This article was printed in The Daily Cardinal Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, of Ft. Worth Tex., has been formally charged with the murder of President Kennedy. The charges were announced at about 11:30 p.m. CST.
Compiled from the Associated Press and United Press International
President Kennedy was shot and killed Friday afternoon.
The thirty-fifth President of the United States was assassinated in Dallas, Tex. He was traveling through the downtown district with Mrs. Kennedy. Gov. John Connally of Texas and MRs. Connaly.
The governor was also shot by the assassin. He was last reported in “serious, but not critical” condition.
DIED AT 1 P.M.
Mr. Kennedy was shot at about 12:31 p.m. CST. His car was immediately rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where the President died at about 1 p.m.
Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the nation’s new chief executive aboard the President’s Air Force jet at 1:39 p.m. He immediately returned to Washington with the body of the late President and MRs. Kennedy.
The President was cut down in a flurry of three bullets. He had been chatting with MRs. Connally when a shot rang out and he slumped forward, bleeding from a wound in his throat.
GASPED ‘OH NO’
Mrs. Kennedy gasped “Oh, no.” She cradled his head in her arms. Gov. Connally attempted to come to Mr. Kennedy’s aid and was shot in the back just below the shoulder.
An eyewitness, Charles Brehm, said Mr. Kennedy “was waving and the first shot hit him and that awful look crossed his face.” The President never regained consciousness.
Two Roman Catholic priests were hastily summoned to administer the last rites.
SUSPECT SEIZED
Police seized Lee H. Oswald, 24, and described him as the “prime suspect.” He was trapped in a Dallas movie theater, after slaying a police officer while fleeing police.
Oswald, the head of a local “Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” was an employee of the multi-story warehouse from where the shots came. He had attempted to renounce his American citizenship in 1959, but the Soviet Union refused to allow Oswald to settle there.
He was formally charged with murdering the policeman Friday night.
ON SPEECH TOUR
The President had received enthusiastic greetings in Ft. Worth and in Dallas, where he was to have given a series of speeches. He was to have flown to Austin to visit the Johnson ranch.
After the President’s death, a bronze casket was taken to Parkland hospital. Brought to the Dallas airport, it was placed aboard “Air Force 1” and flown back to Washington with the new President Johnson.
As the nation went into mourning, it was announced that a Pontifical Requiem Mass would be held in Washington Monday by Richard Cardinal Cushing, who married the late President and Jacqueline Bouvier in 1951.
The new President, 54-year-old Lyndon B. Johnson, pledged Friday night to do his best in the nation’s highest office with the help of God and the American people.
JOHNSON SHAKEN
Obviously shaken by the sudden, tragic events of Friday, the new chief executive began his White House tenure by conferring with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and presidential aide McGeorge Bundy on the state of the nation.
With his wife, Ladybird, by his side, the pale President said: “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy.
“I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask your help—and God’s.”
The 36th President will view the body of the President Saturday as it lies in state in the East Room of the White House. On Sunday it will lie in state in the Capitol’s Great Rotunda.
FOURTH ASSASSINATION
Mr. Kennedy was the fourth President to be assassinated while in office.
Abraham Lincoln was killed in 1865, James Garfield was shot in 1881 by a disgruntled job seeker and William McKinley was shot in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1901 by an anarchist.
Both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and former President Harry Truman had attempts made on their lives.
Reaction to the death of President Kennedy was swift and universal. Both political and personal friends and foes joined in sentiments of tribute and grief.
Pope Paul VI expressed “profound grief” at the President’s death. He went to pray at a private chapel.
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the assassination a “despicable act.” He said: “I share the sense of shock and dismay that all Americans feel.”
President Truman was described as “too stricken to speak.”
“A GREAT TRAGEDY”
The Senate Democratic Leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, said that the act is “not only a great tragedy, but it is, I think, a mark against the respectability and responsibility of some of our citizens.”
The minority leader, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, said it was “incredible.” HE said of the assassin: “the gates of hell must have congealed inside him.”
Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, considered a potential rival of Mr. Kennedy in 1964, said: “It is both shocking and dreadful that a think like this could happen in a free country.”
New York’s governor, Nelson Rockefeller, an announced candidate for the GOP nomination, said: “The prayers of all of us will be with him.”
