410. JFK: Blood On The Streets Of Dallas (Part 4)

Three shots, six seconds, all caught on camera. The image of JFK’s assassination is one of the defining pictures of the 20th century, along with the photograph of Jackie Kennedy in her blood-stained pink suit stood next to Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in on Air Force One. How did the events in Dallas on November 22nd 1963 unfold? Why are there so many conspiracy theories about who shot JFK? Anita Anand is joined by historian Frederik Logevall to discuss the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Try Attio for free at attio.com/empire Join the Empire Club: Unlock the full Empire experience – with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at empirepoduk.com. Email: [email protected] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Imogen Marriott Editor: Oli Ortega Social Producer: Charlie Johnson Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 2:07Speaker 04

  Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arndt. And we are on the final part of our JFK mini-series. And over the last three episodes, we've been following what has been actually a rollercoaster life for JFK. Sickly second son, never meant to lead, war hero, made half by courage itself, half by his father's publicity machine, a reluctant heir in many ways, who climbed through a coma,

• 2:39Speaker 04

  democratic convention, and the closest election contest of the century, and makes it all the way to the White House. And a president who, at the most, I think, dangerous moment in human history, kept his nerve, and, more importantly to all of us, kept the peace. Frederick Logewall, our fabulous guest for all of these episodes, is with us again. Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of JFK. So, I mean, in this episode, Frederick, we are going to talk about that fateful day in Dallas, the wellspring of thousands of theories and alternative theories, or conspiracy theories, depending on where you come from, about how John F. Kennedy was killed.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  But just as a moment in time, those three shots ringing out, how important, how impactful were they in the American psyche?

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Well, I don't think I can do better than to quote a great historian who figures prominently in my narrative, especially in volume two and three, because he also served as a Kennedy aide, and that is, of course, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of the great historians, I think it's fair to say, of the 20th century in the United States. And I encountered the following quote in his memoirs. He died before he can complete the memoir, so this is volume one, but it's frankly one of the reasons I undertook this Life and Times biography, because Schlesinger wrote as follows: "For my generation, four dates remain indelibly scarred on memory.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Four occasions when none of us can forget where we were, or where and how we heard the staggering news. Pearl Harbor, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the death of John F. Kennedy, and the landing of men on the moon." Which is a striking passage, it seems to me, and Kennedy, of course, didn't live to see the landing of the men on the moon, but he started the lunar project. He's responsible for it happening. But the events of Dallas, November 22, 1963, is on this list of indelible memories for a whole generation of Americans.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  And, you know, we touched on something, Frederick, in the last episode, which I think we ought to talk about a bit more because it's important, which is the death of Jack Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy's son, Patrick, because they had their problems in this marriage, but in 1963, it was terrible trauma that brings them together. Tell us a little bit about that.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Yes, young Patrick lived just a few days. I think you're absolutely right, Anita, to say that this was a problematic marriage in some ways. I think they had grown closer even before this. In other words, if you look at it in a kind of longer trajectory, I think the marriage improves in the White House, and it improves in the last year. But that terrible, terrible event in August of 1963, you know, they say these kinds of things can either pull people apart, a couple apart, or bring them closer together. My sense is that it brought them closer together. A friend of mine, Stephen Livingston, is coming out imminently with a book on what happened and what the results of that were.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  So really look forward to that book. But I think it's, as you say, I think this was something that, in this brutal, brutal hour, husband and wife came closer.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, which means that Jackie had a full buy-in to the autumn of 1963, when the reelection machine is starting to roll.

• 6:17Speaker 05

  That's right. And, you know, to just anticipate what we're going to be discussing, I think, today, you know, it's one reason why she goes with him on his trip to Texas is because he needs her, he wants her there, and a big part of her wants to be there with him. I think this is a sign of that.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, and, well, I mean, let's talk about Texas, because they have to win Texas. Am I right in saying Kennedy won Texas last time, in the last election, by the thinnest of margins? So this state is definitely in play.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, you know, one of the things I deal with at length in the second volume is the choice of Lyndon Johnson for that vice presidential slot. And a key consideration for JFK was, of course, that Johnson would help him win Texas, hold much of the South, and that's what happened. So it was an inspired choice to choose Johnson, I argue. But you're absolutely right. In 64, looking ahead to the next year and to the reelection campaign, you want to win Texas again. I think he's pretty comfortable overall in the fall of 1963 in terms of his chances. Nevertheless, you want to take the victories where you can get them, and Texas is going to be key.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we should just for a second talk about Lyndon B. Johnson, because he gets a rough press, I guess, because of the way in which he was crowned king. But what kind of man was he? He was a Texan, which is why it's important to have him on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate. What was he like, and how did their personalities meld?

