The policeman who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald after John F Kennedy was assassinated has died, aged 76.

Nick McDonald apprehended Oswald at a Dallas cinema moments after Kennedy was shot on November 22 1963.

"He made a fist and, bam, hit me right between the eyes," Mr McDonald said years afterward. "Knocked my hat off. I came back and hit him."

It wasn't until later in the day that the officer realised whom he had captured.

Mr McDonald died at a Arkansas hospital of complications from diabetes.

In a memoir, The Arrest and Capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, he recalled going to the back of the cinema after police received a tip that a suspicious man had entered without paying.

"As I peeked through the heavy curtains out into the audience pointed out the suspect," he wrote.

As the two officers confronted Oswald, the suspect said: "Well, it's all over now." But when they tried to search and handcuff him, Oswald pulled a pistol and tried to fire. Mr McDonald grabbed the weapon from Oswald, and finally subdued him.