The Texas trip

The trip had been under discussion for almost a year. On 5 June 1963 Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Governor John Connally met in El Paso and agreed on late November. The aims were fundraising and smoothing a bitter feud between Connally’s conservative Democrats and Senator Ralph Yarborough’s liberals. [1]

The Dallas lunch was set for the Trade Mart. To get there the motorcade had to reach the Stemmons Freeway, and the agreed route turned off Main Street onto Houston and then onto Elm, passing the Texas School Book Depository at about 11 miles an hour. Secret Service agents and Dallas police drove the route on 18 November, and the local papers printed it on 19 November. [1]

The limousine was a 1961 Lincoln convertible with a clear plastic bubble top. The top was neither bulletproof nor bullet resistant. Kennedy aide Kenneth O’Donnell’s instruction was that if the weather was clear the top should be off; it had rained in the morning, then cleared. [1]

So Oswald, who had started work at the Depository in October, could have read where the president would pass several days in advance. [1]

The Warren Commission reported that after the president went to bed in Fort Worth, nine off-duty agents went to the Fort Worth Press Club at about midnight; there was little food, and some drank. The last left the Press Club by 2 a.m. Seven then went to the Cellar Coffee House, which served no hard liquor; most stayed until about 3 a.m. and one until 5 a.m. They were due on duty that morning. [1]

Drinking while on travel status broke Secret Service rules. The Commission called it “a breach of discipline.” The chief, James Rowley, testified that he would normally have disciplined the agents who drank, but that doing so might have suggested their conduct contributed to the assassination. He said he was satisfied it had not impeded them in Dallas. [1]

The House committee later found the Secret Service “deficient” in its protection of the president generally, from threat analysis to the motorcade. [2] The other questions about agents, including driver William Greer and the “stand-down” video, are in the Secret Service file.