Nation: Jackie

Chief Justice Warren, Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin and Bobby Kennedy spent 45 minutes with Jacqueline Kennedy in her Georgetown home when she told of the assassination. She served lemonade, replied softly to Rankin's gentle questioning. Excerpts:

A Quizzical Look. "In the motorcade, you know, I usually would be waving mostly to the left side and he was waving mostly to the right, which is one reason you are not looking at each other very much. It was terribly hot. Just blinding all of us.

"You know there is always noise in a motorcade, and there are always motorcycles beside us, a lot of them backfiring. So I was looking to the left. I guess there was a noise, but it didn't seem like any different noise really, because there is so much noise, motorcycles and things. But then suddenly Governor Connally was yelling 'Oh, no, no, no!'

"I heard these terrible noises. You know. And my husband never made any sound. So I turned to the right. And all I remember is seeing my husband, he had this sort of quizzical look on his face, and his hand was up, it must have been his left hand. And just as I turned and looked at him, I could see a piece of his skull, and I remember it was flesh-colored. I remember thinking he just looked as if he had a slight headache. And I just remember seeing that. No blood or anything.

"And then he sort of did this, put his hand to his forehead and fell in my lap. And then I just remember falling on him and saying, 'Oh, no, no, no,' I mean, 'Oh, my God, they have shot my husband.' And 'I love you, Jack,' 1 remember I was shouting.

"I used to think if I only had been looking to the right 1 would have seen the first shot hit him, then I could have pulled him down, and then the second shot would not have hit him."

Desperate Reach. Jackie said that she did not recall scrambling onto the back of the limousine in the instant after the President's head was shattered by the bullet. But Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who sprinted up from behind and leaped onto the presidential car, later told the Commission what happened after he heard Oswald's first shot: "I had a hold of the handgrip [on the rear of the limousine] with my hand, when the car lurched forward. I lost my footing, and I had to run about three or four more steps before I could get back up in the car. The second noise that I heard had removed a portion of the President's head, and he slumped noticeably to his left. Mrs. Kennedy had jumped up from the seat and was, it appeared to me, reaching for something coming off the right rear bumper of the car, the right rear tail, when she noticed that I was trying to climb on the car."

Had Hill noticed anything that could have made Jackie reach out so desperately? "I thought I saw something come off the back, too, but I cannot say that there was. I do know that the next day we found the portion of the President's head. It was found in the street."