President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Gunned Down

On November 22, 1963 Dallas, Texas at precisely 12:30 PM, our 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was gunned down in Dealey Plaza. The gunmen was said to have been Lee Harvey Oswald. At 12:30 PM, Lee Harvey Oswald was to have been awaiting in the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza a waiting President Kennedy to pass by in his motorcade.

Shots rang out. Within a half an hour of the shooting President Kennedy was pronounced dead. An eyewitness give an account of what he saw. Witness statement of Hugh William Betzner, Jr., WCH vol 19, p. 467, taken 11-22-63:

I was standing on Houston Street near the intersection of Elm  Street. I took a picture  of President  Kennedy's car as it passed along Houston Street. I have an old camera. I looked down real quick and rolled the film to take the next picture. I then ran down to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets, this being the southwest corner.

I took another picture just as President Kennedy's car rounded the corner. He was just about all the way around the corner. I was standing back from the corner and had to take the pictures through some of the crowd. I ran on down Elm a little  more and President Kennedy's car was starting to go down the hill to the triple underpass. 

I was running trying to keep the President's car in my view and was winding my film as I ran. I took another picture as the President's car was going down the hill on Elm Street. I started to wind  my film again and I heard a loud noise. I thought that this noise was either a firecracker or a car had backfired. I looked up and it seemed like there was another loud noise in the matter of a few seconds.

I looked down the street and I could see the President's car and another one and they looked like the cars were stopped. Then I saw a a [sic] flash of pink like someone standing up and then sitting back down in the car. Then I ran around so I could look over the back of a  monument and I either saw the following then or when I was standing back down on the corner of Elm  Street.

I cannot remember exactly where I was when I saw the following: I heard at east two shots fired and I saw what looked like a firecracker going off in the president's car. My assumption for this was because I saw fragments going up in the air.  I also saw a man in either the President's car or the car behind his and someone down in one of those cars pulled out what looked like a rifle.

I also remember seeing what looked like a nickel revolver in someone's hand in the President's car or somewhere immediately around his car. Then the President's car sped on under the underpass. Police and a lot of spectators started running up the hill on the opposite side of the street from me to a fence of wood. I assumed that that was  where the shot was fired from at that time. I kept watching the crowd. Then I came around the monument over to Main Street. I walked down toward where the President's car had stopped. I saw a Police Officer and some men in plain clothes.

I don't know who they were. These Police Officers and the men in plain clothes were digging around in the dirt as if they were looking for a bullet. I  walked back around the monument ver to Elm Street where they were digging o in the dirt. I went on across the street and up the embankment to where the fence is located. By this time almost all of the people had left. There were quite a few people down on the street crowded around a motorcycle.

I was looking around the fence as the rumor had spread that that was where the shot had come from. I started figuring where I was when I had taken the third picture and it seemed to me that the fence row would have been in the picture. I saw a group of men who looked like they might be officers and one of them turned out to be Deputy Sheriff Boone.

I told him about the picture I had taken. Deputy Sheriff Boone contacted superiors and was told to bring me over to the Sheriff's Office. Deputy Sheriff Boone took my camera and asked me to wait. I waited in the Sheriff's Office and some time later, an hour or two, he brought my camera back and told me that as soon as they got through with the film and they were dry that they would give me the film.

A little later he came in and gave me the negatives and told me that they were interested in a couple of pictures and implied that the negatives was all I was going to get back. To the best of my knowledge, this is all I know about this incident. At 1:00 PM, President John F. Kennedy was officially pronounced dead. The Presidents body was then taken from Parkland Hospital back to Air Force One. At 2:38 PM On Air Fore One, Vice President Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of the President of the United States. It is administered by U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes. Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson are at his side.

• Listen To A News Report Of President Kennedy's Death.
• Listen To One Of President, John Kennedy Speeches