Hurchel Jacks - Prelude

Prelude

A presidential visit to the state of Texas was first agreed upon by Lyndon B. Johnson, President John F. Kennedy's vice president, and Texas native, and by Texas Governor John Connally while all three men were together in a meeting in El Paso, Texas on June 5, 1963. (In 1978 Connally testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that in the spring of 1962 "Vice President Johnson told me then that President Kennedy wanted to come to Texas, he wanted to come to Texas to raise some money, have some fund-raising affairs over the State.")

President Kennedy later decided to embark on the trip with three basic goals in mind: the president wanted to help raise more Democratic Party presidential campaign fund contributions; he wanted to begin his quest for reelection in November 1964; and, because the Kennedy-Johnson ticket had barely won Texas in 1960 (and had even lost in Dallas), President Kennedy wanted to help mend political fences among several leading Texas Democratic party members who appeared to be fighting politically amongst themselves.

President Kennedy's trip to Dallas was first announced to the public in September 1963. The exact motorcade route was finalized on November 18 and announced to the public a few days before November 22.

During the third week of October 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald started working a seasonal, full-time job at the Texas School Book Depository as a $1.25/hour manual laborer, filling customer orders for books. Oswald had secured the job after a referral by Ruth Paine, with whom Lee's wife, Marina Oswald, and the Oswald children were living, after a marriage separation. Ruth had also separated from her husband, Michael Paine, at about the same time.

On October 24, 1963, when on a visit to Dallas to mark U.N. Day, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was jeered, jostled, hit by a sign, and spat upon. Dallas Police were fearful that similar demonstrations were going to happen to Kennedy when he visited Dallas. Several people, including Stevenson, warned JFK against coming to Dallas, but Kennedy refused their advice. Dallas Police, headed by chief Jesse Curry, did increase the level of security during Kennedy's visit, putting into effect the most stringent security precautions in the city's history. Curry even "deputized" citizens to take action for any suspicious acts that may be pointed towards the president.