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Well, their personalities didn't really meld very much, but I think there was a great deal of mutual respect. Johnson was not treated well, I think it's fair to say, as vice president by the president's staff, including his brother, Robert Kennedy, who did not like Lyndon Johnson, to put it charitably. I think JFK himself treated Johnson with respect. I think he admired Johnson's political skills. He was a master of getting legislation passed. He understood exactly how to work Washington. And in terms of understanding what would move legislation, nobody was better than Johnson. He was insecure. I think he never thought he really fit into the Kennedy operation, if I can put it that

• 8:36Speaker 05

  way, with all these Harvard grads and Yale grads. And, you know, here he was from San Marcos Teachers College. So I think it was difficult for Johnson. He was also used to being more active. And as you know, Anita, a vice president, often they can never quite figure out what they're supposed to be doing, and the president might not give them a lot of direction. So I think it was a tough three-plus years for LBJ. But Kennedy, as I said earlier, was happy that he had tapped him for this role because he helped him win the election.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  Dallas, tough crowd in Dallas. I mean, even, you know, LBJ, who is a Texan son, son of Texas, has a rough time in Dallas because they think, you know, what are you running with this lily-livered prep boy liberal? I mean, he gets a hard time, doesn't he?

• 9:28Speaker 05

  That was perfectly put. Yeah, no, he certainly does. You know, and there are people close to Kennedy who say, Mr. President, you shouldn't be going.

• 9:37Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  Because of the anti-Kennedy animus in Texas. It's going to be a rough crowd, to say the least. We're a little bit worried for your, your, your security. That's a message he gets from several people close to him. Jackie is not wholly comfortable with the thought of them going to Texas. He feels he needs to go because the Texas Democratic Party is at loggerheads. So you've got powerful figures in Texas who don't get along.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 10:04Speaker 05

  Kennedy says, I've got to have a functioning state party. And so I'm going to go and try to smooth things over between them. I can't have them squabbling as we run for reelection. That would be terrible. And again, he's thinking back to 1960, when he barely won. So he says, we're going, notwithstanding these warnings from people close to him.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  So it's again, and you know, everyone's telling him it's, it's going to be tricky. He's determined to go, but the morning that he is about to leave for Dallas, there are handbills being handed out, which are really a red flag to, to what's going to happen later on in the day. With his face on it, declaring that he's a traitor. Tell us who's putting out these handbills and, and, and what kind of impact they're having on the people who have gathered in Dallas to see him arrive.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  There are loud voices in Texas from various quarters.

• 11:02Speaker 05

  Right wing groups who are putting out these flyers, who are taking ads in newspapers, basically saying, as you put it, that, that John F. Kennedy, or not basically saying, saying that John F. Kennedy is a traitor. So this is appearing both in the press and on the streets where people are handing out this literature. You can see again why people are concerned about Kennedy even going there. And, you know, in hindsight, but to some degree, even before the fact, people smelled trouble and were concerned about what might happen to John F. Kennedy when he arrived.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, apart from the handbills, you know, which said wanted for treason. There was this full page that was taken out in, in the Dallas Morning News. And I should just describe it for people, you know, edged in funeral black. It, it runs a list of very loaded questions and a really sarcastic welcome. And this is what the Kennedys are reading over breakfast. I think, I mean, Jackie is said to say, we are heading into nut country. You know, because it is, it's threatening. It's threatening to say the least.

• 12:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think at least apocryphally, we are told, and this is something I'm going to try to research, get to the bottom of. But that, as you say, over breakfast, he's not reading over his speeches that he's going to give. He's not preparing for the meetings that he's going to have. You know, you have lists of the people he's going to meet that normally a president would be looking at. He is, as you say, reading these papers, reading that particular full page ad. We don't know, at least I haven't seen yet what he says about this. But as you say, Jackie is extra worried after she sees this.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. And do we know how he felt about his own safety and security? Did he ever think that he was a target, that he, he might be killed? I mean, was that in his mind ever? He cheated death in the war. Did he find himself to be immortal? I mean, what was, was his thinking about this?

• 13:06Speaker 05

  Well, I think as many people have said, and I certainly endorse this view, he was a fatalist. We can talk about that. I think he had long believed, Anita, that he would not live a long life. He often said to people, I'm going to be, I'm going to live to be 45, which turned out to be a pretty good estimate. He lived to be 46.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  So where, where did that come from? Why was he a fatalist? Tell us about that.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Well, it's a very good question, and I'm not trained in, in, in, in psychology. It's a mix of the following, probably something inborn. That is to say, not dependent on circumstances or what he experiences. But I do think his illnesses, which really go back to when he was two and three years old. The fact that he was given last rites, I think, three times. But more, more to the point, just this series of illnesses led him to this view. I think that his experience in the war, where he saw comrades falling, you know, left and right, led him to believe that life is capricious and we have to live each day as though it's our last.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  I think more generally, he was just of the view that we've been given a certain amount of time. I'm going to, I'm going to live mine and I'm not going to worry too much about it. And then finally, I did, I do think he had a kind of personal courage. So he was less inclined to worry about Secret Service protection than other presidents might be. He, I think, felt confident that he would get through the day, whatever might be happening. And I suspect he felt that even this morning. I mean, the fact that he's planning to give, and we should come back to this, the final speech that he never gets a chance to give, which is in part about, you know, political extremism.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Tells me at least that he's not somebody who's going to shy away from controversial topics in Dallas just because it is this, this nest of, of, of.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Hatred.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  Of hatred.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know what? I'm not qualified either, but this has never stopped me from trying to get some new psychology. Never has, never will. I, I wondered whether this is about him and his brother, Joe, that, you know, he, it should have been him, I'm on borrowed time, I'm living the life of, that my brother should have been living. I wonder if that's something to do with it.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  I think, I think it does have something to do with it. You're absolutely right. And also, let's not forget Kathleen, known as Kick, who was his sister, their sister. They formed a kind of golden trio, these kids, Joe Junior, Jack and Kick. She is killed in a plane crash in 1948. So by the way, that this is both of his closest siblings killed in the air in plane crashes. And it makes it remarkable. It goes to our broader point than when he flew, including all those tens of thousands of miles for the campaign. He never feared, you know how some people are fearful flyers?

