sides of the president behind him.[17]
Mrs. Kennedy then reached out onto the rear trunk lid. After she crawled back into her limousine seat, both
Governor Connally and Mrs. Connally heard her say more than once, "They have killed my husband," and "I
have his brains in my hand."[18][19]

United States Secret Service agent Clint Hill was riding on the left front running board of the followup car,
immediately behind the Presidential limousine. Hill testified he heard one shot, then, as documented in other
films and concurrent with Zapruder frame 308, he jumped off into Elm Street and ran forward to try and get on
the limousine and protect the president. (Hill testified to the Warren Commission that after he jumped into Elm
Street, he heard two more shots)[20] After the president had been shot in the head, Mrs. Kennedy began to climb
out onto the back of the limousine, though she later had no recollection of doing so.[21][22] Hill believed she was
reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the president's skull.[23] He jumped onto the back of the limousine
while at the same time Mrs. Kennedy returned to her seat, and he clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and
sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

Main article: Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald, reported missing to the Dallas police by Roy Truly, his supervisor at the Depository,[43]
was arrested an hour and 20 minutes after the assassination for killing a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, who
had spotted Oswald walking along a sidewalk in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff.[44] Oswald was
captured in a nearby movie theater after he was seen sneaking into the theater without buying a ticket.[45]

Oswald resisted, attempting to shoot the arresting officer, M.N. McDonald, with a pistol, and was struck and
forcibly restrained by the police.[46] He was charged with the murders of Tippit and Kennedy later that night.[47]
Oswald denied shooting anyone and claimed he was a patsy who was arrested because he had lived in the
Soviet Union.[48][49][50] Oswald's case never came to trial because two days later, while being escorted to a car
for transfer from Dallas Police Headquarters to the Dallas County Jail, he was shot and killed by Dallas
nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Carcano rifle
Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination rifle

A 6.5 x 52 mm Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle was found on the 6th floor of the Texas Book
Depository by Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman and Deputy sheriff Eugene Boone soon after the
assassination of President Kennedy.[51] The recovery was filmed by Tom Alyea of WFAA-TV.[52] This footage
shows the rifle to be a Carcano, and it was later verified by photographic analysis commissioned by the HSCA
that the rifle filmed was the same one later identified as the assassination weapon.[53] Compared to photographs
taken of Oswald holding the rifle in his backyard, "one notch in the stock at [a] point that appears very faintly in
the photograph" matched,[54] as well as the rifle's dimensions.[55]

The previous March, the Carcano rifle had been bought by Oswald under the name "A. Hidell" and delivered to
a post office box Oswald rented in Dallas.[56] According to the Warren Commission Report, a partial palm print
of Oswald was also found on the barrel of the gun,[57][58] and a tuft of fibers found in a crevice of the rifle was
consistent with the fibers and colors of the shirt Oswald was wearing at the time of his arrest.[59][60]

A bullet found on Connally's hospital gurney, and two bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine,
were ballistically matched to this rifle.[61]

Autopsy

Main article: John F. Kennedy autopsy

Drawing depicting the posterior head wound of President Kennedy.

After Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C., Kennedy's body was
taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an immediate autopsy. The autopsy (about 8 p.m. to 12 midnight EST on
November 22)[73] was followed by embalming and cosmetic funeral preparation (about 12 midnight to 4 a.m.) in
the morgue at Bethesda, in a room adjacent to the autopsy theater. This was done by a team of private mortuary
personnel, who made an unusual trip to the hospital for this procedure. The autopsy of President Kennedy
performed the night of November 22 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three examining pathologists to
conclude that the bullet wound to the head was fatal, and the bullet had entered slightly above and 2.5 cm to the
right of the external occipital protuberance, exiting through the right side of the skull above the ear and
"carrying with it portions of cerebrum, skull and scalp."[74]

