John Connally on JFK Assassination (1991 C-SPAN interview) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00what's your feelings your experience
2. 0:01that day in
3. 0:04Dallas well of course it was a horrible
4. 0:06experience uh we'd had a a wonderful
5. 0:10morning we'd had a breakfast in Fort
6. 0:12Worth we'd landed in in Dallas Sun broke
7. 0:16out about
8. 0:17noon we were in a
9. 0:20parade motorcade down through the main
10. 0:23part of town the crowds were extremely
11. 0:28enthusiastic warm
12. 0:30excited
13. 0:32exuberant and uh and just after we
14. 0:35turned off of Main Street Nelly uh
15. 0:37turned around and said to the president
16. 0:40Mr President you can't say Dallas
17. 0:42doesn't love you now and uh he said no
18. 0:45you
19. 0:46can't we turned on Elm Street to go
20. 0:50under the
21. 0:52overpass and I heard this uh
22. 0:56sound that I thought was a rifle
23. 0:58shot I turned to look over my right
24. 1:01shoulder because that's where the sound
25. 1:03came from to see if I could see anything
26. 1:06I didn't and I was in the process of
27. 1:08turning to look over my left shoulder
28. 1:10when I felt an impact as if someone hit
29. 1:13me with a a closed fist right in the
30. 1:15middle of my
31. 1:16back the force was strong enough to
32. 1:19where it knocked me
33. 1:21over and I I saw that I was covered with
34. 1:25blood so frankly I thought I had been
35. 1:28fatally hit
36. 1:30my wife pulled me down in her lap she
37. 1:32was seated in the jump seat on my left
38. 1:34and I was Seated on the jump seat
39. 1:36directly in front of the president she
40. 1:38pulled me down into her lap and about
41. 1:41that time I heard another shot about
42. 1:44that loud a
43. 1:45smack and my eyes were open I was
44. 1:48conscious and I saw the the blue velour
45. 1:52interior of this presidential limousine
46. 1:54covered with blood and brain
47. 1:57tissue and I knew that the president had
48. 2:00been fatally
49. 2:01hit I knew it it was the president
50. 2:04because Miss Kennedy said she just
51. 2:07screamed my god I've got his brains in
52. 2:10my
53. 2:11hand um you know couldn't be a more
54. 2:15horrible uh
55. 2:17experience
56. 2:19um now was there a
57. 2:24conspiracy I don't know I was there uh
58. 2:28but uh I was taken immediately to the
59. 2:31hospital I didn't know that Oswald had
60. 2:33been apprehended and
61. 2:36killed because I was uh still out from
62. 2:41the operation and I wasn't really
63. 2:43conscious of what was happening until
64. 2:45Monday morning when I uh woke up enough
65. 2:51to watch the uh the funeral procession
66. 2:53in
67. 2:54washingon so uh if Oswald had a
68. 2:58conspirator working with him he's never
69. 3:01been identified a lot of strange things
70. 3:04happened uh surrounding the
71. 3:07assassination that uh there's no no good
72. 3:11explanation for this gives rise to all
73. 3:13the suspicions and and uh what's your
74. 3:16personal analysis of the Warren
75. 3:18Commission basically the Warren
76. 3:20Commission I think uh uh did a good job
77. 3:24U I think they
78. 3:27uh probably overlooked some things
79. 3:29things that they they could have gone
80. 3:32into uh I think the autopsy the whole
81. 3:35autopsy uh matter was badly
82. 3:39handled I think uh the research on the
83. 3:42president's body uh was uh not well done
84. 3:47but this was at the request of the of
85. 3:49the Kennedy family and I think the
86. 3:51Warren Commission was trying to be as as
87. 3:56sympathetic toward the family as they
88. 3:58could but I had a great deal of
89. 4:00confidence in the Warren Commission and
90. 4:02and I personally knew every member on
91. 4:04the Warren Commission and U it's
92. 4:07inconceivable to
93. 4:09me uh that men like uh chief justice
94. 4:12Earl
95. 4:13Warren uh president later President
96. 4:16Gerald Ford Richard Russell John Sherman
97. 4:19Cooper John J McLoy distinguished New
98. 4:22York lawyer that people like that would
99. 4:24be a party to any kind of a coverup I
100. 4:27don't believe that I don't believe it at
101. 4:28all