11.22.63, Part 3: Nightmare On Elm Street (12:30 PM)
2 months agoWhat can you do in 4.6 seconds? It takes twice that amount of time for the fastest human being who has ever lived to run 100 meters at top speed. Some people take longer than 4.6 seconds to process thoughts, to start sentences, to absorb facts and make conclusions. Some people only need 4.6 seconds to leave an indelible imprint upon history, to make a wife a widow and children fatherless. For some people, 4.6 seconds is all the time required to change the world.
The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM. President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade has passed the building and is on Elm Street, in the open air of Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, en route to the Trade Mart, just five minutes away.
On Elm Street, Jackie Kennedy sees another overpass that will provide a brief, shady respite from the glare of the bright Texas sun. Those quick seconds of a cool shield from the unseasonably warm November day have been welcome interruptions from the waving and smiling that she has been greeting crowds with since the President and the First Lady arrived at Love Field just a few minutes earlier. As Presidential aide Kenneth O’Donnell had reminded her to do, Jackie is looking at the crowd on her left while President Kennedy looks to his right. Directly, in front of the President is Texas Governor John Connally, pleasantly surprised at the friendly Dallas welcome the President is receiving. Next to the Governor is his wife, Nellie, who just finished joking to the President that it would be impossible for people to say that Dallas didn’t love him. Driving the President’s Lincoln limousine at 11.2 miles per hour, Secret Service agent Bill Greer just navigated a sharp turn below the Book Depository building while agent Roy Kellerman scans the crowd from his front passenger seat. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
On Elm Street, a large crowd has gathered on the grassy expanse in Dealey Plaza, as well as along the sidewalks, hoping to catch a wave or a smile from their popular President before he disappears underneath the triple railroad overpass that Jackie anticipates while give her a momentary break from the sun. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
On Elm Street, Secret Service agents in follow-up cars search the large crowds for unnatural movements, suspicious characters, and anything which might interfere with or cause harm to the Presidential motorcade or the President himself. The car behind the President, code named Halfback, also carries the President’s close aides, O’Donnell and Dave Powers. They watch the President intently, studying his interaction with the crowd, soaking up what is working and what is not working on this almost purely political trip into suspected hostile territory for JFK. Up until now, they too have been surprised by Dallas’s warm welcome. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
On Elm Street, the car behind Halfback carries Vice President Lyndon Johnson, his wife Lady Bird, Senator Ralph Yarborough, and several Secret Service agents. This is his home state, but Lyndon Johnson is just along for the ride. He’s not happy with his role as Vice President. He’s not thrilled to be riding with Senator Yarborough, who he has been feuding with for several years, and he’d rather be home at his LBJ Ranch or running the country that JFK is in charge of. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
Above Elm Street, 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald sits in a sixth-floor window of his place of employment — the Book Depository building — watching, waiting, and ready. Oswald has an Italian-made, 6.5 x 52 mm Carcano rifle which he purchased by mail order eight months earlier. Inside of the rifle is a round-nosed bullet with a copper jacket. With this rifle and this bullet, Oswald is going to change the world. Before the clock on the Hertz sign a couple of floors above him ticks off another minute, Lee Harvey Oswald will change the world with something that weighs just 10 grams. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
The loud crack that everyone hears at exactly 12:30 PM is difficult to figure out, even for the highly-trained Secret Service agents guarding the life of the President. Most think that it is a motorcycle backfiring, perhaps even a firecracker. The First Lady would later say that was what she thought. Only one of those highly-trained Secret Service agents reacts immediately. He is Rufus Youngblood and the instant he hears the crack of Oswald’s gun, he leaps into the backseat of his car and shoves the 6’3” Vice President as far down into the limo as possible, screaming “Get down!” while covering him with his body. Later, Youngblood notes that he briefly worried that he he might be overreacting. He wasn’t.
One person does realize that the sound he heard isn’t a motorcycle backfiring or a firecracker exploding. Governor Connally is an avid hunter and he realizes that someone just fired a rifle. The Governor — relieved that the Dallas trip was going better than expected to this point — also realizes that the perfect trip just turned into an attempted assassination. Immediately after hearing the first shot, Connally begins saying, “Oh, no, no, no!”. In the 2.3 seconds after the first shot is fired, people are still trying to figure out what just happened. The clock on the Hertz sign still reads 12:30 PM when a second shot is fired.
