Read Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy for Free Online Page A

with both big-time gamblers
and police officials.)
    The only agent to react with speed was Clint Hill. Hill had not been
scheduled to make the Dallas trip, but came only after Mrs. Kennedy made
a personal request. Hill also thought the initial sound was a firecracker and
began looking to his right for the source of the sound when he saw
Kennedy grab at himself and lurch forward slightly. He then realized
something was wrong and jumped off the follow-up car. He was racing the
few feet to the limousine when he heard more shots. Hill had just secured
a grip on a handhold when the car began accelerating. Looking into the
back seat of the limousine, Hill saw that the right rear portion of the
President's head was missing.
    Nearly everyone present recalled a pause of several seconds between the
first burst of fire and the final two shots, these coming rapidly one after
another. It was the third and final shot, or volley of shots, that killed
President John F. Kennedy. Until then, he had been immobile and quiet,
only sagging slightly to his left. Then his head pitched forward violently
for a split second only to be pushed hard to the left and rear. A halo of
crimson liquid and tissue surrounded his head momentarily and then fell to
the rear. The head shot lifted him slightly then threw him against the car's
back seat. He bounced forward and over into his wife's lap.
    The two Dallas motorcycle officers riding to the left rear of the limousine, Bobby W. Hargis and B. J. Martin, were splattered by blood and
brain matter. Martin, who had looked to his right after the first shots, later
found bloodstains on the left side of his helmet. Hargis, who was riding
nearest the limousine about six to eight feet from the left rear fender, saw
Kennedy's head explode and was hit by bits of flesh and bone with such
impact that he told reporters he thought he had been shot.
    Presidential assistant David Powers was riding with Secret Service
agents in the car directly behind the President. From this vantage point, he
described the entire assassination:
    I commented to Ken O'Donnell that it was 12:30 and we would
only be about five minutes late when we arrived at the Trade Mart.
Shortly thereafter the first shot went off and it sounded to me as if it
were a firecracker. I noticed then that the President moved quite far to
his left after the shot from the extreme right hand side where he had
been sitting. There was a second shot and Governor Connally disappeared from sight and then there was a third shot which took off the top
of the President's head and had the sickening sound of a grapefruit
splattering against the side of a wall. The total time between the first and third shots was about five or six seconds. My first impression was
that the shots came from the right and overhead but I also had a fleeting
impression that the noise appeared to come from the front in the area of
the Triple Underpass. This may have resulted from my feeling, when I
looked forward toward the overpass, that we might have ridden into an
ambush.

    Several persons in the motorcade smelled gunpowder as the cars swept
through the lower end of Dealey Plaza-.
    Mrs. Earle Cabell, wife of the Dallas mayor, was riding in an open
convertible six cars back from the motorcade's lead car. At the opening
shots, the car in which she was riding was passing the Depository building. She told the Warren Commission she jerked her head up on hearing
the first shot because "I heard the direction from which the shot came
... Looking up, she saw an object projecting from one of the top
windows of the Depository building. She said:
    I jerked my head up and I saw something in that window and I
turned around to say to Earle, "Earle, it is a shot," and before I got the
words out ... the second two shots rang out.. .. I was acutely aware
of the odor of gunpowder. I was aware that the motorcade stopped dead
still. There was no question about that.
    Mrs.