The Kennedy Assassination

At half past noon on November 22, 1963, president John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while he was riding down Dallas’s Dealy Plaza in a presidential motorcade with his wife, Jaqueline, and Texas Governor John Connally and Connally’s wife, Nellie. In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union, had committed the assasination alone. But before Oswald could be tried, he was shot by night club owner Jack Ruby, who took aim while Oswald was being transferred to a county jail.
The assasination of our 35th president was a seminal event in Texas. The tragedy seemed to seal the perception of our state as being populated by a bunch of trigger-happy yeehaws who were beyond forgiveness. Some of our early stories explore that theme: Alexander Cockburn’s profile of Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, Marguerite; Gary Cartwright’s “Who was Jack Ruby?“; and William Broyles’s profile of Hugh Aynesworth, who as of 1976, could not let go of the assassination conspiracy theories that plagued him since that terrible day in Dallas. Lawrence Wright recounted his struggles as a young man, growing up under the assassination’s shadow in 1983, in an essay entitled “Why do they hate us so much?“: “It was a shock how much the world hated us—and why? Oswald was only dimly a Dallasite. He was a Marxist and an atheist; you could scarcely call him a product of the city. He was, if anything, the Anti-Dallas, the summation of everything we hated and feared. How could we be held responsible for him? The world decided that Kennedy had died in enemy territory, that no matter who had killed him, we had willed him dead.”
Over time, however, it surprised many of us Texans that hatreds softened and memories faded. The conspiracy theories that looked like sure things upon closer inspection seemed to come to little, according to then editor, Greg Curtis in 1989. Then Oliver Stone stirred everybody up again with JFK, the movie; Mark Seal’s story describes the reenactment of the assassination in tragicomic detail.
This collection of heartfelt condolence letters to the First Lady show that Texans felt enormous anguish and guilt over the tragedy. But as the years pass, this painful event seems to be passing through a transition from memory to history, as evidenced by Mimi Swartz’s profile of the late Nellie Connally and her account of Dallas’s attempt to quietly celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death.
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Six JFK Events: November 22
Various groups and organizations around Dallas are hosting events to commemorate the memory and legacy of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in the city in 1963.
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Robert L. Wood’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
November 22, 1963 Mrs. John F. KennedyWHITE HOUSEWashington, D.C. My dear Mrs. Kennedy: I have never before written to a Congressman, President or any type of Statesman. In fact, in my thirty some years of living I have never DONE …
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Mary McMillen’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
Dear Mrs. Kennedy, I am a Catholic also, I go to Saint Georges School. I can remember Nov. 21, the day before you came. We go to mass every day, then we go to lunch. This day was different, after …
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Jane Dryden’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
January 18, 1964 4201 LullwoodAustin Texas Dear Mrs. Kennedy, I know that you hate the whole state of Texas. I do to. I wish I lived in Washington, D.C. where maybe I could maybe see you standing on your porch. …
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Monroe Young’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
December 1, 1963in 1962 September 23, Some mean man killed my dady too- Here in Dallas-my dady was a soldrer Sanda Clause diden get my letter i hope he will get my letter i wont a bicycle— When you write …
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David Blair McClain’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
Nov. 22 1963 Dear Mrs. Kennedy, I was at school when I heard about the President. I cried for two or three minuts. My mother also cried, and so did my teacher Mrs. Mansir. I was very sad for President …
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Eileen Mitchell’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
1:10 pm Nov. 22, 1963 From a student of North Texas State University The radio sat in the window of the second floor dorm window blaring out the sad news that our President had been shot! People walking around in …
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J.E.Y. Russell’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
906 ParkviewDallas, Texas Dec. 1 – 1963 Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy First Lady in our hearts. I live in Dallas, a city bowed in sorrow, and shame. I am 76 years old and live on a social security check I must …
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Henry Gonzales’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
P.O. Box 9652El Paso, Texas 79986 Dec. 8, 1963 Mrs. J.F. KennedyWashington, D.C. Dear Mrs. Kennedy: I am but a humble postman and I realize the many letters you have received, which is but deserving to you, throughout this wide …
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Marie Tippit’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
MRS JOHN F KENNEDY WASHDC MAY I ADD MY SYMPATHY TO THAT OF PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD. MY PERSONAL LOSS IN THIS GREAT TRAGEDY PREPARES ME TO SYMPATHIZE MORE DEEPLY WITH YOU. MRS. J D TIPPIT DALLAS TEX (34). …
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Claudine Skeat’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
Mrs. John F. KennedyWhite HouseWashington, D.C. Dear Mrs. Kennedy, You and President Kenney were in my office a week ago yesterday. I am secretary to General Bedwell at Brooks Air Force Base, and I will forever be haunted by how …
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Tommy Smith’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
Dear Mrs. Kennedy: I know the grief you bear. I bear that same grief. I am a Dallasite. I saw you yesterday. I hope to see you again. I saw Mr. Kennedy yesterday. I’ll never see him again. I’m very …
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Suzan Lane’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
Dec. 6, 1963Houston, Texas Dear Mrs. Kennedy, I am ten years old. When I saw them moving President Kennedy’s rocking chairs out of the White House, a great sadness entered my heart. You made such a beautiful collection of treasures …
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Marcy Wentworth’s Letter to Jackie Kennedy
5509 Dalwood DriveAustin, Texas 78723November 25, 1963 Dear Mrs. Kennedy, There are no words in any language to express truly our grief and the sympathy we wish to extend to you and your family on the death of your husband, …
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“May God Be With You, My Dear Mrs. Kennedy”
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, scores of Americans wrote letters to the first lady to express their grief. The most heartbreaking were those with a Texas return address.
