Why The Torch Is Passed

The Torch is Passed: The Associated Press Story of The death of a President. Saul Pett, Sid Moody, Hugh Mulligan, and Tom Henshaw. U.S.A: Edward T. Fleming, 1964. 99 pp. On Friday, November 22, 1963, a tragedy hit the United States of America. On Elm Street in Dallas, Texas one of the greatest presidents that ever lived was shot down in his motorcade. While in office he accomplished what most presidents didn’t which included being the first Catholic president, he called for Americans to serve our country, which is still used today, he accomplished the Peace Corps, which is an organization to help the needy, and so much more that we use in today’s society. He was the kind of president that was a war hero and was the “young skipper of a PT
109 who had swum all night pulling an injured shipmate to safety,” he had a smile that could light up anyone’s day and a wife that was so fashionable and made every entrance and outstanding one. Who would shot our president? Why would someone murder his own president? Who was this president? In The Torch is Passed: The Associated Press Story of The death of a President by Saul Pett, Sidd Moody, Huge Mulligan, and Tom Henshaw, we will find out exactly what the press found and how they interpreted the president’s death, and it might just shock us all.
On November 22, 1963 President John F.
Kennedy was shot down. Throughout the entire book it describes the process of how he travels through Dallas, Texas all the way to Houston Street, downtown Dallas, where he was shot in the brain and Governor John Connally was shot in his back and then the bullet went through him and got his wrist as well. As soon as shots were fired protection went into immediate defensive mood. After Arriving at Parkland Hospital doctors rushed to try and save the president, even knowing there was no hope, at 1 P.M. John Kennedy was pronounced dead. Directly after the announced death funeral preparations began, his wife wanted him to have a “hero” type funeral, one he really deserved and would be proud of. The news of the president traveled fast. It traveled so fast that stores closed, not one person wanted return to work after being summoned away. Once hearing about the shooting Gay Paris said in tears “It’s not so hard to believe, it’s just so hard to take.” After the story got on the radios and traveled out of the United States, French President Charles de Gaulle ordered his country to put their flags at half-staff. He said “President Kennedy died like a solider, under fire, for his duty and in the service of his country. In the name of the French people… I salute this great example and this great
memory.
After the shooting a message went out to pick up 24 year old, white male, Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who they believed assassinated the president. He gave quite a fight with the police including killing Officer J.D. Tippitt. An hour after the president was dead, at 2 P.M., Oswald was caught. An hour after the arrest police gathered enough evidence to convict Oswald of the death of the President and Officer Tippitt, including a map marked with X’s of the trail the President would take in the motorcade with the Texas Governor and their wife’s, the map had “a line that approximated the path of the bullets that killed the president and wounded the governor.” There was even fiber that matched the clothing that Oswald had on that ended up in the room the shot came from and on the rifle, which the president was shot with, and his prints were found all over the rifle. Two days later after the death of the President, Jack Ruby, A night club owner, shot Oswald in front of new casts, who were broadcasting live.
On the same day JFK was assassinated at 2:38 P.M., 98 minutes our leader had been dead, the United States of America had a new President. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was now the 36th President. He was very helpful in helping Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children get back on their feet after losing a wonderful husband and dad. He was sworn in under oath in the presidential airplane, Air Force One, in Dallas at Love Field Airport. In that airplane laid the 35th President John F. Kennedy in his casket.
I never really understood the assassination and how it took place, but reading this book has helped a lot! The authors did a good job in achieving the goal to let readers like myself, college students, understand in depth the death of the president that changed how the world is today. The book did leave out an important question that I want the answer too. Why did he kill the president? I understand no one really knows the answer to that because his mental state was not “normal,” but I would have liked to have read about some of the ideas or suggestions to why he may have killed Kennedy. I think compared to some of the other books I looked at on the subject of the assassination this is by far the best. This book tells you how much the president meant to everyone all the way to a farmer in the south to the President of the French. I enjoyed reading the book and getting facts from the press; this is a good book for anyone to read that enjoys to read about presidents or to read about history at all.
Very few presidents have died under oath, I know of two, but one of the greatest presidents that have ever served our country was one of those few. He accomplished so much and was loved and appreciated by so many. The world looked to him as a hero, as a strong political leader, and this book very well showed that. He was the man with the tan, the man with the money, and the man with the smile. He is to this day the most, well-presented president we have ever had, along with his fashionable first lady.