DECLINE IN FAITH IN GOVERNMENT CAN BE TRACED TO JFK ASSASSINATION
Dallas, Texas (JFK+50) On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot at 12:30 a.m. CST as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas. The President suffered wounds to the throat, back and head.
JFK was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:00 a.m. Malcolm Kilduff* broke the news to the press in a hospital classroom. He said...
"The President died of a gunshot wound to the head."
Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was also riding in the motorcade but was unharmed, was taken to Love Field where he boarded Air Force One and was sworn in as POTUS at 2:38 p.m.
Governor of Texas John B. Connally, riding in the same car as JFK, was also wounded in the shooting. Although his wounds were severe, the Governor recovered. Jacqueline Kennedy and Nellie Connally, both sitting beside their husbands, escaped injury.
To say that the assassination of JFK has been the subject of great controversy over the past 57 years is clearly an understatement, but as stated on the Mary Ferrell website...
"Perhaps...what is more important than 'who killed JFK' is the effect the murder had on our society. While the major institutions...quickly lined up behind the Warren Commission**...the public smelled a rat. The decline of faith in government can be traced to the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War which followed it."
*Malcolm Kilduff was assistant press secretary filling in on the Texas trip for Pierre Salinger who was on a flight to Japan with some of JFK's cabinet officers. He remained as APS until 1965 when he started a public relations firm. MK was riding in a press car in the Dallas motorcade at the time of the shooting.
**Warren Commission (1963-1964) concluded Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed JFK & that there was no evidence of conspiracy foreign or domestic. Other investigations which followed included the Jim Garrison investigation, Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Assassinations Records Review Board.
SOURCES
"Malcolm Kilduff," by Adam Bernstein, March 5, 2003, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/
"The JFK Assassination, Faith and Transparency," Mary Ferrell Foundation, www.maryferrell.org/
