When John F. Kennedy became the 35 th president of the United States at the age of 43, he was the youngest man ever to be elected to the post. He had served in the US Navy during the Second World War and had won a number of honours. After his inauguration in January, 1961, he focused on the issues of poverty and inequality and the threat posed by the tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union. At 12: 30 pm on November 22,1963, the limousine carrying President Kennedy, Governor Connally and their wives through Dallas, Texas, turns out of Dealey Plaza past the Schoolbook Depository Building. There were a number of gunshots. The president received bullets in the neck and the head, and Governor Connally a bullet in his back. A man some distance away was wounded by a passing bullet. Forty-five minutes later, the police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald on a charge of murdering police officer Tippitt, who had died of gunshot wounds in the vicinity of the assassination. After the police had interrogated Oswald for several hours without a lawyer present, they accused him of murdering the president.

On November 24, 1963, the police were handing Oswald over to state prison officers in the garage of the police building when he was shot dead by Jack Ruby in front of hundreds of journalists and millions of TV viewers. After several months, investigators declared that Oswald was the only assassin, had acted on his own, and had shot from the 6th floor of the Schoolbook Depository Building. Witnesses in Dealey Plaza saw things differently, however. Many reported that shots had been fired from a nearby park and a cloud of smoke had been visible there. There are also photographs of two unidentified men behind the fence at the park, one with a rifle. Before the motorcade arrived, people had seen men with rifles in downtown Dallas. In the three-year period following the assassination of President Kennedy and the 'silencing' of Oswald, 18 important witnesses died, including six by gunshot, two by suicide, one from a cut throat and one from a karate chop to the neck, All this supports the theory of a conspiracy and cover- up. Oliver Stone's movie JFK asks questions about what exactly happened and who was responsible.

b) Listen to a radio interview and check your answers to question 2 above.

1) Is art theft increasing or decreasing ? 2) How many paintings were stolen in Bagnols-sur-Ceze in 1972 ? 3) What was the time and date of the theft of the Cezanne painting from the Ashmolean Museum ?

a) To kill someone for political reasons. 1) To rob. B) To take something which isn’t yours. 2) To murder. c) To take something illegally from a person or a place. 3)To assassinate. d) To kill someone intentionally, not usually for political reasons. 4) To steal.