A clear blue sky and a warm sun. Beautiful day now. Just a beautiful day. The President in obvious good spirits. ibid.
Dealey Plaza 12.30 p.m. The President’s car is now turning on to Elm Street and it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the Trade Mart. ibid.
10-4 Parkland has been notified 12.32. ibid. rozzer’s radio message
The First Lady cradled her husband’s head in her arms as the presidential limousine raced to the hospital. She kept crying, Oh no. Connally slumped in his seat beside the President. ibid. news commentary
To some, Oswald’s trip to Mexico City in late September 1963 has raised significant and troubling questions. The purpose of Oswald’s trip was to secure a travel visa for Cuba and the Soviet Union. The day he arrived he visited both the Cuban and the Soviet Embassies. Oswald was unaware that his movements were being monitored. From a house across the street from the consulates CIA agents conducted photographic surveillance. The Warren Commission, History 1999
Within an hour of the shooting, investigators discovered a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle hidden between boxes on the sixth floor. The FBI would later trace the rifle to a Chicago sporting goods store. Handwriting experts determined that Oswald had ordered the rifle using an alias. It was shipped to his Dallas post-office box in March 1963. Marina Oswald testified that she took these photographs of her husband with the rifle. Some researchers have questioned their authenticity. ibid.
In fact there were questions as to whether Oswald was on the 6th floor at all. The Commission maintained that the alleged assassin was last seen at 11:55 a.m., 35 minutes before the assassination, in the company of several co-workers on the 6th floor. ibid.
Oswald was again seen in the second floor lunch-room less than 90 seconds after the shooting. Marion Baker, a Dallas motorcycle policeman riding in the motorcade, had raced into the building trying to locate the source of the shots. As he ran up the stairs, he caught a glimpse of Oswald in the lunch-room. ibid.
By frame 225 [re Zapruder film] when the President reappears from behind the street-sign he is seen clutching his throat. Governor Connally, however, appears uninjured. By frame 238 Connally reacts to a bullet which has pierced his chest and wrist. This would indicate the 2 men were struck separately but less than 42 frames apart. ibid.
The Commission found itself split. 4 members supported the theory while 3 opposed it ... At the meeting [Richard] Russell presented copies of his dissent. The Chief Justice [Warren] refused. He demanded a unanimous decision. ibid.
It was rainy that morning. But nobody cared. You see, it wasn’t every day we got to see President Kennedy. The crowd was big. Too big to get a big view. But some folks got lucky. JFK: The Final Hours, opening commentary, National Geographic 2013
‘This is a very dangerous and uncertain world.’ ibid. JFK breakfast speech last day
We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle. No-one has been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand. Jesse Curry, Dallas rozzer chief, cited United Press International 5th November 1969
The fact that he was on the floor where the shots were fired from immediately before the shots were fired. The fact he was seen carrying a package to the building. Jesse Curry, rozzer chief, televised interview
The circumstantial evidence does cast enormous suspicion on Oswald. It does leave him looking guilty of something. But what it doesn’t do is to put him behind a gun in the sixth floor window. Anthony Summers, investigative reporter
The Commission had statements from several Depository employees that they’d seen Oswald after 11:55 a.m. One of them, Eddie Piper, said that he’d seen Oswald around noon down on the first floor, and that Oswald had said to him that he was going up to the second-floor lunch-room to have his lunch. I interviewed Caroline Arnold in 1978; she said that what she clearly remembered was that she had gone at around 12:15 maybe a little after to the second-floor lunch-room to get a drink of water, and she’d seen Oswald sitting there apparently having his lunch. Anthony Summers
What’s so interesting about that incident in the lunch-room is Oswald’s demeanour. Officer Baker said that he rushed in with his gun drawn, told Oswald to turn around and he turned as cool as a cucumber. ibid.
And Governor Connally unambiguously said at that point that it was clear to him that he was not hit with the same bullet that hit the President. ibid.
Well I have here Oswald’s scorebook from the Marine Corps where he did his practising with more or less the same kind of rifle that he used against Kennedy; he demonstrated that he was highly competent as a marksman. Dr John Lattimer, author Kennedy & Lincoln
He was a former marine who had once defected to the Soviet Union. Only weeks earlier he had visited Soviet and Cuban diplomatic missions in Mexico. Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? PBS 2013
David Ferry was one of Oswald’s [CAP] instructors. ibid.
But there is much evidence that the real Oswald was in Mexico City ... But in the end both the Russians and the Cubans rejected him. ibid.
Two witnesses spotted a man with a rifle at the sixth floor window. They assumed he was there to protect the president. ibid.
There’s only one thing that I can tell ya, that this case is synched. That this man killed the president. There is no question in my mind about that. Will Fritz, homicide captain, televised interview
Well, I saw this man in the window and he had a gun in his hands pointed downward. The man evidently was in a kneeling position because his forearms were resting on the window sill. And there was another man standing beside him but I only saw a portion of his body because he was standing partly behind the window – halfway in the window – and the window was dirty and I couldn’t see his face. The window was pushed up. And it startled me. Female witness, recorded interview
This is the very famous AP photograph. The Altgens photograph. Facing towards the Texas School Book Depository Building as the President motorcade passes. Now as you can see from this blow-up President Kennedy has already been hit. And he is reacting to the bullet strike from the throat. I believe that to be an entrance wound. And the doctors at Parkland also viewed it as an entrance wound ... There’s a man in the doorway [at ground level] that very closely resembles Lee Harvey Oswald. JFK Assassination – A New Look at the Evidence, 2008
No nitrates were found on Item #1 – the paraffin test of Oswald’s face ... The lack of nitrates from someone who is accused of firing a rifle three times at the President ... He’s going to have nitrates on his face, and the fact that Oswald did not have any according to this test shows he did not fire a rifle on the day in question. Simple as that. ibid.
No latent prints of any value were developed on Oswald’s revolver, the cartridge cases, the unfired cartridge, the clip in the rifle or the inner parts of the rifle. FBI report