remove the weapons from Cuba and offered the United States on-site
inspection. In return Kennedy secretly promised not to invade Cuba and
to remove older missiles from Turkey. Kennedy called off the blockade
but Cuba, angry at Soviet submission, refused to permit the promised
inspection. However, U.S. spy planes revealed that the missile bases
were being dismantled. Nuclear war had been avoided. This was perhaps
Kennedy’s greatest moment as president. Many felt that both World War
I and World War II had begun because of weak responses to acts of
aggression, and Kennedy may have prevented World War III by displaying
courage and strength.
On November 22, 1963, President and Mrs. Kennedy were in Dallas,
Texas, trying to win support in a state that Kennedy had barely
carried in 1960. As the motorcade approached an underpass, two shots
were fired in rapid succession. One bullet passed through the
president’s neck and struck Governor Connally in the back. The other
bullet struck the president in the head. Kennedy fell forward, and his
car sped to Parkland Hospital. At 1:00 PM, he was pronounced dead. He
had never regained consciousness. Less than two hours after the
shooting, aboard the presidential plane at the Dallas airport, Lyndon
B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States.
That afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was employed in the warehouse,
was arrested in a Dallas movie theater and charged with the murder.
On November 24 the body of President Kennedy was carried on a
horse-drawn carriage from the White House to the Rotunda of the
Capitol. Hundreds of thousands of people filed past the coffin of the
slain president. The grave was marked by an eternal flame lighted by
his wife and brothers.