JFK: A Nation Remembers

40 Years To Day Of His Slaying, Mourners View Site, And His Grave

(AP)  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 Mr. Kennedy's convertible was passing when he was hit.

A makeshift memorial with dozens of bouquets, signs and flags from other countries was assembled nearby.

"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.

Jim Johns of Houston remembers being in class in the 7th grade when the announcement of the assassination came over the school intercom.

"It was devastating," said Johns, now 52, standing at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. "Everybody that age, we all loved him.

"My teacher stated 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."

David Heath, 46, of Sheffield, England, said he booked a flight months ago to be in Dallas for the anniversary.

"It was quite definitely a moment in my childhood. Can you imagine this happening for any other president?" Heath said.

He remarked at how little has changed in area in the 40 years since the assassination.

"It's exactly as it was. Part of the irony is it's just a beautiful place and for it to happen here - that sort of fracture between beauty and terror," Heath said.

No official ceremony was planned to mark the anniversary in Dallas.

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.

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

After the family left and the cemetery opened to the public, people streamed in to pay their respects to the slain president. Many 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 at Arlington and in Dallas on Saturday: "One always wonders what might have been."