The report addressed a second missile which "entered Kennedy's upper back above the shoulder blade, passed
through the strap muscles at the base of his neck, bruising the upper tip of the right lung without puncturing it,
then exiting the front (anterior) neck," in a wound that was destroyed by the tracheotomy incision.[75] This
autopsy finding was not corroborated by the President's personal physician, Dr. Burkley, who recorded, on the
death certificate, a bullet to have hit Kennedy at "about" the level of the third thoracic vertebra.[76] Supporting
this location along with the bullet hole in the shirt worn by Kennedy (Image) and the bullet hole in the suit
jacket worn by Kennedy (Image) which show bullet holes between 5 and 6 inches (13 and 15 cm) below
Kennedy's collar (Image). However, photographic analysis of the motorcade, including a new pre-assassination
film released in February 2007 (color film), shows that the President's jacket was bunched below his neckline,
and was not lying smoothly along his skin, so the clothing measurements have been subject to historical
criticism as being untrustworthy on the matter of the exact location of the back wound.[77] Dr. J. Thornton
Boswell's face sheet diagram from the autopsy sheet is sometimes used to support a lower back wound (Image).
However, in 1966 Boswell noted that this drawing was never intended to be scale-exact, and he re-drew it for
the benefit of The Baltimore Sun on November 25, 1966, placing an X at the higher spot (Image). Boswell
stated that his measurements of 5.5 inches (14 cm) from the ear and shoulder properly locate the wound, and
these are inconsistent with a wound at the third thoracic vertebra.[78] Moreover, all three Bethesda doctors
authenticated for the HSCA autopsy photographs showing an entry wound at the level of C6 (the sixth cervical
vertebra, at the base of the neck), which is the entry level as determined by the HSCA investigation on the basis
of photographic and X-ray evidence from the autopsy.

Later federal agencies such as the Assassination Records Review Board[79] criticized the autopsy on several
grounds including destruction from burning of the original draft of the autopsy report and notes taken by Cmdr.
James Humes at the time of the autopsy, and failure to maintain a proper chain of custody of all of the autopsy
materials.[80]
Recordings of the assassination

Dealey Plaza, with Elm Street on the right and the underpass in the middle

No radio or television stations broadcast the assassination live because the area through which the motorcade
was traveling was not considered important enough for a live broadcast. Most media crews were not even with
the motorcade but were waiting instead at the Dallas Trade Mart in anticipation of Kennedy's arrival. Those
members of the media who were with the motorcade were riding at the rear of the procession.

The Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency designated as
Channel One was used for routine police communications. A second channel, designated Channel Two, was an
auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the president's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most
of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of Police Chief Jesse Curry's announcements of the location of the
motorcade as it wound through the streets of Dallas.

Looking south, with the pergola and knoll behind the photographer: the X on the street marks the approximate
position of the final head shot (photo taken in July 2006)

President Kennedy's last seconds traveling through Dealey Plaza were recorded on silent 8 mm film for the 26.6
seconds before, during, and immediately following the assassination. This famous film footage was taken by
garment manufacturer and amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder, in what became known as the Zapruder
film. Frame enlargements from the Zapruder film were published by Life magazine shortly after the
assassination. The footage was first shown publicly as a film at the trial of Clay Shaw in 1969, and on television
in 1975.[81] According to the Guinness Book of World Records, an arbitration panel ordered the US government
to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs for giving the film to the National Archives. The
complete film, which lasts for 26 seconds, is valued at $16m.[82]

Zapruder was not the only person who photographed at least part of the assassination; a total of 32
photographers were in Dealey Plaza. Amateur movies taken by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore (shown on
television in New York on November 26, 1963),[83] and Charles Bronson (not the actor) captured the fatal shot,
although at a greater distance than Zapruder. Other motion picture films were taken in Dealey Plaza at or
around the time of the shooting by Robert Hughes, F. Mark Bell, Elsie Dorman, John Martin Jr., Patsy Paschall,
Tina Towner, James Underwood, Dave Wiegman, Mal Couch, Thomas Atkins, and an unknown woman in a
blue dress on the south side of Elm Street.[84] Still photos were taken by Phillip Willis, Mary Moorman, Hugh
W. Betzner Jr., Wilma Bond, Robert Croft, and many others. The lone professional photographer in Dealey
Plaza who was not in the press cars was Ike Altgens, photo editor for the Associated Press in Dallas.

An unidentified woman, nicknamed the Babushka Lady by researchers, might have been filming the
presidential motorcade during the assassination because she was seen apparently doing so on film and in
photographs taken by the others.

