A number of memorable images came from those tragic few days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963: Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as the successor president on Air Force One, 3-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket in Washington, D.C.
Yet one image, taken directly after Kennedy was shot, captured the attention of news outlets all over the United States. It showed a Secret Service agent jumping onto the back of the presidential limousine to shield the president and first lady.
Wednesday, Nov. 22, marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination. And that Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, today 91, is coming to terms with being the man who tried to save the president.
Just minutes after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot as his motorcade rolled through downtown Dallas, Associated Press reporter Peggy Simpson rushed to the scene and immediately attached herself to the police officers who had converged on the building from which a sniper's bullets had been fired.
“I was sort of under their armpit,” Simpson said, noting that every time she was able to get any information from them, she would rush to a pay phone to call her editors, and then “go back to the cops.”
Simpson, now 84, is among the last surviving witnesses who are sharing their stories as the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination on Wednesday.
In life and in death, President Kennedy changed the way we saw ourselves – a country full of youthful hopes and ambition, steeled with the seasoned strength of a people who’ve overcome profound loss by turning pain into unyielding purpose. He called us to take history into our own hands, and to never quit striving to build an America that lives up to its highest ideals.
On this day, we remember that he saw a nation of light, not darkness; of honor, not grievance; a place where we are unwilling to postpone the work that he began and that we all must now carry forward. We remember the unfulfilled promise of his presidency – not only as a tragedy, but as an enduring call to action to each do all we can for our country.
A profoundly sad anniversary, especially for those of us who can remember exactly where we were when JFK was shot, but if Wecht is right and there are many who disagree, we may never know what really happened on Nov. 22, 1963.
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