• 16:03Speaker 05

  This guy was never the slightest bit concerned, even though he had lost both Joe Junior and Kick through airplane accidents. So I think you're right. I think that it was supposed to be Joe, not me. I'm on borrowed time, et cetera, et cetera.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  Hmm. Let's, let's go through the fateful day right from the beginning. So it is November the 22nd, 1963. This golden couple arrive in, in Fort Worth and it is panning it down with rain. But there is a very warm crowd that is gathered. Just talk us through, you know, what happens when they, they, they come in and what they're greeted with.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  It's absolutely right. It's a, it's a large, warm crowd, braving the elements and giving President Kennedy the kind of welcome that obviously any, any man, any person would love. And it's off to a fabulous start. It's a short part of the day, obviously, for reasons we'll get to. But that Fort Worth stint, or that portion of it, could really, from his perspective, not have gone any better than it did. And then they're off, obviously, to, to Dallas.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  And, and the photographs are perfect. It's like, it's just sort of a, you know, a Hollywood set, if you like. There's Jackie in her strawberry pink chanel to suit her pillbox hat. And, you know, this place, Love Field, somebody hands her red roses and she's there and they're braving the elements. And he's young and he's vital and it's, I mean, it's very telegenic, very photogenic.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  It totally is. And I have this idea, which is, you know, there's no proof for this. But I have this idea that, you know, he turns to her and he says, see? We didn't have to worry about this trip. Look at how these people are responding. Or maybe she says that to him, or, you know, probably nothing like that happened. But I do think it's, as we're saying, it's, it could not really have gone any better at the start of the day.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  So there's a limousine waiting for them to take them this, this 10 mile route at a very slow pace, walking pace. It has a plastic bubble top for the rain, but it isn't bulletproof. Now, is this unusual? Is it? Because this is where the conspiracy theories, oh, hello. Why didn't he have a bulletproof car? Why wasn't there more protection? I mean, what do we know about the security arrangements that day?

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Well, so this is after they take a short little plane ride to Dallas. They're just a few minutes in the air and when they arrive, it's, it's, as you say. And it is a plain, plastic bubble top. It's just a rain cover. It doesn't really offer any protection. Although I have to say, if I'm the assassin, we'll get to that. And I see a bubble top. I don't know if it's bulletproof, you know, I'm just an assassin. And I have a feeling that had that been on, as the Secret Service wanted, it might have dissuaded Kennedy's killer.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  But the point is, it doesn't serve that kind of, it wouldn't have served that kind of protection. The weather has cleared. Let's, let's make that obvious here. That the president says, well, we don't need this now because we've got a beautiful day here coming in Dallas. The point is, it's kept off. It's kept off.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  What's, what's the plan here? That they're going to drive at a, at a walking pace to greet whatever crowds throw at them? I mean, you know.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  Well, he's on his way to the Dallas Trademark to give this speech. And it's going to be a pretty slow route, which by the way, has been printed in the paper. That matters. So the whole of Dallas knows the route that the motorcade is going to take. And it's, it's, it's exactly that, as you say, that they are now going to proceed fairly slowly. Part of it, they're going to go faster, obviously, but at a particular moment in time, they will be slowing down. And they are on their way and he's going to give this speech.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we'll come to the speech right at the end, but. The crowds are cheering. There are outstretched hands. If you look at, you know, the miles of footage that are taken that day.

• 20:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't see, I don't see, again, this is a part of the story that I have yet to write, but I've done a lot of research on it. I don't see evidence of this far-right venom that that exists in the city. Probably there are, in fact, we know there are some protesters, but they're far and few and far between. And I think it's, as you say, it's it's something akin to the response he got in Fort Worth at the start of the day. Certain stretches, the crowds are much sparser. I don't mean to suggest that this is a huge, a huge outpouring of affection or support. But I think he's feeling good about the response

• 21:09Speaker 05

  he's getting even here after they've arrived in Dallas.

• 21:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, and Nellie Connolly, who who works for him, turns around and says, Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you. And and that's tempting fate because it isn't long after that.

• 21:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it isn't long after that.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Well, why don't you pick up and and tell us, tell us, tell us what happened as opposed to what people think happened?

