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noted that the motorcade would move slowly so that crowds could “get a good view of President Kennedy and his wife.” At the first turn out of the airport, a small group of office workers caught sight of the President. “Just as your car turned from the Love Field entrance onto Mockingbird Lane,” one man remembered in a subsequent note to the former First Lady, “Mr. Kennedy was trying to wave to everyone. One girl in our group yelled out ‘Welcome to Dallas, Mr. President,’ and the President heard her and waved at her. I remarked on the way back to work over and over again that he, Mr. Kennedy, looked beautiful. I know a man isn’t usually referred to in this way but this word best described him that day.” To this observer, Mrs. Kennedy seemed distant. “You looked as lovelyas I had imagined you would,” he noted, “but just as you passed by us you seemed to be deep in thought and I felt sorry for you as you seemed to be a little weary. I imagined you were tired from the trip.”

    The motorcade in Dallas, November 22, 1963
Photograph of motorcade, November 22, 1963, courtesy of the Boston Herald, John F. Kennedy Library.
    The motorcade route from Love Field to the Trade Mart, the site of a lunch where the President would give a formal address, covered about ten miles. Once beyond the immediate environs of Love Field, the crowd thinned out for a few miles. Still, when Jacqueline Kennedy put on her sunglasses, the President asked her to take them off, noting that the public would want to see her face. At the President’s request, the limousine stopped twice—once in response to a gaggle of schoolchildren holding a sign that said MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE STOP AND SHAKE OUR HANDS , then to greet some Catholic nuns.
    As the motorcade approached downtown Dallas, the crowds swelled, excitement built, and cheers rang out in places where spectators stood as many as twelve deep on the sidewalks. Flags fluttered, office workers leaned out of windows in tall buildings, and some intrepid people stood on the awnings and roofs to get a better look. Dallas policemen struggled in places to hold back the surging crowd. As he waved, the President murmured,“Thank you, thank you” again and again. Traveling at a speed estimated between seven and eleven miles per hour, the President’s car allowed some spectators memorable impressions of the Kennedys. One Catholic nun reported to her parents, “We were so close to them that if I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched the car.” “He looked so darling and he had a real wide smile and his eyes were real bright,” she remembered. Mrs. Kennedy offered a “big smile and her graceful wave” and then the President himself “caught sight of us and turned toward us and waved and said ‘Oh the Sisters.’ Then it was over all too soon.” Down the twelve blocks of Main Street the latter sentiment arose again and again. The Kennedys were there for a moment—smiling, vibrant, alive—and “then they were gone.”
    The rapidity with which events next unfolded remains one of the more stunning facets of the Kennedy assassination. The motorcade came under fire at 12:30 p.m., just after it had zigzagged from Main Street to Houston and then around the corner to Elm where the Texas Book Depository stood. The crowds thinned past the Depository. Jacqueline Kennedy waved and looked to her left, avoiding having to gaze directly into the sun. As the heat of the day beat down, she anticipated the relief that would come when they reached the cool underpass ahead. Many bystanders heard the crack of the rifle as the first shot rang out. Another followed in rapid succession. Mrs. Kennedy at first imagined the sound was a motorcycle backfiring until Governor Connally, sitting in the jumpseat ahead, cried out. She saw Connally grimacing and hitting his fist against his chest, and then turned toward her husband. He had a “quizzical” expression on his face, she recalled, as he raised