After the President had been shot in the head, Mrs. Kennedy began to climb out onto the back of the limousine, though she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she was reaching for something, perhaps a piece of the President's skull. He jumped onto the back of the limousine while at the same time Mrs. Kennedy returned to her seat, and he clung to the car as it exited  Dealey Plaza  and accelerated, speeding to Parkland Memorial Hospital.

 

After Mrs. Kennedy crawled back into her limousine seat, both Governor Connally and Mrs. Connally heard her say more than once, "They have killed my husband," and  "I have his brains in my hand."  In a long-redacted interview for Life

magazine days later, Mrs. Kennedy recalled, "All the ride to the hospital I kept bending over him saying, 'Jack, Jack, can you hear me? I love you, Jack.' I kept holding the top of his head down trying to keep the..." The President's widow could not finish her sentence.

 

 Lee Harvey Oswald,  reported missing to the Dallas police by Roy Truly, his supervisor at the Depository, was arrested approximately 70 minutes after the assassination for the murder of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit. According to witness Helen Markam, Tippit had spotted Oswald walking along a sidewalk in the residential neighbourhood of Oak Cliff, three miles from Dealey Plaza. Officer Tippit had earlier received a radio message which gave a description of the suspect being sought in the assassination and called Oswald over to the patrol car.

 

 Helen Markam  testified that after an exchange of words, Tippit got out

of his car and Oswald shot him four times. Oswald was next seen by

shoe store manager Johnny Brewer "ducking into" the entrance alcove

of his store. Suspicious of this activity, Brewer watched Oswald

continue up the street and slip into the nearby Texas Theatre without

paying. Brewer alerted he theatre's ticket clerk, who telephoned police

at about 1:40 p.m.

 

According to one of the arresting officers, M.N. McDonald, Oswald

resisted arrest and was attempting to draw his pistol when he was

struck and forcibly restrained by the police. He was charged with the murders of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit later that night. Oswald denied shooting anyone and claimed he was a  patsy  who was arrested because he had lived in the Soviet Union.

 

Oswald's case never came to trial because two days later, while being escorted to a car for transfer from Dallas Police Headquarters to the Dallas County Jail, he was shot and mortally wounded by Dallas nightclub owner  Jack Ruby,  live on American television at 11:21 a.m. CST on Sunday, November the 24th. Oswald was taken unconscious by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. Oswald's death was announced on a TV news broadcast by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry. An autopsy was performed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner at 2:45 p.m. the same day. The stated cause of death in the autopsy report was "haemorrhage secondary to gunshot wound of the chest." Arrested immediately after the shooting, Ruby later

said that he had been distraught over the Kennedy assassination and that killing Oswald would spare "...Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial."

 

There are  numerous conspiracy theories  surrounding the assassination. These theories posit that the assassination involved people or organizations other than Lee Harvey Oswald. Most current theories put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties as variedas the CIA, the Mafia, sitting Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of those entities. Some conspiracy theories claim that the United States government covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination.

 

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded

that only Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible

for the assassination of Kennedy. Subsequent

investigations confirmed most of the

conclusions of the Commission. In 1979, the

United States House Select Committee on

Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that a

second gunman besides Oswald probably fired

at Kennedy. The HSCA did not identify the

second gunman, nor did it identify any other

person or organization as having been involved.

The acoustical evidence that the HSCA

based its second gunman conclusion on has

since been discredited.

 

Public opinion polls have consistently shown

that a majority of Americans believe there was

a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Gallup polls

have also found that only 20-30% of the

population believe that Oswald had acted

alone. These polls also show that there is

no agreement on who else may have been

involved.  Vincent Bugliosi  estimated that a

total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214

people had been accused in various Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. The assassination has been the subject of many time travel and alternate history stories in science fiction film, television and literature. 

 

In the 1980 novel  Timescape by Gregory Benford,  Kennedy's assassination was averted by a high school student who interrupted Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Although seriously injured, Kennedy survived. This interference created an alternate timeline in which

William Scranton was the US President in 1974, having defeated Robert F. Kennedy due to a telephone tapping scandal.

 

 "Profile in Silver",  a segment of a 1985 episode of The Twilight Zone, features a time traveller (Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald) from 2172 who is sent to record the assassination, but who intentionally prevents it. The interference sets up a chain of events beginning with the assassination of Nikita Khrushchev that may culminate in a nuclear war that will destroy the human race. Fitzgerald realizes his folly in disrupting history and tries to reverse his disturbance. The timeline is ultimately restored when Fitzgerald takes Kennedy's place in the motorcade, while the president is transported to safety in 2172.

 

 "Lee Harvey Oswald",  the 1992 season opener for the TV series Quantum Leap, finds Sam Beckett leaping into Oswald's body. At a critical moment, Al Calavicci prompts him to leap into Secret Service Agent Clint Hill. Hill attempts to reach the President's car before the shots are fired, but he fails to prevent Kennedy's death. Calavicci later reveals that he and Beckett have saved one life–that of Jackie Kennedy, whom Oswald had killed along with the President in the original timeline. This episode was written by series creator Donald P. Bellisario, in response to the Oliver Stone film JFK. Bellisario (who served with Oswald in the Marine Corps) doesn't believe in a conspiracy; he used supporting evidence from the Warren Commission Report, and had Calavicci speculate that people find it comfortable to believe in a conspiracy, reasoning that if any one person can kill the President of the United States then nobody is safe.

 

In  Stephen Baxter's novel Voyage  (1996), the Dallas assassination attempt only succeeds in crippling Kennedy, but Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is killed. Kennedy is re-elected in 1964 and commits the United States to landing a manned vessel on Mars, which occurs in 1986. The novel uses the assassination attempt only as the impetus for an alternate history US space program.

 

Stephen King's novel  11/22/63,  published in 2011, tells about a time traveller trying to stop the assassination.

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