• 21:32Speaker 05

  Well, so, so the motorcade comes underneath the Texas School Book Depository, turns left, which means that the cars slow down. And you get to the Plaza.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  Dealey Plaza, this is Dealey Plaza.

• 21:53Speaker 05

  And three shots ring out over about six or seven seconds. It seems likely that the first one missed. The second one struck Kennedy in the back and then exited through his throat, also striking Governor Connolly of Texas. And then it was the third bullet that was fatal, caused the fatal head wound. And then, as we all know, because we've all seen the images, Jackie instinctively climbs onto the back of the moving car. Secret Service Agent Clint Clint Hill, who just passed recently and wrote several books later in his life and did lots of interviews, he gets aboard. And of course, the big race begins to Parkland

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Hospital, which is, you know, just a few minutes away.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Let's take a break here. After the break, join us when we talk about what we know and what we don't know about those six seconds and those three shots.

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• 25:09Speaker 04

  Welcome back. So it is now half past 12 and three shots have rung out and history has changed. It's that moment that any American who was alive and sentient remembers where they were when this happened. And we can now sort of go over this again and again from different perspectives. So just tell us about the footage that was taken and what it tells you and what it should tell us.

• 25:37Speaker 05

  Abraham Sapruder, who was a dressmaker in Dallas, happened to be filming. He admired Kennedy. He was delighted to be there and have this this great angle, he thought, for filming the president passing by. And what we get from Sapruder, arguably the most famous short piece of news footage in history, is about 25, 26 seconds of colored photography from a low wall. He does have actually a very good perspective on the motorcade coming by. And I think one of the reasons why this event lives on, Anita, is because it was captured on film.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  A hundred percent.

• 26:23Speaker 05

  It's sort of a perpetual now because it lives in our in our minds. We've seen it. Most of us have seen it. Some of us have seen it many, many times. But can you imagine if Sapruder had been sick that day or had not come, or we wouldn't have any of this? So it's hard to overstate the importance of of those few seconds on film by Abraham Sapruder.

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, apart apart from anything else, Sapruder's footage captures the terror and fear and agony of Jackie Kennedy because you see her. And because this is, as you say, I think it's probably the most studied piece of film in history.

• 27:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  486 frames that have been torn apart and put back together so many times. But you see Jackie climbing onto the back of of the moving car. You see, you know, the Secret Service agent, a man called Clint Hill, getting on board. And then you you see all of all of that in real time.

• 27:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Slowed down now for us all to pour over. When you have that kind of footage, just talk a little bit about the the theories, which, you know, I'm sure you would describe as conspiracy theories, that the Sapruder tape proves that it wasn't one Lee Harvey Oswald, who was up on the sixth floor of a book depository building, who fired these shots, but somebody else and a grassy knoll. Tell us a little bit about how that mythology has sprung out of this.

• 27:56Speaker 05

  Well, the mythology began, you know, more or less instantly. And, you know, there are various reasons, I think, why the conspiracy theories have become so entrenched, why they are so widely believed, at least as of a few years ago. Most Americans, a majority of Americans, believed that there was some kind of conspiracy in the Kennedy murder. I guess the single most cited or most noted part of this relating again to Sapruder was the so-called magic bullet theory, that you could not, he could not have been killed, according to this theory, from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository

• 28:36Speaker 05

  because of the trajectory of the of the fatal bullet. And that is widely believed, whole books have been written to to to disprove the so-called magic bullet theory. And of course, then there are others who say, well, it's perfectly scientific that the bullet would behave in this way, and therefore it is consistent with this shot coming from the sixth floor. And that's, it seems to me, in some ways, the heart of the debate. There are other reasons why people latch on to to a conspiracy regarding Kennedy's murder. We can get back to those. But I think that's the that's the nub of this.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  Well, we'll come, we'll come to Oswald in a moment because he's still at large, while this car and this motorcade is now speeding towards Parkland Hospital, which is only thankfully four minutes away. But it is very, very clear, JFK has been shot through the throat. He's pronounced dead at about one o'clock. But I mean, it is sort of suggested that there was no way he had any signs of life when he reached that hospital even.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  No, none at all. And so I think that Jackie, that Clint Hill, that others who were in close proximity, they knew. And I'm sure that everybody knew as he was entering the hospital that it was over.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 29:56Speaker 05

  And sure enough, it was. Age 46, John F. Kennedy, dead.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Do you know the weird thing about this moment is that a priest administers last rites. It's the fourth time a priest has administered last rites to JFK. But this one, this one is final.

• 30:14Speaker 05

  This one is final.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  So I mean, this is one of those things in in America, you cannot be without a commander in chief. So within two hours, while people are still trying to get their heads around what happens, a new president is sworn in on an aircraft. Now, tell us a little bit about the crowning of the new king.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  Well, it happens on the aircraft, as you say. And it's it's Lyndon Johnson, of course. A local federal judge, Sarah Hughes, who I think is still the only woman. To swear in an American president.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 30:46Speaker 05

  But what's also interesting is that standing beside Johnson is Jackie Kennedy. And she's still in the bloodstained suit and people wonder, well, why would she not change?