Previously unknown, color footage filmed on the assassination day by George Jefferies was released on
February 20, 2007 by the Sixth Floor Museum, Dallas, Texas.[85] The film does not include depiction of the
actual shooting, having been taken roughly 90 seconds beforehand and a couple of blocks away. The only detail
relevant to the investigation of the assassination is a clear view of Kennedy's bunched suit jacket, just below the
collar, which has led to different calculations about how low in the back Kennedy was first shot (see discussion
above).
Official investigations
Dallas Police

After arresting Oswald and collecting physical evidence at the crime scenes, the Dallas Police held Oswald at
the police headquarters for interrogation. Oswald was questioned all afternoon about both the Tippit shooting
and the assassination of the President. He was questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hours between
2:30 p.m., on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24.[86] Throughout this interrogation Oswald denied any
involvement with either the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit.[86] Captain
Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the questioning, keeping only rudimentary notes.[87] Days
later he wrote a report of the interrogation from notes he made afterwards.[88] There were no stenographic or
tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the
Secret Service, and occasionally participated in the questioning.[89] Several of the FBI agents present wrote
contemporaneous reports of the interrogation.[90]

During the evening of November 22, the Dallas Police Department performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands
and right cheek in an apparent effort to determine, by means of a scientific test, whether Oswald had recently
fired a weapon.[89] The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek.[89] However, because
of the unreliability of these tests, the Warren Commission did not rely on the results of the test in making their
findings.[89]

Oswald provided little information during his questioning. Frequently, however, he was confronted with
evidence which he could not explain, and he resorted to statements which were found to be false.[89] Dallas
authorities were not able to complete their investigation into the assassination of Kennedy because of
interruptions from the FBI and the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby.

Police Chief Jesse Curry was later quoted, "We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did.
Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."[91]

FBI investigation

The FBI was the first authority to complete an investigation. On November 24, 1963, just hours after Oswald
was murdered, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, said that he wanted "something issued so we can convince the
public that Oswald is the real assassin."[92] On December 9, 1963, only 17 days after the assassination, the FBI
report was issued and given to the Warren Commission. Then, the FBI stayed on as the primary investigating
authority for the commission.

The FBI stated that only three bullets were fired during the assassination; the Warren Commission agreed with
the FBI investigation that only three shots were fired but disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit
Kennedy and which hit Governor Connally. The FBI report claimed that the first shot hit President Kennedy,
the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. In contrast, the
Warren Commission concluded that one of the three shots missed, one of the shots hit Kennedy and then struck
Connally, and a third shot struck Kennedy in the head, killing him.

Criticism of FBI

The FBI's murder investigation was reviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979. The
congressional Committee concluded:

 The Federal Bureau of Investigation adequately investigated Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the
assassination and properly evaluated the evidence it possessed to assess his potential to endanger
the public safety in a national emergency.
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a thorough and professional investigation into the
responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination.
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a
conspiracy to assassinate the President.
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation was deficient in its sharing of information with other
agencies and departments.[93]

The FBI has received added scrutiny by Kennedy assassination researchers because of the actions of FBI agent
James Hosty. Hosty appeared in Oswald's address book. The FBI provided to the Warren Commission a
typewritten transcription of Oswald's address book, in which Hosty's name and phone number were omitted.
Approximately 10 days to a week before the assassination, Oswald went to the FBI office in Dallas to meet with
Hosty, and when he found that Hosty was not in the office at the time, Oswald left an envelope for Hosty with a
letter inside. According to the receptionist at the field office it read:

Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop
bothering my wife. Signed - Lee Harvey Oswald.[94]

After Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, Hosty's supervisor FBI Special Agent-in-Charge for Dallas J.
Gordon Shanklin ordered Hosty to destroy the letter, and he did so by tearing the letter up and flushing it down
the toilet. Months later, when Hosty testified before the Warren Commission, he did not disclose this
connection with Oswald. This information became public later and was investigated by the U.S. House Select
Committee on Assassinations.[95]

