Killing Kennedy

has a lightning-quick temper. But most of all Jack Ruby considers himself a Democrat and a patriot.
    The first reports state that a Secret Service man has been killed, but as Ruby and the advertising staff of the Morning News gather around a small black-and-white television for more information, the harsh truth is announced.
    A despondent Jack Ruby wanders off and sits alone at a desk. After a time, he gets up and announces that he is canceling the club advertisement. Instead, he places another ad. This one tells the good people of Dallas that the Carousel Club will be closed all weekend, out of respect for President Kennedy.
    Jack Ruby will not be doing business over the next few days. He will be doing something else.
    *   *   *
    Lee Harvey Oswald is on the move. After his bus stalls in heavy post-assassination traffic, he gets off and walks a bit before finding a cab, which takes him closer to his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley. Upon arriving there, he races to his room, grabs his .38-caliber pistol, and sticks it in his waistband. Then he quickly leaves.
    Little does Oswald know, but eyewitnesses at the scene have given the police his description. Now the cops are on the lookout for a “white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds.”
    At 1:15 P.M., Officer J. D. Tippit of the Dallas Police Department is driving east on Tenth Street. Just after the intersection of Tenth and Patton, he sees a man matching the suspect’s description walking alone, wearing a light-colored jacket.
    Tippit is a married father of three children. He is thirty-nine years old, earned a Bronze Star as a paratrooper in World War II, has a tenth-grade education, and earns just a little over $5,000 a year. The “J.D.” initials do not stand for anything.
    Tippit has been with the Dallas Police Department eleven years as he pulls his car alongside Lee Harvey Oswald. He knows to be cautious. But he also knows to be thorough in his questioning.
    Oswald leans down and speaks to Tippit through the right front window vent. He is hostile.
    Tippit opens the door and steps out of his police cruiser. He walks around to the front of the car, intending to ask Oswald a few more questions. Based on the answers, Tippit will then make a decision whether to place Oswald in handcuffs. But the policeman doesn’t get farther than the left front wheel. Lee Harvey Oswald pulls out his .38 and fires four bullets in rapid succession. Tippit is killed instantly.
    Oswald, the man who nervously missed General Walker so many long months ago, has now killed the president of the United States and a Dallas police officer in cold blood just forty-five minutes apart.

    But Oswald is running out of options. He is out of money, almost out of ammunition, and the Dallas police know what he looks like. He will have to be very clever in these next few minutes if he is to continue his escape.
    The killer quickly reloads and continues his journey, turning down Patton Avenue. But this time he doesn’t walk; he jogs. There is no doubt about it: Oswald is being hunted. The police are closing in. He needs to move quickly now. The time is 1:16 P.M.
    *   *   *
    At 1:26 P.M. the Secret Service whisks Lyndon Johnson to Air Force One, where he immediately climbs the steps up to the back door of the plane. There he moves into President Kennedy’s personal bedroom, takes off his coat, and sprawls on the bed while he awaits Jackie Kennedy’s return to the plane. She has remained behind at Parkland, refusing to leave until the body of her husband comes with her.
    And so LBJ waits. Even as he relishes his first moments of power, outside the bedroom, mechanics are removing several of the first-class seats in the rear of Air Force One to make room for John Kennedy’s coffin.
    LBJ has chosen the bedroom because he wants privacy. He picks up John Kennedy’s personal presidential telephone next to the bed and places a call to a man he loathes.
    On the other end of the line, Bobby Kennedy picks up the phone and says a professional hello to his new boss.
    *   *   *
    Lee Harvey Oswald hears the sirens and knows they’re coming for him.
    He races toward the quickest hiding place he can find, a movie house called the Texas Theatre. Oswald has traveled eight blocks in the twenty-five minutes since killing Officer Tippit. He shed his jacket shortly after shooting Tippit, hoping to confuse his pursuers. He runs past the Bethel Temple,