Daily hansan
Monday, Nov. 25, 1963
Lawrence, Kansas
John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
Eyewitness Relates Assassination Drama
Editors' Note: Merriman Smith, UPI White House reporter who now is covering his fifth President, was riding several cars behind President Kennedy in a Dallas, Tex., motorcade Friday when the assassin struck. Smith followed the President's car to the hospital. He was there for the announcement of death and witnessed President Johnson's oath-taking as the only news service reporter aboard the plane back to Washington. This is his eyewitness story of history.
WASHINGTON—It was a balmy, sunny noon as we followed President Kennedy's car through downtown Dallas. Then, suddenly, we heard three almost painfully loud cracks.
I was riding in the White House "pool car," equipped with a radio-telephone. I was in the front seat between a telephone company driver and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary. Three other pool reporters were wedged in the back seat.
The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker. But the second and third were unmistakable. Gunfire.
AS WE HEARD the shots the President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter. There was a flurry of activity in the secret service car behind the President's open limousine.
I could not see the President or Gov. John Connally of Texas in their car. I thought I saw a flash of pink which would have been Mrs. Kennedy.
Everybody in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car. But at this moment, we saw the limousine and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed.
Our car stopped for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. Even for a trained observer there is a limit to what one can comprehend.
WE CAREENED around VicePresident Lyndon Johnson's car and its escort and set out down the highway, barely able to keep in sight of the President's car.
We cleared a curve and saw Parkland Hospital, a large brick structure to the left of the highway. We spilled out of the pool car as it entered the hospital driveway.
THE PRESIDENT lay face down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the President's head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him.
I ran to the side of the limousine.
I have no further clear memory of the scene in the driveway. I recall a babble of anxious voices, tense voices—"Where in hell are the stretchers. . . Get a doctor out here . . . He's on the way. . . Come on, easy there." And from somewhere, nervous sobbing.
Gov. Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting in the arms of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs.
Clint Hill, the secret service agent in charge of the detail assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, was leaning over into the rear of the car.
"HE'S DEAD," HILL replied curtly.
I knew they had passed, however, from the horrified expression that suddenly spread over the face of the clerk.
It took two shaky tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number. I dictated a bulletin saying the President had been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured by an assassin's bullets while driving through the streets of Dallas.
LITTERS BEARING the President and the Governor then rolled by as my back was turned.
I raced down a short stretch of sidewalk into a hospital corridor. The first thing I spotted was a small clerical office. Inside, a bespectacled man stood shuffling what appeared to be hospital forms. I spotted a telephone on the shelf.
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"How badly was he hit, Clint?" I asked.
61st Year. No. 52
World Leaders Assemble For President's Funeral
By Merriman Smith
WASHINGTON —(UPI) — America buried her dead young President today.
His nation mourned, and the world mourned with it.
Kings and presidents, premiers and princes, ministers and emissaries from 53 nations added their tribute to the homage of his countrymen.
John F. Kennedy's last journey began at the Capitol where since yesterday afternoon 240,000 to 250,000 men and women and children had filed past his bier to say silent goodbyes to the jaunty and vibrant JFK who was cut down by an assassin's bullet on Friday.
THE JOURNEY, which would end hours later in a hero's grave in Arlington's still green National Cemetery, began at 10:45 a.m. EST when the President's body was borne from the great rotunda in the Capitol where it had lain in state since yesterday.
The day was clear, crisp and beautiful, in contrast to Friday when the skies over the capital wept all day.
All along the avenue of heroes from the Capitol to the White House it was as though Washington had lost its voice.
Tens of thousands of Americans thronged the streets between the Capitol and the White House and between the White House and the 65-year-old St. Matthews Cathedral where the fallen President's soul would be committed to God's care at mid-day.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy went again to the Capitol, as a member of the cortese bring- ing him home for the last time to the White House. The Kennedy children, Caroline who will be 6 on Wednesday, and John Jr. who was 3 today, waited at the White House to join the funeral party on its return.
A HUSH HAD COME over the thousands there and around the executive mansion.
As the horse-drawn caisson passed no one talked. The only sound from the throng was an occasional sob.
