1. The Politician
Born on a farm, John Connally earned both an undergraduate and law degree from the University of Texas prior to serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He got his political start as a legislative assistant to then-Representative Lyndon B. Johnson and later managed a number of LBJ’s campaigns, including his successful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1948. Connally could “leave more dead bodies in the field with less remorse than any politician I ever knew,” LBJ reportedly once said of his protege. Throughout most of the Eisenhower administration, Connally served as legal counsel to a wealthy oil magnate. He then worked for the Kennedy-Johnson ticket during the 1960 presidential campaign and became secretary of the Navy after their election. Less than a year later, he resigned in order to run for governor of Texas, which he won with 54 percent of the vote.
On November 21, 1963, 10 months after taking office, Connally accompanied Kennedy to events in San Antonio and Houston. They then flew to Fort Worth for a next-day breakfast gathering prior to boarding the plane yet again for a short trip to Dallas. Their ill-fated motorcade—which included the presidential limo, two cars filled with Secret Service agents and another car with Vice President Johnson, his wife and a senator—got its start shortly before noon. “We’d had tremendously enthusiastic, warm crowds,” Connally said later. “Everyone was in extremely good spirits.” The mood changed drastically around 12:30 p.m., however, when shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. As Connolly turned to look back at the president one of the bullets struck him. “My God, they are going to kill us all,” he yelled. Several months afterward, he explained that it “felt as if someone had just hit me in the back, a sharp blow with a doubled-up fist. […] It more or less knocked me over, at least enough to where I looked down. And of course I was covered with blood, and frankly thought that I had been fatally hit.”
Before losing consciousness, Connally recalled seeing a chunk of Kennedy’s brain fall onto his trousers. His wife, Nellie, pulled him onto her lap and whispered reassurances as the limo sped toward Parkland Memorial Hospital a few miles away. JFK was soon pronounced dead. Connally, meanwhile, underwent surgery for wounds to his back, chest, wrist and thigh, and ended up making a full recovery. He later speculated that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, might have been aiming for both him and Kennedy. (As Navy Secretary, Connally had brushed off Oswald’s request to upgrade his undesirable discharge from the Marines.) Connally disagreed with the Warren Commission’s much parodied, so-called “magic bullet theory,” which held that one of the bullets had pierced Kennedy’s neck before entering Connally’s back, exiting his chest below the right nipple, passing through his right wrist and puncturing his left thigh. Nonetheless, he pooh-poohed conspiracy theorists, believing that Oswald was the lone assassin, that the Warren Commission did an “outstanding job under very difficult circumstances” and that further investigation was neither “warranted, justified or desirable.”
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Aerial view of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. Kennedy was in an open-top convertible limousine during a campaign visit. As the president’s car passed the Texas School Book Depository, shots rang out.
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President Kennedy was struck by bullets in the neck and head at 12:30 p.m. By 1 p.m. he was pronounced dead. Shown is the interior of the Presidential limousine after Kennedy assassination. John F. Kennedy became the fourth U.S. President to be assassinated, following Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.
Read more: How Presidential Assassinations Changed U.S. Politics
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A diagram of the president’s head wound from the autopsy is shown, stained with blood. After being struck, Kennedy slumped over onto his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. He was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr., who was also in the limo with his wife, was shot once in the chest but recovered from his injuries.
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This was the bullet found on the stretcher in Parkland Memorial Hospital. According to the Warren Commission, the bullet was the second shot taken by the gunman that fatally struck Kennedy. Investigators said the bullet then exited Kennedy to hit Connally breaking a rib, shattering his wrist and ending up in his thigh. Critics have sarcastically referred to this as the "magic-bullet theory" and claim that a bullet responsible for this much damage couldn’t possibly be as intact as it was.
Read more: Why the Public Stopped Believing the Government about JFK’s Murder
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The front of the shirt worn by President Kennedy on day of his assassination. The initials "JFK" were embroidered on the left sleeve.
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Authorities reported that the shots were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, Texas along Kennedy’s motorcade route. The Warren Commission claimed three shots were fired in the span of 8.6 seconds. However, skeptics have disputed that assessment and presented their own theories. Among the widely circulated theories is that there had been a second shooter on a grassy knoll ahead of the president, on an elevated area to his right.
Read more: What Physics Reveals about the JFK Assassination
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At the Texas School Book Depository, authorities found this cartridge case after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
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Authorities also identified finger and palm prints on boxes inside the Texas School Book Depository after the assassination. They were in a secluded area where boxes had been stacked by a window.
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Former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police Department just over an hour after the shooting for possible involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination and the murder of a police officer. Oswald had recently started working at the Texas School Book Depository Building.
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Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed Officer J.D. Tippit who questioned him on the street near his Dallas rooming house. Some 30 minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater by police responding to reports of a suspect. This is the gun and bullets used by Oswald to kill the officer while resisting arrest.