Still looking to her left, Jackie Kennedy shifts to the right when she hears the Governor’s words. The President is smiling at a young boy and beginning to wave when Oswald’s second shot tears through the back of the President’s neck just to the right of his spine. The bullet causes damage to Kennedy’s right lung, shreds his trachea and exits through the front of his throat, slicing through his tie. The bullet doesn’t stop there. Governor Connally had jerked quickly to his right upon hearing the first gunshot. The same bullet that passed through the President rips into Connally’s back, exits his chest, re-enters his body at his right wrist and plunges through to his left thigh. Greer, the driver, looks back over his right shoulder. Kellerman, the passenger, looks over his left. Inexplicably, they don’t react. Agent Clint Hill, on a running board of Halfback, does. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
The President is hurt, but his wound is not mortal. In fact, Governor Connally is injured far more severely from the shooting. Blood is pouring out of his chest, but a delayed reaction means he doesn’t feel pain for a second or two after being hit. When the pain hits, it is excruciating and Connally moans, “They are going to kill us both!” as his wife grabs him and pulls him towards her. Jackie now realizes that something is terribly wrong because the Governor of Texas is screaming with fright and pain. She looks to her husband and he has a look on his face that reminds her of when he’d get a headache or was in the middle of a deep thought. Later, she would describe his look as “quizzical”. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
President Kennedy jerks into an odd position as he is hit. He grasps at his throat, his hands clenched in fists and his elbows higher than his shoulders. This movement — exceedingly unnatural-looking — finally elicits a response from the Secret Service. While Greer unsconsciously slows the Presidential limousine down and Kellerman freezes, Clint Hill has bounded off of Halfback and is running towards the back of the President’s car. Several Secret Service agents reach for their guns, still unsure of what happened, but positive that something has gone wrong. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
The President slumps slightly towards his wife, as if he is choking and needs assistance. Jackie leans towards the President. With her white-gloved hands, she gently grabs JFK’s left elbow and begins pulling him towards her. It has been less than five seconds since the first shot was fired, but it is now clear that the glare of the Texas sun is the least of Jackie Kennedy’s worries. She glances briefly towards the front of the limo at Governor Connally, whose lap is drenched with blood; at Nellie Connally who is pulling her husband into her lap; at Bill Greer, who actually slowed the limo down in his confusion; and at Roy Kellerman, who is looking back at the President, yet still sitting in his passenger seat. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
As the President leans towards his wife and the First Lady leans towards her husband, it appears as if Jackie is looking now at the area of the throat that Kennedy is clutching. Their faces are just inches apart from each other. Jackie is no longer looking to her left. There are no more waves, no more smiles. Kellerman remembers hearing the President say, “My God, I’m hit”, but no one else in the limo remembers that. In fact, it was probably impossible for the President to speak after the bullet tore through his throat. The clock on the Hertz sign above the Texas School Book Depository building reads 12:30 PM.
On Elm Street, the glamorous First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, is wearing a bright pink dress and spotless white gloves and has a bouquet of fresh red roses in her lap while the dark blue Presidential limousine passes a crowd of diverse colors gathered in a plaza full of green grass as a third shot rings out. The clock on the Hertz sign on top of the ugly, brown Book Depository building still reads 12:30 PM.
If there was any doubt about what was happening as the first two shots were fired, the doubt disappears in a thick mist of blood, bone and brain matter when the third shot hits its mark. Motorcycle cops escorting the President’s limousine are sprayed first by the sickening result of Lee Harvey Oswald’s third shot. One likened it later to being hit with “wet sawdust”. Before the third shot, there is no blood other than that pumping out of John Connally’s wounds. John F. Kennedy has been wounded, but he is not bleeding noticeably. Yet, as Jackie leans into her husband everything turns red — the limousine, Jackie’s fashionable dress, the Connally’s, Greer, Kellerman, the naturally red roses, the windscreens on motorcycles near the limo, and the faces of Secret Service agents inside Halfback.
By the third shot, Secret Service agents have turned their attention to the the Presidential limousine and many are watching President Kennedy’s head when the final shot hits. Later, people remembered the sound just as distinctly as the sight. One agent recalled the dull sound as being similar to the noise of a watermelon being smashed or a bullet being shot into a jug of water. Almost all of the agents watching the President immediately know that the wound is fatal. Ken O’Donnell and Dave Powers, two of Kennedy’s closest friends as well as longtime aides, begin praying. Clint Hill is almost to the back bumper of JFK’s car when the third shot hits and covers him in blood and flesh.