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  Some, I think, contestation about this, but I think the basic reason is that she wanted the world to see what they had done, whoever was the, the killer. Uh, she thought, no, I'm not going to change. I have lost my husband. I want everyone to see, uh, to at least get a sense of what happened here. I'm not going to change for this. But that begins, uh, Lyndon Johnson's presidency right there, just a couple of hours after this, this tragedy.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  Uh, let's, let's just talk about that image because, um, this oath takes place on Air Force One at two thirty eight in the afternoon. And you've got Johnson with one hand on the Bible, the other one raised, standing next to Jackie Kennedy, as Frederick quite rightly says, you know, sort of covered in blood. And the look on her face, Frederick, she's there, but she's not there. I mean, it feels like it's a study in trauma.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  I mean, can you imagine? I can't really fully imagine, probably neither can you, what this would have been like to be in the car at a moment of seeming triumph. Next to the husband that you've grown closer to and

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, you love again.

• 32:06Speaker 05

  Shining and people are cheering. It's going so well. And then it's not just an assassination, you know, a bullet through the heart. This is three shots. Uh, and the third one, of course, causes extraordinary, uh, shall we say, uh, damage. And, and she's there to see this happening.

• 32:25Speaker 04

  Can we, um, I mean, let me just give a health warning that if people are squeamish. But could you possibly give us a, a, an idea of the kind of catastrophic injuries he sustained from at least two of those three shots?

• 32:38Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, it's, it's, uh, again, as far as I know, based on, on the research I've done so far, it's really the third one that, um, maybe I'm putting it too strongly, but part of his skull is, uh, blown off essentially. I mean, that's, that's why I think everybody who was in proximity of this, when he arrives at Parkland, has to think there is no chance here for the president. It's over. So it's really more that third one than it is the second shot, I think, that, that, that, that, uh, that does this.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  And the hunt for the killer.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  I mean, that's, that's over almost before it begins. Tell us about what happens in, in the minutes and hours after that assassination.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Well, what happens is that an officer named J T Tippett is killed on, on Tenth Street. And that matters for the, for reasons I'm about to say, because the fellow who's arrested at the Texas Theater, uh, after escaping this, he slipped in without paying, um, paying his admission, is one Lee Harvey Oswald. And, uh, it's pretty quick for the police, for investigators to, to figure out that the fellow who killed Tippett is likely the fellow who also killed the president. That is to say, it's, it's, it's Oswald. And, uh, that's how the arrest happens. Uh, and according to, let's say, the, the, the, the standard view,

• 34:04Speaker 05

  Oswald, uh, fires the shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He escapes. He encounters at least a couple of people on his way out of the building. He escapes, uh, a short time later, he, he kills Tippett when he's confronted by Tippett. And then escapes into this movie theater where he's then arrested.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  What is his story and what, what is his motivation?

• 34:30Speaker 05

  He is a troubled young man, uh, a bit of a misfit. Uh, with, uh, with a inflated sense of his own importance, I guess it's fair to say. He had spent time, I, interestingly enough, in the Soviet Union, become disenchanted with life in the Soviet Union, but not before taking a Soviet bride, a Russian, uh, bride, Marina. And comes back to the United States, still frustrated, still not fitting in. And comes to believe that he should do something extraordinary, uh, to, to, to, to make himself better known. Uh, and gets wind of the fact that the president is coming to Tallis, gets wind of the fact that he's going to be right below where he works.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  The motorcade is going to go right there.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 35:17Speaker 05

  Um, it turns out he's a very good marksman and has this idea that he's going to commit this, this, this deed.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  And again, this is because this has sent a country into shock. There are cameras everywhere and everywhere there is a camera, you will, you will hear him say, I am a patsy. I didn't do this.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  I mean, if you were somebody, this is, I guess, why conspiracy theories grow. Because if you were a nobody wanting to be a somebody, why would you then say, I never did it? It wasn't me.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Well, and that's, that's a very large question and that I think has, has fueled the belief that either he had no involvement

• 36:00Speaker 05

  or somebody put him up to this. And it is interesting. I'm, I'm, I'm keeping my mind open, Anita, uh, about this because

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Are you? Are you really?

• 36:10Speaker 05

  Well, in the sense that if even one person urged, uh, uh, Lee Harvey Oswald to do this, said, you know, you should think about doing this, or if you do this, I'll support you. If even one person said that to him, it is by one definition a conspiracy. And we know, for example, that he was in Mexico City a few weeks before the murder.

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Was interested there in meeting with Cuban officials and with Soviet officials. He had an interest in, in getting, uh, permission to, to, to visit and perhaps reside in Cuba. Um, Cuban officials, you could argue, had, would have had motive, given the attempts on Castro's life, given Operation Mongoose that we talked about previously. You know, it's not hard to imagine that he could have had encouragement from Cuban officials. We don't know if he did, but that's a theory. I think it's harder for me to imagine that Soviet, uh, officials would have encouraged, uh, this because there were, uh, improvements in Soviet American relations that are important in nineteen sixty-three.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  That's a little harder, but you can see why people have really studied this so deeply and wanting to understand what led Oswald to do this and could there be more to the story?

