THE CHRISTCHURCH STAR HOME [Edition] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1963 KENNEDY SHOT DEAD GUNNED DOWN DURING DRIVE THROUGH DALLAS N.Z.P.A.-A.A.P. Dallas (Texas), November 22. PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS ASSASSINATED TO-DAY. The President was shot as he drove through this Texas city in an open car. The Governor of Texas (Mr. John Connally) was seriously wounded. The President died at 7 a. m. Saturday, New Zealand time. After the burst of gun-fire cut down the President, he was rushed to Parkland Hospital, where blood transfusions were given. Priests were summoned to his bed-side for the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The President was cradles in his wife’s arms immediately after the shooting. Mrs Kennedy, who was unhurt, sobbed, "Oh, no," as the President slumped back with a shot in his head. The assassination took place near a three-highway intersection close to the business area of the city. Within seconds of the shooting, Mr Kennedy slumped over in the back seat of the car, face down. Mr Connally lay on the floor of the rear seat. Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard. Secret service men immediately unslung their automatic weapons and pistols. Mrs Kennedy and the Governor’s wife, who was also in the car, both crouched over the inert forms of their husbands as the car sped towards the hospital. Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who now becomes President of the United States, was in the car immediately behind the President. A White House medical officer said President Kennedy was shot in the right temple. "It was a simple matter of a bullet right through the head," he said. The identity of the assassin or assassins was not immediately known but one young man near the scene was taken into custody. A television reporter on the scene said he saw a rifle being withdrawn from a window on the fifth or sixth floor of an office building shortly after the shooting. [NOTE: There is a 3 inch by 8 inch photo of the School Book Depository Building to the left of this text with a caption "An arrow points to the window from which the assassin shot President Kennedy in Dallas to-day. - Radio Picture] Net Out Immediately after the shooting police spread a vast dragnet over the city as they hunted for the assassin. The Associated Press of America said authorities believed the fatal shots were fired by a white man. The murder weapon was reported to be a 30-30 calibre rifle. Mr Kennedy was 46. He went to Texas yesterday at the start of an intensive political tour. Senator Ralph Yarborough, who was riding in the third car behind the President, told reporters: "It seemed to me that at least two of the shots came from our right rear." Senator Yarborough was crying as he gave his eyewitness account. "You could tell something awful and tragic had happened. "I could see a secret service man in the President’s car wringing his hands in anger, anguish, and despair." Dallas is considered to be a centre of conservative philosophy and finance. Here, on October 24, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations (Mr. Adlai Stevenson) was spat upon by one heckler and struck by another after making a United Nations Day address. BADLY HURT The second man wounded in the assassination, Governor Connally, was reported to be in a serious condition as surgeons operated. But doctors said his "vital signs were good." One eyewitness of the shooting said President and Mrs. Kennedy were looking at a dog in the middle of the street when the gunfire came. "there were three shots. "The President grabbed his chest and fell over his seat and Jackie fell over him," the eye-witness, Mrs Jean Hill, said. Another eyewitness said that immediately another shot rang out he saw a policeman fall to the ground, pull his pistol, and yell "Get down." He went on: "A negro man across the street picked up his little girl and ran. A woman nearly fainted." ‘AWFUL LOOK’ Another eyewitness, Charles Brehn, said he was 15ft away from the President when he was shot. "He was waving, then the first shot hit him and that awful look crossed his face." As the gunfire sounded, motor-cycle police spread out and raced toward where people were huddled. There was pandemonium, United Press International reported. The President’s car immediately swung out of the line of travel and raced behind screaming motor-cycle police sirens to hospital. The President’s body was carried from the hospital in a wooden coffin, U. P. reported. Mrs Kennedy accompanied the body. About fifty uniformed policemen surrounded the area, driving back hundreds of spectators surrounding the hospital. The coffin was placed in a white Cadillac hearse and the drapes were pulled. TRAFFIC JAM A tremendous traffic jam developed around Parkland Hospital. White House officials stood sorrowfully looking stunned, in corridors and in a waiting room. N.B.C. television said police had taken possession of a British .303 rifle - a make sold in America as a hunting weapon, Reuter reported. The rifle had a telescopic sight and was found near a corner window of the building from which they shots were fired. The {illegible word] empty cartridge [illegible two words] on the floor. N.B.C. radio reported that a car believed to be the getaway car of the assassin had been seized in Fort Worth, Texas. A suspect had been taken into custody. Those who saw Mrs Kennedy enter the hospital said she had not been hysterical. The White House staff said Mrs. Kennedy would return to Washington late to-day