The ballistics tests prove the two shots hitting Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally were fired by Oswald’s rifle. Three witnesses on the fifth floor of the school building heard the bolt of the rifle and the ping of empty cartridges smacking the cement sixth floor. Oswald missed his targets with his first shot.
Oswald left the building around 12:30 and shot Tippit 45 minutes later in another section of Dallas. Tippit stopped Oswald because he fit the description of the presidential assassin. The four bullets that struck Tippit matched Oswald’s pistol. Multiple witnesses identified Oswald as the man who shot Tippit.
Why Oswald did it, however, has produced hundreds of books and claims.
The most recent argument in favor of a potential conspiracy is in Philip Shenon’s new book, “A Cruel and Shocking Act,’’ in which the former New York Times reporter relates how the CIA tracked Oswald’s trip to Mexico City in September of 1963 when he visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies.
The book raises the possibility that elements of the Communist Cuba government encouraged — or at least were aware of — Oswald’s assassination effort. At the time, few Americans knew about Operation Mongoose, a top-secret CIA plan encouraged by Attorney General Robert Kennedy to murder Fidel Castro.
What should not have been a surprise to any American in 1963 is how easy it was to kill a president. Kennedy, like presidents before him, often rode through downtown city streets in an open limousine, an easy target for any sniper in a tall building.
In his new book, “The Kennedy Half-Century,” Larry Sabato, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia, writes, “This was a disaster waiting to happen and just about everyone in authority at the time knew it.’’
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