• 37:25Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, look, the, the very reason you've given for the Soviet involvement to be unlikely is what some theorists say is the reason that, you know, that actually some, the Soviet hand was involved because there were some, maybe not in the top cadre of, of the Soviet Union, who didn't like this coming together with the United States, a great enemy. And so, you know, it's, uh, the Soviet Union with a, with a distinguished history of training up, you know, toy soldiers, winding them up and sending them on their way so that they look as though they're lone wolves, but they're not.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  No, I think, I think that's actually right. There, there, there is, um, there's not one, uh, level of, there's not one opinion uh, among Soviet officials or among others who could be potentially involved. I will say this, based on what I've seen so far, the forensic evidence, Anita, is powerful that Oswald was the person who pulled the trigger. I think that without evidence to the contrary, it seems to me that that, that evidence is extremely powerful.

• 38:27Speaker 04

  So it's a rule out, grassy knoll guy, he's gone, Oswald is your man, but who sent him? Did he do it on his own or who sent him?

• 38:33Speaker 05

  Did he do it on his own or did, did somebody, uh, encourage him to do this? That's the part that as I, as I prepare and as I research and as I then write this book.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  That's the part that I'm keeping, I'm keeping an open mind on all of it. I think that's incumbent upon historians and biographers is to wait until we have as much evidence as we can gather before forming our, our, our opinions. So I'm, I'm open minded on all of it, but it seems to me the real question there is his contacts uh, and what he might have been, uh, encouraged to, encouraged to. The other thing we should mention here is that he was on the radar of American intelligence, uh, agencies. And it's pretty clear that they dropped the thread, that the, that, um, uh, US intelligence agents uh, in the weeks or days, weeks and days prior to the assassination, uh, didn't have a, a good sense of what Oswald is up to.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  And that's obviously a source of embarrassment after the murder.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Or is it complicity? Hang on a minute. There's another conspiracy. Hang on a minute, Frederick. Because if he wasn't Wait just a minute, because if he's on a watch list, Frederick, look at that. Now, first of all, why was he on their watch list? Just remind us all why, why they were meant to be watching him.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  He's, he's on their watch list, I think principally because he had spent time in the Soviet Union, had extolled, uh, had extolled the Soviet system and had denigrated the United States. And he had continued, um, from their perspective, suspicious activities after returning to the US. I mean, why is this guy, uh, talking about freedom for Havana or, you know, uh, trumpeting the accomplishments of Castro's Cuba? Uh, if he's not, uh, a problematic figure, somebody we should keep our eye on.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  Okay, all right. So I mean, you can see where the conspiracy theories come from. I'm just fascinated that you're saying, look, I haven't made up my mind yet. What would be, and please do forgive the pun, the smoking gun that would convince you uh, that he was a lone wolf or he was operating for someone else? What is it that, you know, when you're researching? Mr. Pulitzer Prize winning historian, what is it that you're looking for that will make you come down on one side or the other?

• 40:45Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, in the ideal world, we have, we have tangible evidence, whether in the form of, I don't know, a letter, a document of some kind, some kind of audio tape. After all, we haven't talked much about the Kennedy tapes in the, in the White House, which are an extraordinary resource for historians and biographers. But if Kennedy is taping his meetings, you know, other people can be taping their meetings. So obviously what we would love to have as biographers is that kind of evidence either showing that Oswald conspired with somebody in advance of, of, of November 22nd. Or told people, I'm going to do this and I got the rifle. I'm a good marksman.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  He's going to be right under my, my, my business window where I work. Failing that, I think Anita, I'm going to have to use the best circumstantial evidence that I can. And as I say, I think the forensic evidence is powerful for Oswald, extremely powerful for Oswald as the, as the gunman. And as the, and, and those three shots, it seems to me, could easily have come from, it did come, it seems to me, from one weapon within six or seven seconds, somewhere in there. Not at all implausible, as some people have suggested. And the single bullet, the magic bullet theory is so, not so magical at all.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:08Speaker 05

  So the, the real outstanding question for me is again, what happened in those weeks prior to Dallas? I have not seen evidence. I should be clear, I have not seen evidence for a conspiracy. I just would like to know more.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  And just before I let you off this particularly uncomfortable hook, it's, I mean, I do anticipate that there is some hidden evidence because this is some, you know, one of the most poured over episodes in history, not just from Americans, from everybody all, all around the world. It was just such a compelling episode. Are, are there, are there tapes that you think, I, I know that they must be out there? Or are there documents that you think, oh, I'm pretty sure that somebody will have a record in some place that I need to get hold of?

