Friday. November 22, 1963. 12:30 p.m. Most people think that's the only time that matters when they talk about the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date. They picture the motorcade, the shots in Dealey Plaza, and the chaos at Parkland Hospital. But if you’re looking for when the "assassination" as a historical event, a legal case, and a cultural obsession actually started, you have to look at the timeline a bit differently. It wasn't just a single moment in Dallas; it was a sequence of failures and immediate reactions that set the stage for sixty years of arguing.
Honestly, the "start date" for the investigation began the second Lee Harvey Oswald was pulled out of the Texas Theatre. Or maybe it was even earlier, during the planning phases in the fall of '63.
People obsess over the "why" and the "who," but the "when" of the official response is what shaped the narrative we're still stuck with today. Within hours of the shooting, the machinery of the American government shifted. It wasn't a slow build. It was an instant, violent pivot. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One. The suspect was in custody before the sun went down. By the time the world woke up on November 23, the official story was already being written in ink that hadn't even dried yet.
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Start Date and the First 24 Hours
The timeline is tight. If you look at the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date as the beginning of the legal record, it starts with the Dallas Police Department’s initial reports. By 1:22 p.m., police had found the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. By 1:50 p.m., Oswald was arrested. This wasn't a months-long manhunt. It was a sprint.
There’s a common misconception that the government took its time to figure things out. Nope. LBJ knew that a power vacuum in the middle of the Cold War was a recipe for nuclear disaster. He needed a conclusion, and he needed it fast. The official start of the federal inquiry—the part that really matters for the history books—happened on November 29, 1963. That’s when Johnson issued Executive Order 11130. That order created the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
We just call it the Warren Commission.
Chief Justice Earl Warren didn’t even want the job. He reportedly cried when LBJ told him he had to do it. But that date, November 29, is the real "start date" for the official version of events. Everything that happened between the 22nd and the 29th was a scramble. The Dallas PD was leaking info like a sieve. Oswald was dead by Sunday morning, murdered on live TV by Jack Ruby. The "start date" of the trial that never happened ended before it could even begin.
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Why the Early Timeline Still Messes With Us
The speed was the problem. You can't investigate a crime of the century in a week and expect people to buy it. Because the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date for the federal investigation was so close to the funeral, the emotions were too high. Facts got buried. Witnesses were intimidated—or at least felt they were.
Think about the physical evidence. The limo was cleaned. People literally scrubbed the crime scene. In a modern FBI investigation, that car would have been sealed for months. In 1963? It was basically wiped down and put back into service later. That's why the start date of the investigation is so controversial. It felt more like a cleanup than a search for truth.
The Warren Commission vs. The HSCA: Two Different Starting Points
When we talk about the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date, we have to distinguish between the 1960s and the 1970s. The first investigation started in '63, but the second one—the one that actually found a "high probability" of a conspiracy—didn't start until 1976.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was a whole different animal. It wasn't headed by a Supreme Court Justice; it was run by investigators who were looking at the CIA and the Mafia.
- 1963 (Warren Commission): Focused on proving Oswald did it alone to calm the public.
- 1976 (HSCA): Focused on the stuff the Warren Commission ignored, like Oswald’s trips to Mexico City.
The 1976 start date is when the "conspiracy" move went from being a fringe theory to something the government actually admitted was possible. If you're researching this, don't just look at the '63 files. The '76 start date is where the real dirt is. It’s where we learned about the acoustic evidence (which is still debated) and the ties to organized crime.
The Mexico City Gap
One of the weirdest parts of the early timeline is Oswald's trip to Mexico City in September 1963. If you want to get technical, you could argue the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date for the planning was months before Dallas. Oswald was at the Soviet and Cuban embassies. The CIA knew he was there. They were watching him.
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Why does this matter? Because when the investigation started on November 22, the CIA didn't tell the FBI everything they knew. They were embarrassed. Or they were hiding something. Either way, the "official" start of the record is missing weeks of crucial context from two months prior.
It’s kind of wild when you think about it. The government had a file on the guy who killed the President, but the investigation "started" as if he were a total stranger.
The Records Act and the 1992 "Re-Start"
The most recent "start date" for JFK fans was in 1992. After Oliver Stone’s movie JFK came out, the public went nuts. They demanded the files. Congress passed the JFK Records Act, which started a massive declassification process.
This was a new beginning. We got thousands of documents that had been locked away for decades. But even then, some stuff was withheld. Even in 2023 and 2024, the National Archives released more "final" batches of documents. It feels like this thing never actually ends. The start date keeps shifting because we keep finding new "first chapters" to the story.
Real Evidence That Changed the Start Date Narrative
We used to think the FBI started looking at Oswald after the shots. We now know they were tracking his mail and his wife, Marina, long before. The "start date" of the FBI’s awareness of Oswald was years before the assassination. He was a defector. He had lived in the USSR. He was a "person of interest" who somehow slipped through the cracks on the day it mattered most.
For example, Special Agent James Hosty of the Dallas FBI office actually had Oswald's file on his desk. After the assassination, Hosty was told to destroy a note Oswald had left at the office just days before. That’s a huge deal. It means the investigation didn't start with a blank slate; it started with a cover-up of previous surveillance.
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How to Research the Timeline Yourself
If you’re trying to piece together the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date and the subsequent fallout, you need to go to the sources. Don't just read blogs.
- The Mary Ferrell Foundation: This is the gold standard for JFK documents. They have the actual scans of the HSCA and Warren Commission files.
- The National Archives (NARA): They have a dedicated JFK Assassination Records Collection. It’s dense, but it’s the raw data.
- The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza: They do a great job of contextualizing the timeline of the day itself.
You’ve got to be careful, though. This topic is a rabbit hole. You start looking at a date in October '63, and suddenly you’re reading about U-2 spy planes and the Bay of Pigs.
The reality is that the assassination of John F. Kennedy start date isn't just a calendar entry. It's the beginning of a modern era of skepticism. Before 11/22/63, Americans largely trusted the government. After the investigation started—and especially after it "ended" with the Warren Report in 1964—that trust evaporated.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you want to understand the timeline, start with the day of the arrest, but focus your energy on the week between the funeral and the formation of the Warren Commission. That’s where the narrative was baked in.
Next Steps for Your Research:
- Compare the Dallas Police Department’s radio logs from the first hour (12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.) with the later FBI summaries. You'll find weird discrepancies in descriptions of the suspect.
- Read the first few pages of the Warren Report, then read the dissenting views from the 1970s HSCA report. The shift in tone is massive.
- Look into the "Church Committee" hearings from 1975. This is where the world learned the CIA was trying to kill Fidel Castro, which provides the "start date" for many of the motive theories involving Oswald.
- Focus on the medical evidence from Parkland Hospital vs. the Bethesda autopsy. The "start date" of the medical controversy was the moment the body left Dallas, which some argue violated Texas law at the time.
The history of the JFK assassination is a moving target. The "start date" of the event might be fixed in 1963, but the "start date" of our understanding changes every time a new memo is declassified. It's a living history, and frankly, it's one of the most frustrating and fascinating puzzles ever. Don't take the official timeline at face value. Look at the gaps. That’s where the real story is usually hiding.