The fatal shot strikes President Kennedy in the back of the head, almost directly in between the ears. The entrance wound is small, but the bullet violently exits the right side of the front of his head, exploding into a cloud of blood, pieces of his cerebellum, skull fragments, and flesh with hair still attached. The President’s body jerks suddenly to the front and then to the back, awkwardly slamming into the seat and falling into the lap of Jackie. Blood is everywhere. Thick clumps of blood which immediately cover the limousine. Jackie screams, “My God, what are they doing? My God, they’ve killed Jack! They’ve killed my husband. Jack! Jack! I love you, Jack!”. Jackie is cradling her husband’s disfigured head in her lap as blood stains her pink suit and white gloves. The brain of her husband — a brain admired by so many for it’s ability and intellectual curiosity — is leaking out of his head along with bright red blood which is as thick as mud.
Suddenly, Jackie jumps up and climbs towards the trunk of the limousine. She is later asked about this action and doesn’t remember why she did it. In fact, she has no recollection of doing it at all, even when looking at photographs of herself doing it. Clint Hill has caught up to the hand grips on the back of the Lincoln as Kellerman finally acts and orders Greer to accelerate. Hill nearly loses his grip and is also unsure later why Jackie was climbing out of the backseat. To some it looks like she is trying to escape the horror, to others it appears as if she is trying to help pull Hill on to the limo. To a lot of people, it’s thought that she was retrieving pieces of her husband’s shattered skull. Despite Greer’s acceleration, Hill jumps on to the limo, grabs Jackie, puts her back into the seat, and lays spread-eagle above the mortally-wounded President. The site inside the limo sickens him. A flap of Kennedy’s skull is hanging to his head only by a thin thread of flesh. There is blood everywhere. Pieces of detached skull fragments with Kennedy’s hair still attached lie in the backseat.
Hill knows that the President’s wound is not survivable. As he shields the dying President and the shocked First Lady, he slams his hand against the car’s exterior, realizing that the Secret Service just failed to do it’s most important job. Nellie Connally cradles her husband in her arm’s as well. Not all of the blood is Kennedy’s. Governor Connally is bleeding profusely. He is also losing consciousness. Indeed, Nellie Connally believes her husband is actually dead until his hands move slightly. Jackie Kennedy is repeating over-and-over again, “They’ve killed him! I love you, Jack!”.
The President of the United States is still breathing, but barely. His eyes are open, staring blankly at Jackie as she tries to shield him from the horror that has already befallen her, her family, and her country. Kellerman orders the limousine to head to Parkland Hospital and the Greer slams the gas pedal to the floor, heading out of Dealey Plaza and underneath the triple overpass that Jackie was looking forward to. The people in the plaza are stunned. Most don’t even realize what has happened. Those who do are convinced that Kennedy is dead.
Before lapsing into unconsciousness from his wound, Governor Connally hears Jackie Kennedy’s tears. He hears his wife screaming. He hears static on the police and Secret Service radios as they frantically, belatedly take action. He hears orders being given, engines being revved, and his own heart pumping blood just as quickly as it pours out of his body.
What he doesn’t hear are frightened pigeons flying up and away from the Book Depository building. What he didn’t hear was empty shell casings popping out of Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle and landing on the floor of his sixth-floor perch. What he doesn’t hear are the labored breaths and gurgling sounds coming from the President’s wounded throat. What he doesn’t hear are the preparations being made to receive a Code 3 emergency at Parkland Hospital involving the President of the United States.
What Governor Connally most remembers hearing as he drifts into unconsciousness is Jacqueline Kennedy — elegant, beautiful Jacqueline Kennedy — sobbing and saying over-and-over again, “What have they done to you? I love you, Jack!”. And, finally — tragically, heartbreakingly, horrifically — he hears the First Lady softly tell Clint Hill, “I have his brains in my hand.”
In less than five seconds, Lee Harvey Oswald changed the course of history in the most dramatic, violent, brutal, and sickening way — and he made it look easy. As the President’s limo sped towards Parkland Hospital, someone who looked towards the building that the shots came from would have noticed the pigeons flying upwards and away from the building. And as those pigeons rose into the bright blue Texas sky of November 22, 1963, someone who looked towards the building that the shots came from also might have noticed a clock on the Hertz sign on top of the building’s roof.
If they noticed that clock on that sign, they would have seen that the time was now 12:31 PM.