Criticism of Secret Service

Sgt. Davis, of the Dallas Police Department, believed he had prepared stringent security precautions, in an
attempt to prevent demonstrations like those marking the Adlai Stevenson visit from happening again. The
previous month, Stevenson, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, was assaulted by an anti-UN
demonstrator. But Winston Lawson of the Secret Service, who was in charge of the planning, told the Dallas
Police not to assign its usual squad of experienced homicide detectives to follow immediately behind the
President's car. This police protection was routine for both visiting presidents and for motorcades of other
visiting dignitaries. Police Chief Jesse Curry later testified that had his men been in place, they might have been
able to stop Oswald before he fired a second shot, because they carried submachine guns and rifles.[96]

Warren Commission

Main article: Warren Commission

The Warren Commission presents its report to President Johnson

The first official investigation of the assassination was established by President Johnson on November 29, 1963,
a week after the assassination. The commission was headed by Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States
and became universally (but unofficially) known as the Warren Commission.

In late September 1964, after a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission Report was published. The
Commission concluded that it could not find any persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy
involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies). The Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted
alone in the murder of Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby acted alone in the murder of Oswald. The theory that
Oswald acted alone is informally called the Lone gunman theory. The commission also concluded that only
three bullets were fired during the assassination and that Oswald fired all three bullets from the Texas School
Book Depository behind the motorcade. The Commission also laid out several scenarios concerning the timing
of the shots, but that the three shots were fired in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of
7 seconds.[97]

The commission also concluded that:

 one shot likely missed the motorcade (it could not determine which of the three),
 the first shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the upper back, exited near the front of his neck and likely
continued on to cause all of Governor Connally's injuries, and
 the last shot to hit anyone struck Kennedy in the head, fatally wounding him.
It noted that three empty shells were found in the sixth floor in the book depository, and a rifle identified as the
one used in the shooting — Oswald's Italian military surplus 6.5x52 mm Model 91/38 Carcano — was found
hidden nearby. The Commission offered as a likely explanation that the same bullet that wounded Kennedy also
caused all of Governor Connally's wounds. This theory has become known as the "single bullet theory" or the
"magic" bullet theory (as it is commonly referred to by its critics and detractors). The Commission also looked
into other matters beside who killed the President and criticized weaknesses in security, which has resulted in
greatly increased security whenever the President travels.

The commission also concluded that had President Kennedy not ordered the Secret Service not to have agents
occupy the rear running board positions of the presidential limosine, agents would have jumped on top of the
President after the first gunshot wound and would have spared him from receiving the fatal head wound.[98]

Public response to the Warren Report

Almost immediately after the Warren Commission Report was issued, several researchers began seriously
questioning its conclusions. A multitude of books and articles criticizing the Warren Commission's findings
have been written. The Commission's conclusions have also gradually but continually lost widespread
acceptance from the American public and various prominent government officials.[citation needed] Fifteen years
later, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations came to a different conclusion based on an
audio recording then made available.

Ramsey Clark Panel

In 1968 a panel of four medical experts appointed by Attorney General Ramsey Clark met in Washington, D.C.
to examine various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence pertaining to the death of
President Kennedy. The Clark Panel determined that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and
behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of
which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its upper right side.[99]

Rockefeller Commission

The U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States was set up under President Gerald
Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the CIA within the United States. The commission was led by Vice
President Nelson Rockefeller, and is sometimes referred to as the Rockefeller Commission.

Part of the commission's work dealt with the Kennedy assassination, specifically the head snap as seen in the
Zapruder film (first shown to the general public in 1975), and the possible presence of E. Howard Hunt and
Frank Sturgis in Dallas.[100] The commission concluded that neither Hunt nor Sturgis were in Dallas at the time
of the assassination, and that the head snap did not necessarily imply a shot from the front.[101]

United States House Select Committee on Assassinations

Main article: United States House Select Committee on Assassinations

Fifteen years after the Warren Commission issued its report, a congressional committee named the United
States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) reviewed the Warren Commission report and the
underlying FBI report on which the Commission heavily relied. The Committee criticized the performance of
both the Warren Commission and the FBI for failing to investigate whether other people conspired with Oswald
to murder President Kennedy.[102] The Committee Report concluded that:

"[T]he FBI's investigation of whether there had been a conspiracy in President Kennedy's assassination was
seriously flawed. The conspiracy aspects of the investigation were characterized by a limited approach and an
inadequate application and use of available resources." (footnote 12)

