Remembering that fateful day in Dallas

[struggle4progress]

By Julian Read
Sunday, November 22, 2009

... I was there on behalf of client and friend, Gov. John Connally, the president's official host for the trip, to work with Deputy White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff to help handle the huge press corps covering the president's two-day tour of Texas. A who's who of famed White House correspondents and Texas Capitol press newsmen and women were aboard, engaged in lighthearted banter about how surprisingly well his visit had gone since he had arrived the day before to visit San Antonio and Houston. Now, here in supposedly anti-Kennedy country, we were seeing large and friendly crowds all along the motorcade route from Love Field. Indeed, up ahead, Nellie Connally, sitting beside the governor, had just turned to Kennedy and remarked, "Mr. President, you certainly can't say Dallas doesn't love you."

A few seconds later, we neared the turn down the hill on Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass. And from my seat near the front of the bus, I already could see the presidential limousine moving past the soon-to-be notorious School Book Depository.

Then, in the flash of a moment, the giddy atmosphere was shattered by three loud explosions.

Backfire from a vehicle? That hopeful thought vanished as I saw police motorcycles scrambling in confusion up the famous "grassy knoll." And I watched in fear as the limousine lurched forward and sped away out beneath the underpass ...

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/insight/2009/11/22/1122dallas.html