• 42:54Speaker 05

  I think it's more likely that we'll never know. I, I think it's more likely that there will always be questions.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:00Speaker 05

  About what happened on November 22nd, 1963. I, I just think, I think it's more likely that that kind of evidence would have emerged if it existed. And you can see, I think we should, we should acknowledge that you can see why the conspiracy theories, including on the part of people who are reasonable, who are intelligent, who, who believe in the importance of carefully weighing evidence, you can see why those theories would take hold. There were mistakes by the Warren Commission, which is the official body of the government that was formed to investigate what occurred. That commission, I think it's fair to say, made mistakes. I think there is the questions about what actually occurred, obviously, and different

• 43:45Speaker 05

  theories there. There is Oswald's protestations of innocence that you referred to earlier. And then there's one other thing that I want to mention, which I think is, we, we, we want to believe that great events must have great causes. So I think it's difficult for us, all of us as, as, as human beings, to accept that a misfit loner can get in his head that he's going to do this, can pull it off, and that's all there is to it. This is the president, the most powerful man in the world.

• 44:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 05

  At the zenith of his power, being cut down, and it's just Oswald? I think that's hard for us to accept.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, you're right. Of course you're right. And I'm sort of now that you're, you're talking, I'm thinking, you know, Gavriello Prinzepp, who basically tipped the, the world into World War One. He was, you know, another opportunist with a gun. I mean, that was more of a conspiracy and more people were involved, but shooting of Gandhi, you know, point blank range, one of the most famous people in the 20th century. But as far as conspiracy theories are concerned, Frederick, I mean, what happens two days later? Because as you say, they sort of haul out Oswald, you know, largely they're on his trail because of the murdered police officer from this cinema on the 22nd of November. They keep him, they question him for a couple of days. It looks like it isn't, shall we say, a gentle questioning because the man emerges

• 45:05Speaker 04

  on the 24th of November from the basement of police headquarters. And again, this is live on national television. Everybody wants to see the man who shot the president. And then what happens?

• 45:16Speaker 05

  Well, what happens is he himself is shot and killed by one nightclub owner named Jack Ruby. Point blank range. This too has fed the theories, let's put it that way, because conspiracy theories automatically has a kind of pejorative sound to it. But it's led, it's fed the theories that something else is going on here, that, that Oswald, if he did in fact do it, must have just been, he must have been a patsy, he must have been just been put up to this. Because why otherwise would you allow, again, some nightclub owner to just walk in and shoot Oswald at point blank? But this is what happens.

• 45:57Speaker 05

  He dies, he dies at the same hospital as the president.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  As JFK, but he dies on, he dies on film like JFK. I mean, can I tell you a really interesting story about that image?

• 46:08Speaker 05

  Please.

• 46:08Speaker 04

  There's an image, that moment where Ruby fires and you see Oswald doubling up with pain and it's, it's the bullets going in. The man who took that picture was a photographer who worked for the Dallas Times Herald and his name was Robert H. Jackson. Now, Robert H. Jackson only was able to take that picture because, forgive my French, he fucked up that day. So like, it's such a good story. So it, this is, he's failed basically twice in two days. So he is, he's also, two days earlier, on the route of the, the Kennedy motorcade.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  And he's waiting for film so that he can take some pictures as the, the motorcade sort of rounds the corner towards Dealey Plaza. And whoever it is who's meant to be giving him his, his film, you know, replacement film, and there were all those pop bulbs in those times, comes a bit late, the car's gone past him, so he's missed all of that. He misses the assassination. He gets to, you know, this, this police headquarters where Oswald is about to be taken out and he's sort of, you know, everybody's like really tense, really tense, Oswald's coming out, Oswald's coming out. They bring Oswald out. Now, for some reason, all the cameras go off together as soon as he's brought out. He is unable to get his flashbulb to work just for, just for a second or a nanosecond or, you know, two seconds.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  I don't know how long it takes to screw this in, but he then gets it and he fires off the shot in the second that he is killed. And it's only because the others are reloading, they haven't, you know, they're, they're not ready to take any kind of picture. They've taken their picture and he's coming to the party late. And so he is that one photographer who takes the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald dying. Is that, isn't that an extraordinary story?

• 48:03Speaker 05

  I had not heard that story, but man, I'm remembering that story. That's, that's remarkable.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  I actually have to give props to Dominic Sandberg. He did a wonderful speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just loved that story.

• 48:16Speaker 05

  It's great.

• 48:16Speaker 04

  Anyway. So then, you know, look, the country stops. The country doesn't know what to do. They've lost a president, they wanted answers. The man who supposedly killed the president is swearing, I didn't do it. And then he's killed as well on the, you know, in front of the world's eyes. America has nothing else it wants to talk about or look at. And you've got sort of people like these giants of television like Walter Cronkite, who has to take his glasses off because he's crying when he tells America that the president is, is dead. It was such, I mean, what did it do? Instead of me guessing, you tell me what it did to the American psyche to go through this.

