Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - Assassination and Funeral of John F. Kennedy

Assassination and Funeral of John F. Kennedy

On November 21, 1963, the First Couple left the White House for a political trip to Texas, stopping in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth that day. After a breakfast on November 22, the Kennedys flew from Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas's Love Field on Air Force One, accompanied by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie. She was wearing a bright pink Chanel suit. A 9.5-mile (15.3 km) motorcade was to take them to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a lunch. The First Lady was seated next to her husband in the limousine, with the Governor and his wife seated in front of them. Vice President Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade.

After the motorcade turned the corner onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, the First Lady heard what she thought to be a motorcycle backfiring, and did not realize that it was a gunshot until she heard Governor Connally scream. Within 8.4 seconds, two more shots had rung out, and she leaned toward her husband. The final shot struck the President in the head. Shocked, she climbed out of the back seat and crawled over the trunk of the car. Her Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, later told the Warren Commission that he thought she had been reaching across the trunk for a piece of the President's skull that had been blown off. Hill ran to the car and leapt onto it, directing her back to her seat. The car rushed to Dallas's Parkland Hospital, and on arrival there, the president's body was rushed into a trauma room. The First Lady, for the moment, remained in a room for relatives and friends of patients just outside.

A few minutes into her husband's treatment, accompanied by the President's doctor, Admiral George Burkley, she left her folding chair outside Trauma Room One and attempted to enter the operating room. Nurse Doris Nelson stopped her and attempted to bar the door to prevent her from entering. She persisted, and the President's doctor suggested that she take a sedative, which she refused. "I want to be there when he dies," she told Burkley. He eventually persuaded Nelson to grant her access to Trauma Room One, saying "It's her right, it's her prerogative."

Later, when the casket arrived, the widow removed her wedding ring and slipped it onto the President's finger. She told aide Ken O'Donnell, "Now I have nothing left."

After the president's death, she refused to remove her blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off her face and hands. She continued to wear the blood-stained pink suit as she went on board Air Force One and stood next to Johnson when he took the oath of office as President. She told Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."

Kennedy took an active role in planning the details of her husband's state funeral, which was based on Abraham Lincoln's. The funeral service was held at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, Washington D.C., and the burial at Arlington National Cemetery; the widow led the procession there on foot and would light the eternal flame at the grave site, a flame that had been created at her request. Lady Jeanne Campbell reported back to The London Evening Standard: "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people... one thing they have always lacked: Majesty."

Following the assassination and the media coverage which had focused intensely on her during and after the burial, Kennedy stepped back from official public view. She did, however, make a brief appearance in Washington to honor the Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who had climbed aboard the limousine in Dallas to try to shield her and the President.

In September 2011, audio tapes of Jackie Kennedy were released that had been recorded in 1964 after her husband's assassination. They were not supposed to be released until 50 years after her death in 1994. Approximately 8.5 hours in length, the tapes contain an interview with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. In it Jackie reveals her thoughts on the vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.. She discusses how she refused to leave her husband's side during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when other officials had sent their wives away for their safety.