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Wandering Oswald
An interview with Peter Savodnik, author of “The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union.”
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Spun City
For half a century the world has regarded the Dallas of 1963 as a city of hate. But as JFK knew when he got there, that wasn’t the whole story.
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Texas State Archives to Display Bloody Clothes from Kennedy Assassination
An exhibit opening next Tuesday include an aerial photograph detailing Oswald’s escape route and the 25-page Dallas Police Department inventory of items taken from Oswald after his arrest. But the centerpiece of show is something much more morbid.
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The Assassination at 50
In November 1973, Texas Monthly, which was still in its first year of existence, marked the tenth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy with a profile of Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, Marguerite; the cover, however, went to Tom …
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The Class of ’63
The good, the bad, and the most self-indulgent of this year’s JFK assassination books.
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The Man Who Was There
For fifty years, journalist Hugh Aynesworth has been one of the foremost authorities on the Kennedy assassination for one simple reason: he saw it all.
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The Children of Texas
I was never certain how to explain the importance of the state to my three daughters. Now that I have two grandsons—named Mason and Travis, no less—I’ve realized something that I should have known all along.
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The Assassination at 35
A handsome young president, a convertible limousine, a sniper, three shots (we think), and our lives were changed forever. A special report on what is, for many, the defining event of the past fifty years.
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The Conspiracy Theories
JFK was killed by (a) the mob, (b) Castro, (c) the FBI, (d) the CIA, or (e) none of the above? Decide for yourself.
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Can Hollywood Solve JFK’s Murder?
Director Oliver Stone may not be sure who did it or how, but he is sure he knows why.
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The Dallas Arts Scene Is Ready for Its Close-Up
As the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination approaches, the eyes of the world will be upon the city, and its cultural leaders are prepared for the attention.
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11/22/2013
In one year the eyes of the world will turn to Dallas’s Dealey Plaza for the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Is the city ready?
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“The President Is Dead, You Know”
What the late LBJ confidant Jack Valenti remembered about the longest day of his life.
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The Witness
For forty years Nellie Connally has been talking about that day, when she was in that car and saw that tragedy unfold. She’s still talking—and now she’s writing too.
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A Ride for Mrs. Oswald
On November 22, 1963, I was working as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when I answered the phone—and got a close encounter with history.
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Case Study
ALL OUR LIVES—our beliefs, our government, our history—changed that day [“The Assassination at 35,” November 1998]. I was thirteen when President Kennedy was killed, and I have always believed it was a conspiracy. After this issue, I don’t. Sis Hoskins …
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Conspiracy Dearies
It took a couple of seconds for the president to be killed, 35 years for mountains of conflicting evidence to pile up, and two months for associate editor Michael Hall and assistant editor Pamela Colloff to sift through it all …
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The Evidence
The magic bullet, the president’s jacket, Oswald’s camera, and other artifacts from the National Archives.
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The Two Oswalds
It’s the most intriguing theory of all: two men with the same identity, one a patsy and the other a murderer who got off scot-free.
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The Fourth Tramp
A new book about Lee Harvey Oswald reveals that conspiracy theorists are still straining to repackage old news into something new.
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Lee Harvey’s Legacy
Rachel Oswald did not kill John F. Kennedy, but for more than three decades she has struggled to make peace with the darkest day in Texas history.
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“I Knew I Had Been Hit”
In a chilling excerpt from his autobiography, the late John Connally offers his close-up account of the Kennedy assassination.
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I Was Mandarin…
Clues left behind by a former Dallas cop convinced his son that he killed President Kennedy—but that’s just the beginning of the mystery.
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Still on the Case
Assassination buffs come in all shapes and convictions—archivists, technologists, mob-hit theorists, and more—but they are all obsessed with Lee Harvey Oswald, and his crime is the focus of their lives.
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Why Do They Hate Us So Much?
A great man was dead and an outraged world desperately wanted someplace to lay blame. It chose Dallas and changed the city forever.
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Mother of the Decade
Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother wants to tell the world how she got out from under Jackie’s shadow.