Mrs. Connally, too, heard a frightening noise from her right. Looking over her right shoulder, she saw that the President had both hands at his neck but she observed no blood and heard nothing. She watched as he slumped down with an empty expression on his face.[C2-151] Roy Kellerman, in the right front seat of the limousine, heard a report like a firecracker pop. Turning to his right in the direction of the noise, Kellerman heard the President say “My God, I am hit,” and saw both of the President’s hands move up toward his neck. As he told the driver, “Let’s get out of here; we are hit,” Kellerman grabbed his microphone and radioed ahead to the lead car, “We are hit. Get us to the hospital immediately.”[C2-152]
The driver, William Greer, heard a noise which he took to be a backfire from one of the motorcycles flanking the Presidential car. When he heard the same noise again, Greer glanced over his shoulder and saw Governor Connally fall. At the sound of the second shot he realized that something was wrong, and he pressed down on the accelerator as Kellerman said, “Get out of here fast.”[C2-153] As he issued his instructions to Greer and to the lead car, Kellerman heard a “flurry of shots” within 5 seconds of the first noise. According to Kellerman, Mrs. Kennedy then cried out: “What are they doing to you?” Looking back from the front seat, Kellerman saw Governor Connally in his wife’s lap and Special Agent Clinton J. Hill lying across the trunk of the car.[C2-154]
Mrs. Connally heard a second shot fired and pulled her husband down into her lap.[C2-155] Observing his blood-covered chest as he was pulled into his wife’s lap, Governor Connally believed himself mortally wounded. He cried out, “Oh, no, no, no. My God, they are going to kill us all.”[C2-156] At first Mrs. Connally thought that her husband had been killed, but then she noticed an almost imperceptible movement and knew that he was still alive. She said, “It’s all right. Be still.”[C2-157] The Governor was lying with his head on his wife’s lap when he heard a shot hit the President.[C2-158] At that point, both Governor and Mrs. Connally observed brain tissue splattered over the interior of the car.[C2-159] According to Governor and Mrs. Connally, it was after this shot that Kellerman issued his emergency instructions and the car accelerated.[C2-160]
Reaction by Secret Service Agents
From the left front running board of the President’s followup car, Special Agent Hill was scanning the few people standing on the south side of Elm Street after the motorcade had turned off Houston Street. He estimated that the motorcade had slowed down to approximately 9 or 10 miles per hour on the turn at the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets and then proceeded at a rate of 12 to 15 miles per hour with the followup car trailing the President’s automobile by approximately 5 feet.[C2-161] Hill heard a noise, which seemed to be a firecracker, coming from his right rear. He immediately looked to his right, “and, in so doing, my eyes had to cross the Presidential limousine and I saw President Kennedy grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left.”[C2-162] Hill jumped from the followup car and ran to the President’s automobile. At about the time he reached the President’s automobile, Hill heard a second shot, approximately 5 seconds after the first, which removed a portion of the President’s head.[C2-163]
At the instant that Hill stepped onto the left rear step of the President’s automobile and grasped the handhold, the car lurched forward, causing him to lose his footing. He ran three or four steps, regained his position and mounted the car. Between the time he originally seized the handhold and the time he mounted the car, Hill recalled that—
Mrs. Kennedy had jumped up from the seat and was, it appeared to me, reaching for something coming off the right rear bumper of the car, the right rear tail, when she noticed that I was trying to climb on the car. She turned toward me and I grabbed her and put her back in the back seat, crawled up on top of the back seat and lay there.[C2-164]
David Powers, who witnessed the scene from the President’s followup car, stated that Mrs. Kennedy would probably have fallen off the rear end of the car and been killed if Hill had not pushed her back into the Presidential automobile.[C2-165] Mrs. Kennedy had no recollection of climbing onto the back of the car.[C2-166]
Special Agent Ready, on the right front running board of the Presidential followup car, heard noises that sounded like firecrackers and ran toward the President’s limousine. But he was immediately called back by Special Agent Emory P. Roberts, in charge of the followup car, who did not believe that he could reach the President’s car at the speed it was then traveling.[C2-167] Special Agent George W. Hickey, Jr., in the rear seat of the Presidential followup car, picked up and cocked an automatic rifle as he heard the last shot. At this point the cars were speeding through the underpass and had left the scene of the shooting, but Hickey kept the automatic weapon ready as the car raced to the hospital.[C2-168] Most of the other Secret Service agents in the motorcade had drawn their sidearms.[C2-169] Roberts noticed that the Vice President’s car was approximately one-half block behind the Presidential followup car at the time of the shooting and signaled for it to move in closer.[C2-170]
Directing the security detail for the Vice President from the right front seat of the Vice-Presidential car, Special Agent Youngblood recalled: