Physical description: 1 photograph : digital, tiff file, color.
Notes: The mock-up is displayed in sixth-floor storeroom of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, Texas, where Oswald was perched above Dealey Plaza, when Kennedy, Texas governor John Connally, and their wives rode in an open touring car on Nov. 22, 1963. Now called the Sixth Floor Museum, the site is operated by the Dallas County Historical Foundation.; Title, date, and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.; Gift; The Lyda Hill Foundation; 2014; (DLC/PP-2014:054).; Forms part of: Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.; Credit line: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. —
Library of Congress
- Catalog: http://lccn.loc.gov/2014632046
- Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/highsm/27800/27846a.tif
- Original url: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.27846
— License: Public domain
The Undisputed Historical Record
Before delving into the points of debate, it is essential to establish the foundational facts of the event, which are generally accepted by all credible historians, regardless of their interpretive stance. These facts form the bedrock upon which all subsequent theories and analyses are built.
On the morning of Friday, November 22, 1963, President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, were in Dallas, Texas, as part of a political tour. They were joined in an open-top presidential limousine by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie. At approximately 12:30 PM Central Standard Time, as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza, shots were fired. President Kennedy was struck in the neck and head. Governor Connally was also seriously wounded, struck in the back, chest, wrist, and thigh.
The limousine sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where doctors made desperate efforts to save the president. Despite their attempts, President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 PM. Governor Connally survived his injuries.
Law enforcement’s attention quickly focused on the Texas School Book Depository, a building overlooking the plaza. On the sixth floor, investigators discovered a sniper’s nest, three spent 6.5 mm rifle cartridges, and a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Shortly thereafter, Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit was shot and killed in the Oak Cliff neighborhood. A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old employee at the Book Depository and a former U.S. Marine who had once defected to the Soviet Union, was apprehended in a nearby movie theater. Oswald was charged with the murders of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit.
Oswald denied his guilt, claiming he was a “patsy.” The nation would never hear his full story or see the evidence against him tested in court. On November 24, while being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, Oswald was shot and killed by a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby, an event broadcast on live television.
In response to the national crisis, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination. The commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, conducted a ten-month investigation and published its final 888-page report in September 1964. It is the conclusions of this report that form the “traditional interpretation” and the central point of contention in the ongoing historical debate.
