Friday. Dealey Plaza, 12:29 p.m., Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy orders the top off the Lincoln. (So not even Oswald knew exactly what he was facing.) The presidential car has just turned and is heading down the railroad overpass. Suddenly, a shot is heard—a firecracker, or the exhaust of a car, many think—but immediately afterward, a second shot is heard, and President Kennedy appears to clutch his throat and lean back and sideways. Senator Connally, sitting in front of the president, is also hit in the shoulder almost simultaneously. Then a third shot, and JFK finally collapses to the side, while the first lady reaches for the back of the car as if trying to retrieve something. A security guard following the Lincoln orders the first lady to return to her seat, while the driver, finally realizing what has happened, accelerates and drives the car away from Dealy Plaza toward Parkland Memorial Hospital. (It would later be discovered that the president’s wife, in shock, was trying to recover part of her husband’s brain, which had been blown to that point.) These were moments of confusion and panic. Motorcycle officer Marrion L. Baker, two of Oswald’s colleagues, and others clearly heard that the three shots came from the last window on the right of the sixth floor of the building. Oswald was stopped but quickly released, left, and boarded a bus home. He lives alone after his Russian wife left him.
