Car slows down,
turns right to Houston and Elm;
certainly something must have felt off,
lots of irregularities.
Yet he remains strong and smiles and waves anyway.
Rather than show fear and begin to panic.
Excellent question.
And extremely valid.
I'd like to think he was oblivious.
Or he knew. That there was no way out.
He was doomed.
It was his destiny.
And years later, what's changed?
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Apparently there was a noticeable lack of numbers,
with his security that day.
I don't think he knew what was going to happen. First of all, that would require an almost super-human sense of perceptiveness. Second, we're looking at this through the benefit of hindsight. This was the first contemporary American political assassination. Before Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X. It was the end of innocence. No modern American president would have feared such a catastrophic turn of events at the time in 1963. Who was the last assassinated president, William McKinley? James Garfield? I'm not sure of the answer, but I think both were shot in the 1800's! Added to that, Kennedy, was riding high in '63. He had such confidence, perhaps hubrus. I think his waving and smiling at his (and Jackie's) many admirers in Dallas that day was genuine; he was completely oblivious to the level of the hatred (or indifference to the sanctity of human life) that was about to do him in.
shareWhy would anything "have felt off"? Celebrities and politicians routinely rode in parades in open cars, and Kennedy had done so before. Cars in parades often slow and then start up again. There is nothing unusual about a parade route turning from one street onto another. There were no "irregularities", or any reason for him to "show fear and begin to panic".
shareNo, he had no clue.
shareI once did some "microfiche" research (in a LIBRARY! before the internet!) on various 60s topics back in the day -- Time, Newsweek, The New York Time...mainly about movies from that decade.
But I reached November of 1963 a week or two BEFORE the assasination an I recall reading something like this:
"President Kennedy sent his Secret Service detail into a panic this week when he urged his limo driver to speed off ahead of the team."
Sounds like he just didn't much care about his security.