49. The announcement was also broadcast over channel two at 12:45 P.M.

50. "Report of the President's Commission, Chapter 4," 16576. The journalist and assassination researcher Henry Hurt is not convinced that Oswald killed Tippit, and he has raised questions about the timeline of events and the credibility of the eyewitnesses. See Hurt's book Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, especially chapter 7 ("Tippit's Murder: Rosetta Stone or Red Herring?").

51. Ibid., 17678; Bosley Crowther, "Oozing Conflict: 'Cry of Battle' Opens at the Victoria," New York Times, October 12, 1963,

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C01E0DC133CEF3BBC4A52DFB6678388679EDE

[accessed March 17, 2011].

52. "Report of the President's Commission, Chapter 4," pages 17880; Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, 1046. The Texas Theatre has been preserved and is both a community center and a tourist attraction in Dallas. But the row of seats where Oswald was sitting was removed by a previous owner and is in the hands of a private collector.

53. Jeff Carlton, "Paul Bentley; Detective Helped Arrest Oswald," Boston Globe, July 25, 2008,

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/07/25/paul_bentley_detective_helped_arrest_oswald/

[accessed March 17, 2011]. There is also existing film of Oswald being driven away from the theater. Bentley was related to L. C. Graves, one of the officers escorting Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. He later told Graves, "I arrested him and you let him get shot!"

54. William E. Scott, November 22, 1963: A Reference Guide to the JFK Assassination (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), 25; "Report of the President's Commission, Chapter 4," 17980.

55. "Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? 9: Capture," Frontline, PBS website,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/view/

[accessed March 21, 2011].

56. Telephone interview with Jim Lehrer, April 20, 2011. Understandably, Lehrer has chosen not to identify the agent. Actually, it is entirely possible that the bubbletop would have been removed anyway. Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the Dallas trip, had been told that unless the weather clearly prevented it, the bubbletop was not to be used. The White House staff apparently wanted Dallasites to get a good look at the Kennedys. We will never know for sure what might have happened. "Report of United States Secret Service," Dillon Papers, Box 43, Kennedy Library. The bubbletop was made of quarter-inch Plexiglas and was designed to fit in the trunk of the presidential limousine when not in use. It was not bulletproof. The Secret Service had approached Swedlow, Inc., a plastics manufacturing company, about designing a bulletproof model, but Swedlow's engineers could not come up with a suitable model. In October 1963, the Secret Service enlisted the help of a retired army colonel who "furnished the Service with names of two commercial concerns" in mid-November-far too late to help John F. Kennedy.

57. The reporter, Bill Mercer of KRLD, had outdated information. Henry Wade, Dallas County's district attorney, did not formally charge Oswald with the murder of JFK until 1:30 A.M. on November 23.

58. "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? 10: Jack Ruby and the Murder of Oswald," Frontline, PBS website,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/view/

[accessed March 21, 2011]; Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, 188.

59. Various advertisements for the Carousel Club, Richard "Chick" Ramirez Collection, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas; "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby," page 801. JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration website,

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-16.html

[accessed March 21, 2011]; "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? 10," Frontline, PBS website [accessed March 21, 2011]; Hugh Aynesworth with Stephen G. Michaud, JFK: Breaking the News (Richardson, TX: International Focus Press, 2003), 166.

60. Lyndon B. Johnson, "Remarks upon Arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, November 22, 1963," John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, American Presidency Project [online], Santa Barbara, CA,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25976#axzz1HFMxZC9n

[accessed March 21, 2011].

61. These were almost the precise words of my own father.

62. Interview with James I. Robertson, Jr., May 7, 2013.

63. Ibid.

64. Undated interview with James I. Robertson, Jr., "Storytelling with James I. Robertson, Jr.-John F. Kennedy," Virginia Tech website, University Relations,

http://www.unirel.vt.edu/audio_video/2011/01/2011-01-14-robertson-JFK.html

[accessed March 24, 2011].

65. Perhaps Mrs. Kennedy's decision also spurred the widely seen 196364 circular that connected Lincoln to Kennedy. The parallels included elections a hundred years apart, vice presidents named Johnson, and Southern assassins who were known by three names. See "Linkin' Kennedy,"

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/lincoln-kennedy.asp

[accessed August 8, 2011].

66. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1964 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), 9.

67. Texas law requires autopsies in homicide cases. The district attorney for Dallas County, Henry Wade, very reluctantly allowed the autopsy to be performed in Washington, D.C. The Secret Service agents, angry and in no mood for interference, had insisted. This conflict is discussed in a later chapter.

68. Posner, Case Closed, 299.

69. Wesley Buell Frazier, who drove Oswald to work on Friday, November 22, said, "I will tell you this, he did not carry lunch with him on Friday. And I noticed that. And I said, 'You don't have your lunch with you today?' because when he rode back with me on Monday he always had lunch. 'No,' he says, 'I'm going to buy my lunch today.' " Telephone interview with Wesley Buell Frazier, April 16, 2013.

70. Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, 21318.

71. Gladwin Hill, "Evidence Against Oswald Described as Conclusive," New York Times, November 24, 1963.

72. Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 40910.

73. James Reston, "Cabinet Convenes," New York Times, November 24, 1963; Gillon, Kennedy Assassination, 199204; E. W. Kenworthy, "Johnson Orders Day of Mourning," New York Times, November 24, 1963; "Johnson Proclaims a Day of Mourning," Washington Post and Times Herald, November 24, 1963.

74. Dan B. Fleming, Jr., Ask What You Can Do for Your Country: The Memory and Legacy of John F. Kennedy (Clearwater, FL: Vandamere Press, 2002), 20723; Tom R. Taylor, untitled article in Quinto Lingo, November 1971, Box 239, "JFK Tributes 1972," Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; "Analysis of World Reaction to President Kennedy's Assassination," December 13, 1963, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, RG 263, Box 51, "Personality File of Lee Harvey Oswald," The National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

75. James Reston, "Why America Weeps," New York Times, November 23, 1963; "President's Assassination Brings Statements of Sadness and Shock from Faculty Members," Temple University News, November 25, 1963, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Papers, Box 237, "JFK Commemorative Publications and Tributes, 1963, sent to JPK," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

76. Interview with Bob Schieffer, March 4, 2013.

77. Telephone interview with Senator Mitch McConnell, December 2, 2011.

78. Interview with Lynda Robb, May 22, 2013.

79. John Glenn to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, Western Union telegram, November 23, 1963, Marlene Dietrich to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Kennedy, RCA Communications Telegram, November 23, 1963, and John Edgar Hoover to the Honorable Joseph P. Kennedy, November 22, 1963, Box 236, "Special Letters, Notes, and Telegrams, etc., 1963," Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

80. Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012), 237.

81. Carolyn H. Williamson to Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, November 27, 1963, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Papers, Box 237, "JFK Commemorative Publications and Tributes, 1963, sent to JPK," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

82. Commander Gerald J. Murray to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, November 23, 1963, Mrs. William J. McCluggage to Mrs. Kennedy, November 29, 1963, Theresa A. Twaddle to Ambassador and Mrs. Kennedy, November 23, 1963, Box 236, "Cards & Letters, 1963," Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

83. "Statement by Pope Paul VI, November 23, 1963," Box 1, Folder 1, William Fine Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.

84. "Mass card from the Seraphic Mass Association for the support of the Capuchin Foreign Missions, November 24, 1963," Box 236, Series 10, "Mass Cards from Ireland," Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.