The temperature is 50F - I cannot get used to Fahrenheit again!!
We breakfasted with J and then en route to the hospital, he dropped us at the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza,
the building from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK.
Unfortunately, the museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. We toured the area where the events of November 22, 1963 took place.
I think that everyone of a certain vintage can recall where s/he was when the news of the assassination took place! I recall being at home watching TV when the newscaster Charles Mitchell, announced the shooting of JFK and later his death.
The Texas School Book Depository is the location where the gunshot rang out from the top right window of the sixth floor of the building, where Oswald had a perfect view of the cavalcade as it passed the grassy knoll.
Above a photo just prior to the shooting
The injured President and Texas Governor Connolly, were rushed to Parkland hospital
Floral tributes left after the shooting
After the shots rang out, the police entered the Texas School Book Depository building and took a roll call of employees - a recent employee, one Harvey Oswald was missing.
Meanwhile, Oswald, on leaving the building, had taken a taxi in the direction of his recently acquired lodgings.
He didn’t want the taxi man to know where he lived, so he exited the taxi a couple of blocks away. As he walked towards his home a police car passed him, so he turned back in the opposite direction. The policeman seeing this became suspicious and turned his car and attempted to interview Oswald. When he got out of the police car, Oswald fatally shot Officer Tippit.
The spot on the road where Officer Tippet was fatally
shot by Oswald.
The police on hearing of the death of one of their own, deployed numerous patrol cars in search of Officer Tippit’s killer. Oswald continued walking and each time he saw a police car, he ducked into a shop. When he entered the cinema,
without a ticket, an employee became suspicious of someone moving about when the whole city was watching events unfold on TV. The police arrived and Oswald was arrested.
Police quickly found the location of the shooting on the 6th floor where the gun, cardboard cartons (to conceal his presence as he awaited the arrival of the cavalcade) and a paper bag (in which they assumed Oswald had carried the gun into the Depository ) which upon examination, Oswald’s finger prints were found.
He was arrested but while being transferred from the City to the County jail, he was fatally shot by Jack Ruby.
Ruby was a nightclub owner, a former boxer with a short temper, AKA Sparky!! He was well in with the police and knew of the transfer. He had links with the Mafia and was believed to be in financial trouble but died of cancer before being tried for fatally injuring Oswald.
A number of events conspired to cause both Kennedy and Oswald’s death. Kennedy’s exact itinerary was only organised a few days before; because the weather was warm, he travelled in the open cavalcade otherwise he would have been in a bullet proof car and had had his advisors not insisted on he giving his speech at The Trade Mart in lieu of another more secure venue favoured by the Texans, he would not have been passing the Grassy Knoll; the location of the shooting.
There were multiple opportunities to assassinate Kennedy as he passed down Main Street with thousands of people lining the streets. So enthusiastic was the crowd that it spilled out onto the streets, thus making it difficult for the cavalcade to make progress.
The main attraction was Kennedy’s wife, Jackie, who had not been seen in public since the loss of her baby, nine months earlier. Kennedy has persuaded her to come to Dallas, as she would attract a huge crowd and help his re-election. She was a fashion icon. When in Europe the previous year, Kennedy had remarked that he had accompanied Mrs Kennedy to Europe, acknowledging her crowd pulling power - for younger readers, she was the Princess Diana of the 1960s!!
Oswald was supposed to have been transferred by bullet proof car from the City to the County jail but the car wouldn’t fit through the entrance, so the car was sent as a decoy and Oswald was transferred by private car, where Ruby has the opportunity to shoot him, while in police custody.
The trolley bus tour is well worth taking.
The trip gave us a great overall view of the city. We drove past the house where Oswald had taken a room days before the assassination , now a museum, the spot where Officer Tippet was shot and the location of the cinema where Oswald was arrested. We passed the entrance to County Jail where Oswald was assassinated and down Main Street to Dealey Place, beside the Texas School Book Depository and Grassy Knoll, where JFK was assassinated
The trip takes an hour, departing from Dealer Plaza, near the Grassy Knoll ($18pp) it was very informative.
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