to be with her children, Caroline, aged 6, and [illegible word] junl, who will be 3 next week. TURN TO PAGE 3 ASSASSINATION, FROM PAGE 1 BATTLE BY DOCTORS TO SAVE PRESIDENT’S LIFE [NOTE: To the right of the (four columns wide) text is a 5 inch by 6 inch photo of Lee Oswald in a coat and tie. Above it is printed "THE MAN THEY ARRESTED" and beneath it is written "Lee Oswald, aged 24, who has been arrested on suspicion of having shot President Kennedy." - Radio Picture] Reuter quoted doctors as saying that the President died of wounds in the neck and head. They were possibly caused by the same bullet, but there may have been two bullets. The President did not regain consciousness form the moment he was struck, the doctors said, according to Reuter. The President’s throat was opened to relieve breathing, and blood and fluids were administered intravenously. Physicians laboured to keep respiration at a life-sustaining level, U.P.I. said. Dr Malcolm Perry, the hospital surgeon said he was summoned immediately after the President was brought to the emergency entrance of Parkland Hospital. CRITICAL "I noticed he was in a critical condition from a wound in the neck and head," Dr Perry said. "Immediate respiration methods were taken and Dr. Clark was summoned, along with other members of the surgical staff. "They arrived immediately, but at this point the President’s condition did now allow complete resuscitation. "He was critical and moribund. Dr Clark assisted respiration with oxygen." Dr Clark said: "they called me because the President had a brain wound. "Tracheotomy and resuscitation were done to relieve the possibility of air being in the pleural space, between the lung and the chest. "Shortly after I arrived, the President lost his heart action." Dr Perry tried closed chest cardiac massage, to no avail. Dr Clark said the President lived 40 minutes from the time of the shooting until death was pronounced. FEW AT SPOT The President, halfway through a three-day Texas tour, was shot at a spot where there were few spectators, A.P. said. Most of the huge crowd had gathered at other spots along the route. A crowd of several thousand had been waiting at the Dallas Trade Mart, to which the President was driving to give a luncheon speech. A stunned hush fell over the crowd as the news was announced. Many who were to attend the luncheon broke down and wept. The main body of the White House press corps was at the rear of the motorcade, riding in tow buses, A.P. said. These men and women, who covered the President’s day-to-day activities, knew nothing of the shooting until they reached the trade mart. The transparent plastic roof of the President’s vehicle had been removed for the motorcade. Secret Service agents riding with the President were in a second convertible following close behind. They immediately drew pistols and automatic weapons but they were unable to get a shot at the assassin. RACED AWAY After the fatal shots were fired the presidential car’s Secret Service driver raced away from the scene at top speed. He was heading fort the nearest hospital and trying to get the Presidential party out of range of further gunfire. The assassination of President Kennedy hit a sunny New York like a bombshell to-day, according to a New York message. Lunch-hour crowds clustered grave-faced round transistor and car radios as the news spread. Soon the pavements were jammed outside radio and television shops as the news reached America’s largest city. Some women were crying. There was pandemonium at the White House, where operators valiantly tried to answer the flood of calls which began coming in. In New York the Stock Exchange closed. RECESS The Senate immediately recessed its sitting and practically every Government office came virtually to a standstill. A workman told the President’ father and mother in Hyannis Port that the President had been shot while visiting Dallas. The President’s father is a semi-invalid as the result of a stroke several years ago. He was napping when the word came. At the United Nations in New York, delegates were plunged into deep shock by the shooting. United Nations officials telephoned the news to the Secretary-General (U Thant), who was lunching in a New York restaurant. The chief United States delegate, Mr Adlai Stevenson, left a private luncheon party at the United Nations and hurried back to his office to listen to the radio. Officials said Mr Stevenson "was obviously so shocked he had nothing to say." WEPT When word of the President’s death was received, many delegates and Secretariat staff wept openly. Five members of President Kennedy’s Cabinet were out of the country, flying to Japan, when the President was killed. An hour and a half out of Honolulu, the secretaries were advised of the killing and immediately turned back. The were expected to speed back to Washington. The party was on the way to a meeting with members of the Japanese Cabinet. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower to-day called the assassination of President Kennedy a "despicable act." The former President, in a statement issued from his suite at a New York hotel said: "I share the sense of shock and dismay that all Americans fell at the despicable act that results in the death of our nation’s President." Governor Nelson Rockefeller said to-day that the death of President Kennedy is a "terrible tragedy for the nation and the world." Former President Harry S. Truman who himself was an intended victim of assassin’s bullets thirteen years ago this month, was too stricken by news of President Kennedy’s assassination to-day to comment immediately. In Washington Senator Barry F. Goldwater issued a statement from his Washington office to-day, declaring President Kennedy’s assassination "shocking and dreadful." Senator Goldwater, who had been considered a potential rival of Mr Kennedy’s in next year’s Presidential elections learned of the chief executive’s death in Chicago. Later his office issued this statement on the Senator’s behalf: "It is both shocking and dreadful that a thing like this could happen in a free country. This President’s death is a profound loss to the nation and the free world." FLEW HOME Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his sister, Mrs. Eunice Schriver, flew red-eyed and sombre to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to-day to be with their parents. The late President’s youngest brother and his sister, the wife of the Peace Corps director, arrived at Andrews Air Force base by helicopter and within minutes had boarded a jet for Cape Cod to be with their parents. Senator Kennedy was presiding over the Senate chamber when he was informed that his brother had been shot. (end of main page 1 article) [NOTE: On page 1, on the bottom left side is a three column wide article (5 inches by 6 inches which states the following:] ARRESTED MAN LIVED IN RUSSIA N.Z.P.A.-A.A.P. DALLAS (Texas), November 22. POLICE have arrested a man employed at the building where a rifle was found after President Kennedy’s assassination, British United Press reported. The man, reported to be married to a Russian, shot dead a police officer as he was chased into a Dallas cinema. HAD PISTOL The Associated Press of America named the man as Lee. H. Oswald, aged 24. Oswald was armed with a pistol when he was finally overpowered. After he was subdued he said: "Well, it’s all over now." After being questioned for two hours, Oswald denied any connection with the murder of President Kennedy or the policeman. Reuter said a Secret Service agent had also been shot from the same distance as the President but no details of this shooting were immediately available. Oswald was pulled screaming and yelling from the Texas Theatre, in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, A.P. said. A large crowd had congregated around the theatre and saw the arrest. Police had to hold the crowds back. Police said Oswald was an employee in the building where the rifle was found following the President’s assassination, British United Press reported. Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, it was later learned. He returned to the United States last year. He has a Russian wife and a child. While in the Soviet Union he worked in a Minsk factory. He went to the Soviet Union following his discharge from the Marines. While in Russia he apparently became disillusioned with life there. Soviet authorities gave him and his family exit permits to return to America. Oswald was later identified as chairman of a "fair play for Cuba committee." He became the prime suspect in the assassination of the President. SHOT DEAD Oswald had been chased into the cinema by two policemen. The officers, J. Tippit and M. Macdonald, had received a tip that the President’s assassin might have gone into the cinema. Tippit was shot dead as he ran into the cinema, British United Press said. Macdonald grappled with the man and they sprawled over theatre seats. He received a four-inch gash across the face before he overpowered the man. PICTURES, PAGE 3 (end of article on Oswald) ============================================================= [NOTE: Fletcher Prouty, who kindly supplied me with photocopies of The Christchurch Star, and from which I have typed this text file, states emphatically that: "At 7:10 PM Dallas time on November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was formally advised that he had been charged with the murder of Tippet, not Kennedy. For nearly seven hours Oswald had been picked up and charged with the death of Tippet, but NOT JFK. "Oswald name as a suspect in the JFK murder was not available until after midnight, November 23, 1963. "This underscores that papers world-wide were flooded with news much of which had to have been gathered, collated, written and transmitted BEFORE Oswald was even charged as a suspect in the JFK murder. "Being across the date line it was 6:30 AM of November 23 in New Zealand when JFK was shot in Dallas at 12:30 PM Dallas time on November 22, 1963. That is a 17 hour difference. "There is no way the STAR could have had true and un-contrived Oswald data before 7 PM of November 23rd, yet the paper was on the streets during the afternoon, early afternoon, around 1 PM or 2 PM, as I recall. "ALMOST EVERYTHING OBTAINED BY THE STAR WAS FROM THOSE INTERNATIONAL SOURCES WHO HAD IT ALREADY TO GO BEFORE OSWALD HAD BEEN CHARGED WITH THE JFK MURDER. " [My emphasis in capital letters.] Oh, Fletcher states that in the movie JFK, that the Christchurch Star newspaper shown there is not authentic, but is a photo composite used for dramatic effect based upon a copy he loaned to Oliver Stone and which was altered in appearance. There are numerous other articles pertaining to JFK on pages 1 and 3 such as: "WORLD MOURNS DEAD PRESIDENT" "55-year old TEXAN SWORN IN AS US 35th PRESIDENT" "FOURTH PRESIDENT TO DIE BY BULLET" "SHIPS FLAGS AT HALF-MAST" "MEMORIAL SERVICE ARRANGED" "TO LIE IN STATE" "POPE PRAYS" "ENLIGHTENMENT AND FIRM ACTION WAS HIS MARK" "ROSES IN THE BLOOD" "ANOTHER BLOW FOR KENNEDYS" "WIFE TELLS OF EVENTS IN CAR," etc. etc. [end]