Thousands gather to recall JFK

DALLAS — Thousands of mourners, conspiracy theorists and the just plain curious gathered Saturday along the downtown street where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years earlier, with many of them recalling where they had been at the very moment they heard the news.

Some looked up to the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository, the building from which officials say Lee Harvey Oswald fired the deadly shots at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963. Others gravitated toward an "X" painted on the pavement to mark the spot where Kennedy's convertible was passing when he was hit.

A makeshift memorial with dozens of bouquets, signs and flags of the U.S. and other countries was assembled nearby — one of several memorials around the country for the fallen president.

"John F. Kennedy has been gone nearly as long as he lived, yet the memory of him still brings pride to our nation and a feeling of loss that defies the passing of years," President Bush said in a written statement.

Near Washington, Kennedy family members gathered at Arlington National Cemetery early in the day to pray beside the eternal flame that marks the president's grave.

Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, her husband and children, and Kennedy's brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., were joined by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington.

The cemetery opened to the public after the family left. Many visitors left flowers, photographs of President Kennedy, poems and American flags.

"I felt I absolutely had to come," said Frank Papaycik of Haddonfield, N.J. "President Kennedy's death is the single most moving death in my life."

Washington-area resident Steve Prindle echoed the sentiments of many others on Saturday: "One always wonders what might have been."

The Senate, meeting in a rare Saturday session to debate a Medicare bill, paused at 12:30 p.m. for a moment of silence in honor of Kennedy.

Standing at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Jim Johns remembered being in his seventh-grade class when the announcement of Kennedy's assassination came over the school intercom.

"It was devastating," said Johns, 52, of Houston. "My teacher started crying, all the girls started crying, all the boys started cursing the Russians — that's who we thought it was. It was terrible. We all wanted to go to war."