Thousands pay tribute to Kennedy

For many Americans Kennedy's assassination was a defining moment

Thousands of people in Dallas, Texas, have marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination there of United States President John F Kennedy.

At the Arlington Cemetery near Washington DC, Kennedy family members prayed at the eternal flame which marks the 35th president's grave.

President George W Bush paid tribute to his predecessor saying his memory "still brings pride to our nation".

The shooting on 22 November 1963 continues to intrigue Americans.

All the girls started crying, all the boys started cursing the Russians - that's who we thought it was Jim Johns of Houston

An ABC poll found many people do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed Kennedy.

A government inquiry had concluded that no-one else was involved when Oswald killed the president from the Texas School Book Depository with a cheap mail-order rifle.

'Devastating'

No official ceremony had been planned in Dallas to mark the anniversary.

But well-wishers built a makeshift memorial of flowers, signs and flags near the place in Dallas where Kennedy was hit as his motorcade drove through the city's crowd-lined streets.

President Kennedy's death is the single most moving death in my life Frank Papaycik of New Jersey

People still remembered where they were when Kennedy's assassination was announced.

"It was devastating - everybody that age, we all loved him," Jim Johns of Houston, a 12-year-old schoolboy at the time, told the Associated Press news agency.

"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."

At Arlington National Cemetery in the state of Virginia, Kennedy's daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and brother Senator Edward Kennedy paid their respects.

Later the cemetery was opened to the public, and people flooded in to leave flowers, photos and poems at the site.

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

'Broader plot'

According to the ABC News poll, only 32% of Americans accept that Lee Harvey Oswald, the man blamed for the assassination, was the only gunman.

Oswald, arrested shortly after the slaying, was himself killed two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby as police transferred him from a jail.

Meanwhile 51% say they are convinced there was a second shooter.

Of the respondents, 70% said they thought the assassination was part of a broader plot, and more than two-thirds believe there was a government cover-up.

Glamour was part of Kennedy's appeal

"Many people look at the Kennedy assassination as a turning point, when people started realising and thinking and believing their government would lie to them and lie to them repeatedly," Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, told Associated Press news agency.

Conspiracy theories attribute Kennedy's murder to plots by the Italian Mafia, the Cubans, the Soviet KGB and the CIA.

However, ABC and Court TV both ran computer simulations this month of the crime scene and an analysis of a police audiotape, which concluded that the Warren Commission was indeed correct - Oswald had acted alone when he killed Kennedy.