NOV. 22, 1963: ‘3 SHOTS RING OUT IN THE TEXAS SUN’

On Nov. 22, 1963, an assassin killed President John F. Kennedy as the president was riding in an open car during a motorcade through downtown Dallas.

In San Diego, the Evening Tribune carried the shocking news on its front page the same day. Two reporters from The San Diego Union — Peter Kaye and Lew Scarr — immediately flew to Dallas to cover the assassination. They were assisted by John Martin, now a retired ABC News correspondent, but who was then in Dallas on military leave from The Union.

From The San Diego Union, Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963:

PRESIDENT IS ASSASSINATED; JOHNSON SWORN INTO OFFICE

SNIPER SHOTS IN DALLAS KILL KENNEDY

TEXAS GOVERNOR WOUNDED; PRO-CUBA SUSPECT ARRESTED

By Peter Kay, San Diego Union Staff Writer

DALLAS — President John F. Kennedy yesterday was shot to death by a hidden assassin.

He was struck in the head and neck by two shots fired at 12:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. San Diego time) from the sixth floor of a building alongside his motorcade route out of downtown Dallas.

Mr. Kennedy, 46, the 35th and youngest

President of the United States, died 30 minutes later at a Dallas hospital.

A third bullet struck and wounded Texas Gov. John B. Connally, 45, who was reported in satisfactory condition after surgery. Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally, who also were in the car, were unhurt.

SUSPECT SEIZED

Police seized a pro-castro ex-marine and charged him with the assassination.

He is Lee Oswald, 24, a 1959 defector to the Soviet Union and chairman of Fair Play for Cuba Committee here.

Oswald also was charged with slaying Dallas policeman J.D. Tippitt, 38, who had sought to question him four miles from the scene of the assassination.

He was an employee of the Texas School Book Depository Building, which overlooks the freeway on-ramp where the motorcade passed and from which came the fatal shots.

Police found a Mauser rifle and three empty shells on the fifth floor landing of the building.

JOHNSON SWORN IN

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as new President of the United States at 3:39 p.m. (CST).

The ceremony was performed inside the presidential suite of Air Force One, the presidential jet, at Love Field, in Dallas. The official who performed the service had tears in her eyes.

Immediately after the plane with Mr. Kennedy’s body, Mrs. Kennedy and the new President, took off from Dallas and headed for Washington.

The President was here with his wife, Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, Gov. and Mrs. Connally and Sen. Ralph Yarborough, on a scheduled stop as part of a two-day political tour he was making in Texas.

He was scheduled to address the Dallas Citizens Council and was on his way to Dallas’s Trade Mart —where hundreds of influential local citizens were eating Kansas strip steaks and baked potatoes while they awaited his arrival.

The motorcade started from Love Field shortly before noon, and wound through the city’s suburbs and downtown section for about eight miles, before the shooting occurred.

Mr. Kennedy was greeted by enthusiastic crowds.