When the first two shots hit the President in the back and throat, had the Secret Service reacted instantly and pushed him down into the car, it is very possible that his injuries would not have been fatal.

The back brace he wore to support his damaged back prevented him from moving easily himself as it was in place to hold him rigidly upright. However, seconds elapsed without any reaction from them and they watched horrified as the third shot shattered the Presidents skull sending blood, brains and pieces of his skull into the air covering both his wife and the interior of the car. As his close friends and assistants Dave Powers and Kenny O'Donnell were later to describe the scene: 'The third shot took the side of his head off. We saw pieces of bone and brain tissue and bits of reddish hair flying through the air. The impact lifted him and shook him limply, as if he were a rag doll.'

Inside the car Governor Connally and his wife were trying to protect themselves from further shots, Governor Connally seriously wounded from his injuries was lying on the floor of the limo. Jackie having pulled her husband down on her lap and witnessing the terrifying sight of his injuries had panicked and begun to crawl onto the back of the limo. Finally the Secret Service reacted and Agent Clint Hill ran, jumping onto the back of the limo pushed Jackie back down into the car as the driver sped up racing towards Parkland Memorial Hospital. For these few interminable minutes Jackie held her dying husband in her arms telling him how much she loved him.

When the car pulled up outside the Emergency entrance Jackie refused to allow the doctors to take her injured husband from her. She had seen the extent of his injuries and she knew that death was inevitable and even then in her darkest hour she protected her husband and children refusing to allow the reporters and cameramen the sight of her husbands injuries. Finally realising what was wrong, Clint Hill gave her his jacket and she swaddled Jack's head in it and finally allowed him to be lifted onto a gurney to be rushed to the Emergency room.

Though the situation seemed hopeless the doctors refused to give in and continued to work on her husbands injured body, Jackie dropped to her knees in a pool of his blood to pray while knowing in her heart that he would not survive. She requested a priest to perform the last rites of the Catholic Church and stood by helplessly waiting. Despite all their efforts the doctors could not save him and at 1pm CST on the 22nd of November 1963 Jack Kennedy died.

Malcolm Kilduff the acting Press Secretary briefed reporters at the hospital on the extent of the injuries and the time of death. The secret service then realising that Lyndon Johnson had just become the 36th President of the United States decided to get him back to Air Force One. After the terror of the day they needed to get back to the plane and make him secure.

The Kennedy people wanted to take their President immediately back to Washington where they would have the Autopsy performed. This did not comply with Texas law and so a battle between the aides and the staff at the hospital began. The secret service surrounded the casket and began making their way swiftly out of Parkland Hospital commandeering an ambulance along the way that would take them to Love Field.

They arrived at Love Field and still looking over their shoulders, the secret service carried their dead Commander in Chief up the steps of Air Force One to where a space had been made near the rear of the plane for the casket. Still concerned that they could be in trouble for removing the body from the State against the will of the local authorities they were anxious to leave Texas.

Once aboard the airplane however, they had to wait while Judge Sarah Hughes made her way aboard to swear Lyndon Johnson in as the next president. For the Kennedy people aboard, this was almost unbearable. It seemed too soon, the people aboard were Kennedy's people, he was their President and to them Johnson was little more than a usurper who could never take the place of Jack. The plane was crowded with people at this point, for all the Johnson people accustomed to travelling with the Vice President on Air Force Two were now aboard the plane awaiting their moment in history.

The new President requested that Jackie attend the swearing in ceremony in the stateroom. To the many Kennedy people this request seemed cold and callous; they felt that Jackie had been through enough in the last hours. However, she wanted the world to see what they had done and she agreed for the sake of posterity to be there. Refusing all offers to help her change her clothes, she insisted on wearing her pink suit and the white gloves she had worn all day caked as they still were in her husband's blood and brain tissue.

Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force base shortly before 5.30 p.m. Awaiting its arrival was a devastated Bobby Kennedy who had received the terrible news at his home in Virginia that afternoon from FBI Chief J.Edgar Hoover. Lost in his own thoughts he hung around, oblivious to everyone awaiting the plane that was carrying his brother's body home.
When the doors opened on Air Force One he ran up the steps, past Johnson and his people and straight to the rear of the plane to comfort Jackie. They stood close together beside the casket as it was lowered from the plane and walked beside it as it was placed in an ambulance to make the forty-five minute drive to Bethesda Naval Hospital where the autopsy would be carried out. Sitting in the ambulance beside the coffin, Jackie in painstaking detail recounted every moment of the day to an already traumatised Bobby.

As Kennedy friends and family came together that night in the hospital awaiting the release of Jack's body, Jackie began to plan for the impending funeral. She wanted to base it on that of another slain President, Abraham Lincoln and she began the task of co-ordinating with the people in the White House to make some of the arrangements. She intended walking behind the coffin, down Pennsylvania Avenue with Jacks brothers. She wanted the funeral to be a display of dignity and to embrace many of the things that Jack had loved and so she invited the Irish Cadets and the Black Watch Regiment to perform at the ceremony.

The world watched in tearful sorrow on Monday 25th of November as Jacqueline Kennedy and her two small children, Caroline and John, dressed in identical blue coats stood on the steps of St. Mathews. Few if any will forget the sight of John, on the morning of his third birthday salute the casket of his slain father as it passed by.

Jackie, flanked by Bobby and Ted walked behind the casket, followed by family, friends and foreign dignitaries that included many heads of State, prime ministers and much of world royalty in a show of support and solidarity with the fallen leaders widow and country.

Jack Kennedy was laid to rest in a beautiful spot overlooking the city of Washington, just below the Lee Mansion in Arlington Cemetery. When you stand at his graveside and turn around the scene below immediately captivates you. In the distance you can see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the White House and just beyond that the Capitol, all of the places that meant so much to Jack Kennedy. It is a fitting tribute to a man whose short life and death changed the world.