Read Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy for Free Online

Kennedy had jumped up from the seat and was, it appeared to me,
reaching for something coming off the right rear bumper of the car, the
right rear tail, when she noticed that I was trying to climb on the car.
    In the lead car, which was just about to enter the Triple Underpass when
the firing began, Agent Lawson was trying to signal a policeman standing
with a group of people on top of the underpass. He didn't like the idea of
the President's car passing directly below these people, so he was trying to
get the officer to move them to one side. The policeman never noticed
him.
    Just then, Lawson heard a loud report to his rear. It sounded more like a
bang instead of a crack and Lawson didn't think it was a rifle shot. His first impression was that it was a firecracker. This description was to be
repeated by nearly everyone in Dealey Plaza, with some notable exceptions.

    Forrest V. Sorrels, head of the Dallas office of the Secret Service, like
Connally was certain the first sound was a gunshot. After a brief pause,
Sorrels heard two more shots coming close together. He shouted to Curry:
"Let's-get-out of here!"
    On hearing the first burst of firing, Sheriff Decker glanced back and
thought he saw a bullet bouncing off the street pavement.
    Another Dallas motorcycle officer, Starvis Ellis, in 1978 told the House
Select Committee on Assassinations that as he rode alongside the car in
which Decker was riding he, too, saw a bullet hit the pavement. Neither
Decker nor Ellis were ever questioned about this by the Warren Commission.
    Motorcycle officer James Chaney told newsmen the next day that the
first shot missed.
    Curry saw a "commotion" in the presidential limousine. Then a motorcycle officer drew up alongside. "Anybody hurt?" asked Curry. "Yes,"
replied the officer. Stepping on the accelerator, Curry shouted: "Lead us
to the hospital." Both Decker and Curry took the car's radio and ordered
their men to rush to the top of the underpass and the railroad yards where
they thought the shots had come from.
    Like the crowd of witnesses in the Dealey Plaza, those persons deep into
the plaza believed shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll, while those
farther back in the motorcade-still on Houston and Main streets-believed
shots came from the direction of the Depository.
    Motorcycle policeman Marrion L. Baker was riding near one of the
press cars. He had just turned on to Houston and his cycle was about to tip
over because of a gust of wind and the slow speed. He had just returned
from a deer-hunting trip and recognized the first sound as a high-powered
rifle shot. He thought the sound came from either the Depository or the
Dal-Tex building. Seeing pigeons fluttering off the Depository's roof, he
gunned his motor and roared up to the entrance of the building. Within
seconds, he and Depository superintendent Roy Truly would encounter Lee
Harvey Oswald calmly standing in the second-floor lunchroom of the
Depository.
    Secret Service agent Paul Landis was riding in the right rear of the
Secret Service follow-up car when he heard the report of a high-powered
rifle. He saw Kennedy turn to look in the direction of the shot, which
Landis believed came from "... somewhere towards the front, right-hand
side of the road."
    With Landis was Secret Service agent Glen Bennett, who thought the
sound was a firecracker. But then he looked at the President. In notes he
said were made later that day, Bennett wrote: "[I] saw a shot that hit the
Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder; a second shoot [sic]
followed immediately and hit the right rear high [side?] of the Boss's
head."

    The Secret Service agents assigned to Kennedy all acted with remarkable sluggishness when the firing began. Perhaps it was due to the visit
they had paid to a "beatnik" nightspot in Fort Worth, where they stayed
until early that morning. (The club, The Cellar, was owned by an acquaintance of Jack Ruby who had connections