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A bus transfer was found on Oswald upon his arrest. Oswald allegedly used the transfer ticket to leave the scene of crime after the assassination.
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This photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and newspapers in a backyard was collected during the assassination investigation in 1963. On October 26, 2017 the National Archives made more than 2,800 files relating to the investigation public.
Read more: JFK Files: Cuban Intelligence was in Contact with Oswald, Praised his Shooting Ability
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Here is a detailed view of the Italian-made rifle, with telescopic mount, allegedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
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This photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald distributing "Hands Off Cuba" flyers on the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana was also used in the Kennedy assassination investigation. Oswald traveled to Mexico City in September 1963, just two months before he shot Kennedy. During his visit, Oswald went to the Cuban embassy and met with officials in an attempt to get a visa to travel to Cuba, and then on to the Soviet Union. There has been speculation that this was connected to a larger conspiracy involving Fidel Castro to assassinate Kennedy as revenge for the Bay of Pigs invasion.
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These images were submitted as evidence in the Kennedy assassination case. The men were suspected of being possible conspirators after being seen visiting the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico.
Read more: Trump Holds Some JFK Assassination Files Back, Sets New Deadline
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Evidence From the JFK Assassination Case
Following JFK’s assassination, Connally handily won two more terms as governor of Texas. He then joined the Nixon administration, switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican three months after LBJ’s death. In the midst of the Watergate scandal, Connally faced charges that he took a bribe in exchange for helping to win milk price support increases. A jury found him not guilty. He ran for president in 1980, but never gained much traction against Ronald Reagan in the Republican primaries. Though once quite wealthy, Connally filed for bankruptcy protection in 1987, emerging within a year. He died in June 1993 due to complications from pulmonary fibrosis.
2. The Policeman
A paratrooper during World War II, J.D. Tippit found work for the Dearborn Stove Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co. in Dallas following his return to civilian life. Tippit, who was born and raised in rural East Texas, also briefly tried his hand at farming. In 1952 he joined the Dallas Police Department, where he remained for the next 11 years. One day on the job, a man involved in a domestic dispute smashed him in the stomach and right kneecap with an ice pick. Other incidents included an attack by a dog that had earlier attacked a child, and a near shooting in 1956, when Tippit and his partner attempted to apprehend a drunk whom Tippit believed matched the description of man wanted in Colorado. The man drew a gun on Tippit, but when his weapon failed to fire, Tippit and his partner drew their own guns, killing the assailant. The two officers were awarded an order of merit for their actions.
For Tippit, November 22, 1963, started off innocuously, with a trip to his sister’s house and coffee with a fellow officer. In a break from his normal routine, he ate lunch—fried potatoes and a tuna sandwich—at home with his wife. He then went back on duty, and, following JFK’s assassination, was sent to patrol the Oak Cliff neighborhood. A witness had told police he saw a thin man in his 30s, around 5 feet, 10 inches tall, fire a rifle at Kennedy from the sixth-floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. At around 1:15 p.m., Tippit spotted Oswald, who resembled that description. According to the Warren Commission, the two exchanged words through the passenger window of Tippet’s car. Tippet then got out of the car, only to have Oswald whip out a revolver and shoot him multiple times, killing him instantly. “I just couldn’t picture how we were going to live without him,” Tippet’s 85-year-old widow told the Associated Press a few weeks ago. “I had three children that needed their dad, but he wasn’t there anymore.” In the wake of the officer’s murder, donations for his family poured in from around the country. In all, more than $4 million (in today’s money) was raised, including a check from Abraham Zapruder, who shot the famous footage of President Kennedy’s assassination and donated a portion of the proceeds he made when he sold the film to Life magazine.
To honor Tippit, some members of the Dallas Police Department are wearing commemorative badges this month inscribed with his name, badge number and date of death.
3. The car salesman
Dallas car salesman James Tague, then 27, was late to a lunch date with his future wife on November 22, 1963, when he ran into a traffic jam outside Dealey Plaza. Tague, who was only vaguely aware of the president’s visit, got out of his vehicle to find out what was going on. Just then, he heard a loud bang and felt something slam into his right cheek. A bullet had apparently hit the curb next to him and sent debris flying into his face. Tague’s cheek wound was minor, but demonstrated that at least one of the shots meant for Kennedy must have missed its target. As Tague ducked behind a concrete abutment, he saw the presidential limo racing toward the hospital, and only realized he had been wounded after he was approached by a Dallas police officer on the scene.
When Tague testified before the Warren Commission the following year, he acknowledged that all of the shots could have come from the Texas School Book Depository Building. And he reportedly believed that Oswald likely acted alone. Later on, however, Tague changed his tune. He became obsessed with conspiracy theories and now runs an eBay store dedicated to JFK’s assassination. Tague has also authored two books on the subject. The latest, published last month, alleges that LBJ and his associates planned the killing with the help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
