A Secret Service agent who was with President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on the day he was assassinated died at 91.
Winston Lawson was in the lead car ahead of the convertible carrying Kennedy when Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle at the president from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository on Nov. 22, 1963. Lawson heard shots from behind him and was informed by a police officer on motorcycle that the president had been hit.
The lead car and convertible then rerouted to Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy and Texas Gov. John B. Connally, who had also been wounded by Oswald, were taken by stretcher into the emergency room. Kennedy had been shot in the neck and head and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
Lawson, known as “Win,” had been with the Secret Service for four years and was in charge of planning routes for presidential motorcades that would ensure the president’s safety. He carefully planned the 10-mile journey from Love Field that was meant to end at the Dallas Trade Mart.
Speaking to the Warren Commission after the assassination, Lawson claimed he had not seen Oswald in the window as the motorcade proceeded on its route. Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the assassination in 2013, Lawson expressed that he had spent decades wondering if he’d done enough to protect the president. “At times, I wish I had never been born,” he said.
Lawson’s regret about Kennedy’s death was not shared by his colleagues in the Secret Service. “They would say to me — and it’s hard for me to say without breaking down or tears coming to my eyes — ‘Win, if it had to happen to anyone, we’re glad it happened to you,'” he told the Dallas Morning News in 2003. “Because I was known for doing the best, most thorough advance in the entire agency.”
