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The President of the United States was shot and killed early this afternoon in Dallas, Texas.
John F. Kennedy '40 was riding in a motorcade with Texas Gov. John Connally when three rifle shots rang out from the large crowd gathered in down-town Dallas.
The President slumped over on the seat of his car, blood pouring from a wound in his right temple. He was rushed to the emergency room of Parkland Hospital, where he died about 2 p.m. (EST). Gov. Connally was also shot and rushed to an emergency operation.
Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the thirty-sixth President of the United States at 2:39 p.m. (EST) on the Presidential plane at Dallas' Love Field. He was preparing to fly to Washington to take office.
The shooting took place as Kennedy's car passed under a bridge on a freeway. The President and Connally were riding in Kennedy's bubble-top limousine. The top was left open.
Late this afternoon, Secret Service men and the Dallas Police took into custody a 25-year-old man. He was arrested in Fort Worth, after driving there from Dallas. A Secret Service man and a Dallas policeman were also killed some distance from the area of the President's assassination.
President Pusey said today: All of us are stunned by the death of President Kennedy. It is impossible to estimate what his passing means to our nation and people everywhere. He was one who made wise and effective use of the world of learning and we morn him as a friend. His only ambition was to serve his country and he gave his life for it.
Two priests administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church to Kennedy in Parkland Hospital's emergency ward. The priests left the room at approximately 2:30 p.m. (EST) and told a waiting crowd that the President was dead.
The announcement brought audible sobs from a score of newsmen around the emergency entrance. Sen. Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas) collapsed in sobs as he told of witnessing the death of the President.
Mrs. Kennedy, who was riding with the President when he was shot, cradied her dying husband's blood-smeared head in her arms as the Presidential limousine raced to the hospital.
The Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange closed the exchange shortly after 2 p.m., as a wave of selling started to engulf the market. The stock market reacted with a violent downturn to the news of the President's death.
The President and Mrs. Kennedy had just passed the halfway point in a three-day speaking tour through Texas. Kennedy was scheduled to address a luncheon meeting in Dallas and was on his way there when the shooting took place.
Kennedy's body was taken from the Parkland Hospital at 3:05 p.m. (EST) and brought to a Dallas airport. It is being flows to Washington, where the President will lie in state at the White House. Burial at the Kennedy family plot in Brookline will be sometime next week.
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