The Committee found the Warren Commission's investigation equally flawed: "[T]he subject that should have
received the Commission's most probing analysis — whether Oswald acted in concert with or on behalf of
unidentified co-conspirators the Commission's performance, in the view of the committee, was in fact flawed."
(footnote 13)
The Committee believed another primary cause of the Warren Commission's failure to adequately probe and
analyze whether or not Oswald acted alone arose out of the lack of cooperation by the CIA. Finally, the
Committee found that the Warren Commission inadequately investigated for a conspiracy because of: "[T]ime
pressures and the desire of national leaders to allay public fears of a conspiracy."

The committee concluded that Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy. The second and third
shots he fired struck the President. The third shot he fired killed him. The HSCA agreed with the single bullet
theory but concluded that it occurred at a time during the assassination that differed from what the Warren
Commission had theorized. Their theory, based primarily on Dictabelt evidence, was that President Kennedy
was assassinated probably as a result of a conspiracy. They proposed that four shots had been fired during the
assassination; Oswald fired the first, second, and fourth bullets, and that (based on the acoustic evidence) there
was a high probability that an unnamed second assassin fired the third bullet, but missed, from President
Kennedy's right front, from a location concealed behind the grassy knoll picket fence.

Many years after the House Select Committee on Assassinations issued its report, the attorney G. Robert Blakey
for the House Select Committee on Assassinations issued a statement to the news media calling into question
the honesty of the CIA in its dealings with the Committee and the accuracy of the information given to it.[citation
needed]

Response to the Dictabelt evidence

Blakey told ABC News that the conclusion that a conspiracy existed in the assassination was established by
both witness testimony and acoustic evidence:

The shot from the grassy knoll is not only supported by the acoustics, which is a tape that we found of a police
motorcycle broadcast back to the district station. It is corroborated by eyewitness testimony in the plaza. There
were 20 people, at least, who heard a shot from the grassy knoll.[103]

The sole acoustic evidence relied on by the committee to support its conclusion of a fourth gunshot (and a
gunman on the grassy knoll) in the JFK assassination, was a Dictabelt recording alleged to be from a stuck
transmitter on a police motorcycle in Dealey Plaza during the assassination.[4] The evidence was presented by
Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, acoustical experts from Queens College,[104] who were part of the 1974
panel that concluded that the 18½ minute gap in the Watergate tapes was because that section was erased.[105]

After the committee finished its work, however, an amateur researcher listened to the recording and discovered
faint crosstalk of transmissions from another police radio channel known to have been made a minute after the
assassination.[4] Further, the Dallas motorcycle policeman thought to be the source of the sounds followed the
motorcade to the hospital at high speed, his siren blaring, immediately after the shots were fired. Yet the
recording is of a mostly idling motorcycle, eventually determined to have been at JFK's destination, the Dallas
Trade Mart, miles from Dealey Plaza.

Several years later, in 1981, a special panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) disputed the evidence
of a fourth shot, contained on the police Dictabelt.[4] The panel concluded it was simply random noise, perhaps
static, recorded about a minute after the shooting while Kennedy's motorcade was en route to Parkland Hospital.

The NAS experts, headed by physicist Norman F. Ramsey of Harvard, reached that conclusion after studying
the sounds on the two radio channels Dallas police were using that day. Routine transmissions were made on
Channel One and recorded on a Dictaphone machine at police headquarters. An auxiliary frequency, Channel
Two, was dedicated to the president's motorcade and used primarily by Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry; its
transmissions were recorded on a separate Gray Audograph disc machine.

