stics tests, pointed to Oswald as the slayer of President Kennedy, the 24-year-old professed Marxist and Castro sympathizer never came to trial. On Sunday, November 24, as he was being led across the basement of the City Hall for transfer to another prison, Jack Ruby (born Rubenstein), a Dallas nightclub owner, broke through a cordon of police and shot Oswald. The murder was committed in full view of television cameras as millions watched.The casket bearing Kennedy's body was removed to the presidential jet plane, Air Force One, where Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office as president of the United States. Only 98 minutes had elapsed since Kennedy's death.All that long afternoon and into the early morning of the next day, Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave her husband's body. Close by her side at all times after her return to Washington, D.C., was her husband's brother and closest adviser, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy carefully directed the details of the funeral, consulting with historians as to the traditional burial procedures for other presidents who had died in office.The body lay in repose for a day in the East Room of the White House. On November 24, in a solemn procession to the slow beat of muffled drums, the casket was removed to the rotunda of the Capitol and placed on the catafalque which had borne President Abraham Lincoln's casket.The following day the funeral procession moved from the Capitol to the White House and then to St. Matthew's Cathedral. Here Richard Cardinal Cushing, Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, celebrated Low Mass. From the White House to the cathedral, Mrs. Kennedy walked in the procession between her husband's brothers, Robert and Edward. In a scene unduplicated in history, 220 foreign leaders followed them.Burial was at Arlington National Cemetery, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac and the city of Washington. At the conclusion of the service Mrs. Kennedy lighted an eternal fla...
