'Target Car' eyewitness to be part of JFK discussion Nov. 5 at Germanna

When shots rang out in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, Jack McNairy was there.

The 18-year-old high school student watched as President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade sped away from Dealey Plaza.  An official flashed a badge and asked McNairy to give him a ride to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Once there, McNairy stared in disbelief into the president’s blood-splattered limo moments before the Secret Service ordered it cleaned and sent it back to Washington.

Germanna Community College history instructor Dan Carter will moderate a Tuesday discussion with McNairy and Jim Martin, who was a young newspaperman covering President Kennedy’s assassination from a Washington perspective. GCC Asst. Prof. Stuart Smith will explain the political climate that led to the president making his fateful trip to Dallas. A discussion with the audience will follow. The event, which is open to public, free of charge, will be held at Sealy Auditorium in the Workforce Building at Germanna’s Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m

McNairy says what he saw in the limo indicated the shots that hit the president came from behind--possibly from the School Book Depository Building--where Lee Harvey Oswald was perched, and not from the grassy knoll on the Northwest side of the plaza, as some conspiracy theorists have speculated.. McNairy played a key part in the Discovery Channel's 2008 investigative program, "Inside the Target Car."

An interactive video feed in room 114 at Germanna’s Locust Grove Campus  and room 118 at GCC's Daniel Technology Center will allow student and area residents in those locations to watch and hear the event live and ask the panelists questions.

For more information, email dcarter@germanna.edu or call 540/846-5163,