At the Capitol as military pallbearers carried the casket to the waiting caisson, the Coast Guard Band played "Hail to the Chief."
AT THE WHITE HOUSE a Navy choir, assembled on the grass across from the black-draped north portico, sang hymns.
The driveway leading to the portico was lined by members of the armed services, each wearing white boots and holding a flag aloft.
The casket was placed atop its caisson, a piece of military equipment older than Kennedy was. It was the same caisson which carried the body of Franklin D. Roosevelt through the same saddened Washington streets 18 years before.
At the foot of the marble stairs, across from Kennedy's widow and brothers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commandant of Coast Guard stood at attention.
THEN, WITH MUFFLED drums throbbing, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was borne on his last procession through the capital of the nation he had led.
Behind the caisson, a walking soldier led the black, riderless horse with boots reversed in the stirrups which traditionally follows the body of a fallen leader. As it did yesterday, the black horse jerked its head against its bridle, and drummed its hooves on the pavement in nervous distress.
The caisson left the Capitol grounds, and, at 11:10 a.m., turned sharply onto Pennsylvania Avenue.
Keeping stiffly in ranks, the military honor units marched solemly ahead of the caisson. Their flags hung limp, then fluttered in a sudden breeze, then hung limp again. The swords of their leading officers glinted brightly in the bright sun which shone down on the President's last journey.
WAITING AT THE White House were French President Charles de Gaulle, Britain's Prince Philip, and the other world leaders
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Dallas Night Club Operator Acts In Concern for Kennedy's Wife
DALLAS —(UPI)— Police closed the books today on Lee Harvey Oswald and the world may never know what was in his mind. He was shot to death as President Kennedy's assassin by a self-appointed executioner before a nationwide television audience.
While the martyred President was being buried in Arlington National Cemetery, mourned by the world, the Communist-Castro sympathizer accused of slaying him lay on a cold marble slab in a morgue, disgraced.
He died with his lips sealed. He took to the grave with him the reason Kennedy was killed if, as police are convinced without doubt, he was the assassin.
THE 24-YEAR-OLD pro-Castro Marxist was being transferred in handcuffs from city jail to a maximum security cell at the county jail house when Jack Ruby, a one-time Chicago street brawler and owner of a Dallas stripease night club, leaped from a crowd of newsmen and policemen with a curse, jammed a snub-nosed 38 caliber pistol into Oswald's side and fired one shot.
"You S.O.B." he shouted. Oswald jerked back. So did the police body
Weather
Tomorrow's temperatures will again range in the upper 40s' following the low tonight of 28 degrees. The weather bureau predicted partial clearing of today's cloudy skies.
guards flanking him. But there was nothing they could do to stop Ruby,
Dallas policeman P. T. Dean said Ruby told him he shot Oswald out of concern for Mrs. Kennedy. Dean said Ruby did not want Mrs. Kennedy to "go through the ordeal of returning to Dallas" and testifying at Oswald's trial.
HENRY WADE, Dallas County District Attorney, filed murder charges against Ruby and said he would ask for the death penalty.
Wade said he had no idea of Oswald's motives. They died with him. Some of the outrage expressed across the nation at Ruby's vengeance shooting was based on the fact Oswald never will be able to tell what he knew and never can be brought to justice.
The Dallas Morning News reported in a copyright story that agents searching the room Oswald rented under the alias "O. H. Lee" found a map that was Wade's "Exhibit A."
LAST NIGHT, Wade called a news conference.
The paper said the map was lined with the path of the assassination bullets. The news said this was the "major" evidence uncovered by police but not revealed. Wade did not mention it.
"As far as Oswald is concerned, the case is closed," he said. He added that there was "no concrete" evidence that anyone helped him in the assassination, or that he belonged to any political organizations
other than the "Fair Play for Cuba" committee.
Wade revealed additional evidence that police had gathered against Oswald. He said he was doing so because of calls he had been getting from "Stockholm and all sorts of foreign countries" to clear up questions about evidence.
Witnesses saw Oswald in the building before the shooting and saw him leave immediately after-
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Lee Harvey Oswald