Another Anniversary

I knew I had to be first. I knew it would be a chase. But I wanted badly to win. I found a payphone and called the Dallas Bureau of the Associated Press. I explained that I had a young man who was going to talk on this phone with them until I come back. I promised him a $5 bill. The location was Parkland Hospital in Dallas. I was an AP reporter waiting for word on the condition of Lee Harvey Oswald, shot at 11:21 a.m. in the basement of the Dallas police station. It was now 1 p.m. and we had gathered in a small conference room in the hospital waiting for official word on Oswald’s condition. My phone was about 75 yards from the conference room, down a hall, around a corner and into a small waiting area with three payphones. Cell phones were stuff of science fiction. A phone call cost a dime.

The Announcement 

At about 1:10 one of the doctors attending Oswald made the announcement. I ran from the room and down the hall with the United Press reporter – the competition -- at my side. As we turned the corner I ran him into the wall. He grabbed my coat pocket and ripped it off. I got the phone and told the bureau the news. Out went the Flash: “Doctor says Oswald dead at 1:07 p.m.” As that cleared the wire the competition – who had to fish out a dime, dial the phone and wait for someone to answer – was just getting connected.
 Most AP reporters retire without ever filing a Flash on the main AP wire.
 I was 26 and in my third wonderful year with AP.
So today is a good day to revive this blog – the 50th anniversary of the event that changed my life. I write of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As AP correspondent in San Antonio I worked alone, a one-man band covering south central Texas from a desk in the city room of the San Antonio Express, reporting to the AP’s chief of bureau Bob Johnson in Dallas.

 Slow Day

Nov. 22, 1963 started as a slow day in my office. The previous day had been eventful, working as sort of an errand boy doing “color” stories on the president’s visit to San Antonio. I still have on my study wall a photo taken Nov. 21 as Kennedy prepared to board Air Force One at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. I stand just behind the president, a snappily dressed reporter with a flat-top hair cut.

JFK leaving San Antonio Nov. 21, 1963. I am in the center, flat top and glasses, behind Sam Kendrick.

On Friday my wife Sylvia, book editor for the San Antonio Express, joined me for lunch at a restaurant around the corner. The first thing I did when we returned at 12:45 was something I did very frequently as part of my daily routine – check the AP wires in the Express wire room. There was the bulletin: Shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. I called Dallas to offer my services. Johnson told me to get to the Dallas bureau as quickly as possible. Braniff Airways agreed to hold the next flight to Dallas. Sylvia drove me to the airport. I reached the gate just as Braniff decided it could hold the flight no longer. I knew Kennedy was dead by the time we landed.
We had to circle Love Field as Air Force One departed with the body. I called the bureau from the terminal and was directed to take a taxi straight to the Texas School Book Depository. Things were different in those days. I was allowed into the building and up to the sixth floor where detectives said the shots came from. The rifle was still there. His firing nest was there. They determined that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only employee unaccounted for. He had by now been arrested for killing A Dallas police officer. I interviewed other workers at the Depository, pausing frequently to pass fresh info to the bureau.

 At the Station

I went to the Dallas police station. You’ve probably seen me without knowing it. I was one of the reporters in the hallway as Oswald was moved from place to place in the station. The back of my head and a profile shot appear each time there is a TV story about the assassination. Today I saw myself beside Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation/CBS fame. He was also 26, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter. I hadn’t seen that one before. I spent most of the night in the police station and got my orders to return to San Antonio early on the 24th. I was watching TV as I gathered up the underwear, socks and tooth brush I bought that morning. There was Oswald on a perp-walk being transferred from the police station to the Dallas County Jail. There was Jack Ruby, shooting him in the stomach. And there I went to Parkland and several more days in Dallas.