• 48:56Speaker 05

  Well, I, I mean, it's, we should start by, by broadening the lens. Because we happen to have right now friends visiting our, our house and the fellow, Richard is Canadian. He happened to be telling me last night that when, so in Canada, in British Columbia, when he was six years old and he was home from school and he heard his mother crying, which was unusual. And he went to find out what was going on and she said, the president has been killed. So this is in Canada. Meanwhile, as I may have said in, in a previous episode, my parents told, I guess I was referring

• 49:37Speaker 05

  then to the missile crisis, but my parents told me that in Sweden, people were just beside themselves when they learned again, that the president, you don't even have to say American president in those days. That's how large the United States loomed in the West as a, as the leader of the Western Alliance. The president has been killed. So if it's not universal, it's in all parts of the world that people are feeling completely bereft. But I do think that obviously for Americans, this was a moment they could never, they could never have imagined. It's not that John F. Kennedy had universal support, as we've been discussing, lots of

• 50:18Speaker 05

  opposition to him and his policies in Texas, also in other parts of the United States. He was broadly popular. He had high approval ratings. But I think that, that even those who didn't support him, admired the first couple, many of them. And to imagine that our president has been cut down in this way.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  On our soil with his wife next to him in an open car.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  I think was just really difficult for all Americans or all adult Americans, most of them, uh, to, to stomach.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  And his body lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda for around twenty one hours or something like that. And I think it's estimated a quarter of a million people file past that coffin through the night. And the funeral, we should say something about the funeral because it was just full of meaning. Um, the, the riderless horse with a pair of boots reversed in the stirrups. I mean, that, that, that has deep significance. Can you tell our listeners what that means?

• 51:21Speaker 05

  That's an old cavalry, um, tradition. A commander who will never ride again, uh, is, that's the, that's what you do. You put the stir, you put the, um, the boots in, uh, in reverse in the, in the stirrups. And this, by the way, is one of the many ways in which Jackie Kennedy dictates, this is a fascinating part of this whole story as far as I'm concerned, which I'm eager to, to, to write about. The degree to which Jackie decides what's going to happen. Uh, and so that's one of her decisions. She did research. She ordered books pulled out of the Library of Congress on Lincoln's funeral, funeral a century before, and she

• 52:02Speaker 05

  adopted, or she, she instructed that many of those, um, pieces of Lincoln's, um, um, procession protocol be adopted for this, uh, funeral as well. Uh, the eternal flame at Arlington was her idea. Again, the, the, um, the riderless horse. Um, she insisted that she would walk behind the casket rather than ride in a, as she called it, a big black Cadillac. So Jackie's imprint on this extraordinary day, or days really, uh, which drew the largest television, uh, audience in history. Uh, it had been the debates between Nixon and Kennedy.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Those four had been the largest television history. Now that was, though they were surpassed by, by the audience for the, for the funeral.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, but you know, for all of Jackie's planning and for all of that imagery and, and I'm including things like, you know, heads of state, De Gaulle, Haile Selassie, Prince Philip representing the Queen, you know, sort of all walking on foot behind this coffin.

• 53:08Speaker 05

  About ninety of them, I think.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I mean, an extraordinary show of, of support from around the world. The one image that to me is the most powerful is a little boy saluting his father's coffin on his, I mean, his third birthday. I mean, I mean, that image of John Kennedy Junior is the thing that speaks loudest, I think, about what happened.

• 53:30Speaker 05

  I think it's probably, don't you think that's probably the image from that day?

• 53:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 53:35Speaker 05

  That has lived on in people's minds the most, don't you think?

• 53:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. I really do. Okay. So, look, I, I don't want to leave this with, you know, what the Warren Commission did right or did wrong, because you, you've already said, you know, they made mistakes. And there was, there were truths which could have been uttered in a brighter light and their failure to do so has sort of led to all of these disparate accounts of what might have happened that day. Can we talk about the speech that was never given? Because actually that is a very important speech and we do know about it because there was a copy of the speech. Um, tell us what, what JFK was going to say at the trademark.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Well, I think what's most important for me in that speech was a passage that had to do with political extremism for obvious reasons that, given what had just happened to him, that's extraordinary. And I think, given where our world is today, both in the United States and elsewhere, I think it has particular power. Here, if I may, is a, uh, just a brief passage from the speech that I often, I, I give my students, then we have a discussion about it. I've also used it in various public, uh, lectures. Here's what Kennedy would have said. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full

• 54:57Speaker 05

  of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by learning and reason. Or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain popular ascendancy and with their swimmingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem. We cannot expect that everyone will talk sense to the American people, but we can hope that fewer people will listen to this nonsense. That's part of what the speech he was going to give. Now, there are other parts of the speech. Um, he was going to sound pretty hawkish terms. I think it's fair to say on, on the Cold

• 55:38Speaker 05

  War. Uh, this wasn't the entirety of the speech, but that passage about learning and reason and not, you know, confusing rhetoric with reality carries such immense power, it seems to me.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  I can't think of a, a better way of, of ending this episode. Frederick, thank you so much for your company over all of this mini series. Really very, very grateful to you. And this is a life that was so full. And one of the things I'm, I'm aware that we haven't covered in this mini series is the space race, which, you know, the, the huge leaps that were made in JFK's time, uh, at, at the White House. So what we're going to do, because it's impossible to cover everything in a mini series, is we're going to put something, uh, in the newsletter covering that aspect. But till we meet again, it's goodbye from me.

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