by Brooke Kennedy
November 22, 1963 started out as a sensational day for the citizens of Dallas, Texas. The president and the first lady had just landed in Love Field, admirers waiting to greet them. Photos show the president exiting the plane with a Chanel-clad Jackie beside him, who was gifted a beautiful bundle of red roses. The first and second couples occupied their respective convertibles for their drive through downtown Dallas, crowds flooding the sidewalks to get a glimpse. But as the car turned from Main Street into Dealey Plaza, shots rang out. Screaming crowds fled as the convertible sped away, leaving only the echoes in their wake.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy opened up an extensive investigation that shook American politics and captured widespread intrigue. Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to examine the events preceding, during, and after the crime. The conclusion reached by the Commission was that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole shooter. But, the events have since inspired continued speculation about what really happened that day.
Photographs and video footage from that day have been extensively scrutinized by government officials and conspiracy theorists alike. The most famous of which being the home movie footage taken by dressmaker and witness Abraham Zapruder. The color 8 mm film reel shows the presidential motorcade as it drives through and speeds away from Dealey Plaza, and is the only known video to show the whole sequence of events that took place that day. Zapruder sold the footage to LIFE Magazine, but still had his own reservations about its publication. Frame 313, which shows the exact moment the president was hit by the fatal head shot, was kept from the public for 12 years at Zapruder’s request after having nightmares over it. Still, 26 seconds, and 468 frames were one of the few things the police had to find JFK’s assassin.
A polaroid photo taken by another witness, Mary Ann Moorman (who is also visible in the Zapruder film), was another crucial piece to the investigation. In wanting to capture a photo of the president for her 11-year-old son, Moorman’s picture was taken just a split-second after Kennedy was struck in the neck. And in less than two hours her photo was shown to millions across the nation on television.
There are very few records from that day that haven’t been exposed to the public. But heading to auction in September is something completely unprecedented – unseen footage from the day of the assassination.
Dale Carpenter Sr. was just like any other Texan who arrived along the motorcade route to catch a glimpse of America’s leader. He had settled into a spot early in the motorcade route, ready to film. But unfortunately for him, he had just missed his chance to capture JFK on tape. His footage instead opens on the Presidential Secret Service Follow-Up Car and the Vice Presidential Car. The film continues for 40 seconds before it cuts to a new scene. Intent on seeing the president, Carpenter made his way to North Stemmons Freeway for his second chance.
The motorcade route was highly publicized in local newspapers including the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News, and Carpenter was prepared. Standing at his new location, in the thin shoulder of the freeway’s edge, he would never capture the president and first lady smiling and waving to onlookers.
Just after the president had been shot, the Lincoln Continental sped away from the scene to get to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Carpenter recorded for ten seconds as the vehicle – carrying Secret Service Agent Clint Hill shielding JFK and Jackie Kennedy – made its ill-fated flight to the hospital. After that harrowing ten seconds, before the car even exits the frame, the tape cuts to a standard home video showing a tired toddler rubbing his eye while his brother bounces on the couch.
Lady Bird Johnson, who was seated in a different car in the motorcade, recalled that she ‘saw in the President’s car a bundle of pink, just like a drift of blossoms, lying in the back seat. It was Mrs. Kennedy lying over the President’s body.’ The president would be pronounced dead at 1:00 PM. After loading the president’s body into Air Force One, Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office in the congested compartment at 2:38 PM.
This isn’t the first time footage from that day in Dallas has gone under the hammer. Back in 2013, 50 years after the president’s assassination, Mary Ann Moorman put her famous original Polaroid up for auction. But Carpenter’s film is the needle in a haystack of thoroughly examined evidence.
Fascination around Kennedy’s life and legacy only increased in following years. His White House tenure has taken on a mythic quality thanks to Jackie Kennedy. Days after the assassination, she spoke with Pulitzer-winning journalist Theodore H. White. In her now famous LIFE Magazine interview, she ceremoniously designated her husband’s presidency as Camelot, drawing on his fondness for the Broadway show of the same name. Though this label has been retrospectively criticized, there is still a great sense of nostalgia and romanticization for the era of Kennedy’s administration.
And this fascination has translated to huge auction prices in the decades since. In the past several years, RR Auction has sold several items connected the president including Lee Harvey Oswald’s wedding ring, Oswald’s US Marine Corps rifle score book (also known as Warren Commission exhibit no. 239), and the white Lincoln Continental car that drove the Kennedys to their final flight to Dallas. Only time will tell how much Carpenter’s footage will fetch. The tape will be sold with copyright in RR Auction’s live Remarkable Rarities event taking place at the Royal Sonesta in Boston on September 28th. Online bidding has now begun and will close on September 27th at 1 PM ET, and live bidding will commence at 1 PM ET on September 28th.
