Assassination of John F. Kennedy President Kennedy as his motorcade continued down Elm Street. About 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. A minority of the witnesses recognized the first gunshot they heard as weapon fire, but there was hardly any reaction to the first shot from a majority of the people in the crowd or those riding in the motorcade. Many bystanders later said that they heard what they first thought to either be a firecracker or the backfire of one of the vehicles shortly after the President had begun waving. Although some close witnesses recalled seeing the limousine slow down, nearly stop,
The Making of the President, 1960 of "The Making of the President, 1960" which was finished shortly before President Kennedy's November 1963 assassination. It was released without revision. The Making of the President, 1960 The Making of the President, 1960, written by journalist Theodore White and published by Atheneum Publishers in 1961, is a book that recounts and analyzes the 1960 election in which John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. The book won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and was the first in a series of books by White about American presidential elections. (The others are "The Making of the