The conclusion by the NAS was then rebutted in 2001 in a Science & Justice article by D.B. Thomas, a
government scientist and JFK assassination researcher.[106] Thomas concluded the HSCA finding of a second
shooter was correct and that the NAS panel's study was flawed. Thomas surmises that the Dictaphone needle
jumped and created an overdub on Channel One.[107] In response to Thomas's findings, Michael O'Dell
concluded in his report that the prior reports relied on incorrect timelines and made unfounded assumptions that,
when corrected, do not support the identification of gunshots on the recording.[108]

In 2003, ABC News aired the results of their investigation of the assassination in a news-documentary program
called Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination — Beyond Conspiracy. Based on computer
diagrams and recreations done by Dale K. Myers, ABC News concluded that the sound recordings on the
Dictabelt could not have come from Dealey Plaza and that the Police Officer H.B. McLain was correct in his
assertions that he had not yet entered Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination.[109]

In 2005, an article in Science & Justice by Ralph Linsker, Richard Garwin, Herman Chernoff, Paul Horowitz,
and Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. re-analyzed the acoustic synchronization evidence, rebutting Thomas' 2001
argument as well as correcting errors in the 1982 NAS report, while supporting the NAS report's finding that the
sounds alleged to be gunshots occurred about a minute after the assassination.[110] Followup articles in Science
& Justice have been published.[111]

Sealing of assassination records

All of the Warren Commission's records were submitted to the National Archives in 1964. The unpublished
portion of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) under a general National Archives policy that
applied to all federal investigations by the executive branch of government,[112] a period "intended to serve as
protection for innocent persons who could otherwise be damaged because of their relationship with participants
in the case.”[113] The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and
the JFK Records Act of 1992. By 1992, 98% of the Warren Commission records had been released to the
public.[114] Six years later, at the conclusion of the Assassination Records Review Board's work, all Warren
Commission records, except those records that contained tax return information, were available to the public
with only minor redactions.[115] The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents are scheduled to be
released to the public by 2017, twenty-five years after the passage of the JFK Records Act. The Kennedy
autopsy photographs and X-rays were never part of the Warren Commission records and were deeded
separately to the National Archives by the Kennedy family in 1966 under restricted conditions.[116]

Several pieces of evidence and documentation are described to have been lost, cleaned, or missing from the
original chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out on November 24,[117] Connally's clothing cleaned and
pressed,[118] Oswald's military intelligence file destroyed in 1973,[119] Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve
gold cufflink missing).

Jackie Kennedy's blood-splattered pink and navy Chanel suit that she wore on the day of the assassination is in
climate controlled storage in the National Archives. Jackie wore the suit for the remainder of the day, stating "I
want them to see what they have done" when asked aboard Air Force One to change into another outfit. Not
included in the National Archives are the white gloves and pink pillbox hat she was wearing.[120]

Assassination Records Review Board

The Assassination Records Review Board was not commissioned to make any findings or conclusions. Its
purpose was to release documents to the public in order to allow the public to draw its own conclusions. From
1992 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed about 60,000 documents,
consisting of over 4 million pages.[121][122] All remaining documents are to be released by 2017.

Assassination conspiracy theories

A handbill circulated on November 21, 1963, in Dallas one day before the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination cover-up and conspiracy theories

An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to
1979, concluded that Oswald assassinated President Kennedy as a result of a probable conspiracy.[3] This
conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the
President was assassinated by a lone gunman.
In the ensuing four decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail
organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel
Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community,[123][124] Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson,[125] the Mafia,[126] the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), E. Howard Hunt, and the Eastern
Bloc – or perhaps some combination of these.

Others claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy".
Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination and was murdered two days after being taken into
police custody.

Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what
they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn
Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, David S. Lifton, and
David Kaiser.

Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with
the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large.[127]

Polls have indicated that large numbers of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President
Kennedy.[128] These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A
2003 ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected there was an assassination plot involving more
than one person.[1] A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy
while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.[129]

Reaction to the assassination

Main article: Reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy

In America and around the world, there was a stunned reaction to the assassination. Schools across the U.S.
dismissed their students early,[130] and 54% of Americans stopped their normal activities on the day.[131] In the
days following people wept, lost their appetite, had difficulty sleeping, and suffered nausea, nervousness, and
sometimes anger.[132]

The event left a lasting impression on many people. It is said that everyone remembers where they were when
they heard about the Kennedy assassination,[133] as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,
1941 before it, the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster on January 28, 1986, and the attacks waged on September
11, 2001 afterwards.

Not all recreational and sporting events scheduled for the day of the assassination and during the weekend after
were cancelled. Those that went on shared the sentiment NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle expressed in deciding
to play NFL games that weekend: "It has been traditional...to perform in times of great personal tragedy."[134]