David Powers

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This article is about the special assistant to JFK. For television director, see David P. Powers.

David Francis Powers (April 25, 1912 – March 27, 1998) was Special Assistant to President of the United States John F. Kennedy. Powers served as Museum Curator of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum from 1964 until his retirement in May 1994. Powers was a military veteran who had served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II from 1942 to 1945. Powers was also a very close, personal friend of John F. Kennedy.

During the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Powers was riding in the Secret Service followup car directly behind the presidential limousine and is seen in the famous Zapruder film. Powers stated that he remembered hearing three shots, and that after the first shot, Powers and Kenneth P. O'Donnell (another military veteran sitting next to Powers) both immediately thought that President Kennedy had been shot because they each heard a shot noise and watched the president then react and move his head and upper torso very quickly and noticeably much further to his left. During a shared dinner in 1968 Powers stated to Tip O'Neill that he felt sure that two of the shots came from behind the grassy knoll picket fence, and that Powers had told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that shots had originated from behind the grassy knoll picket fence, but the FBI told Powers that the shots could not have happened that way and that Powers was imagining things, so Powers testified to the Warren Commission the way that the FBI wanted him to. O'Neill said that O'Donnell was also at the same dinner and fully agreed with what Powers stated about there being grassy knoll sourced shots.

Before the assassination Powers had captured personal movie film footage showing the presidential limousine and Dallas crowds with his personal movie camera until he ran out of film at 12:17 p.m., shortly before reaching Dealey Plaza. This film, now known as the "Powers film," was first made public in November 1996.

His granddaughter, Jenny Powers, gained fame as a Broadway actress and performer. In 2004, she starred in the musical version of Little Women. A graduate of Northwestern University, she was also Miss Illinois 2000, and won the talent competition for her vocal performance in Atlantic City at the Miss America pageant. An ardent Democrat like her grandfather, she was asked to sing the National Anthem at 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.