- Title: USA: "Forever 1963": Eyewitnesses recall the Kennedy assassination
- Date: 20th November 2013
- Summary: DALLAS, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (FILE-NOVEMBER 22, 1963) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVAL AIDE - JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM - MUST COURTESY) (SOUNDBITE) (English) RADIO NEWSMAN SAYING: "A Dallas newsman, Mal Couch, said he was riding shortly behind the president in the parade. He said after the shots were fired he happened to look up at about the fifth or sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. He said he saw the rifle being pulled back in."
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- Location: Usa
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- Country: USA
- Topics: History,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAD09F5FBIYQ4XJX6WYC3EA1OW0
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- Story Text: President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, arrived in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 to spring-like weather and crowds of cheering spectators that lined the street waiting for their first glimpse of the 35th president. Journalists who reported on the presidential visit describe the festive scene that belied the grim turn of events barely an hour into the Kennedys' visit.
"It looked as though the entire city had turned up. It was really great. Dallas had shown that it really loved that president," said Bob Huffaker, then a police reporter with KRLD radio in Dallas.
"I didn't even notice John and Nellie Connally in the jump seat. I was absolutely captivated by Jackie, who was the nearest, she was on the left side of me, the president to the other side - and I thought - that's what a first couple ought to look like," said Pierce Allman, then a program director with WFAA radio, who was the reporter from Dealey Plaza to report the assassination.
"They were just absolutely splendid and I was carried away and hollered out something like 'welcome to Dallas, Mr. President' and they turned the corner and boom, that first shot, that's a sound you don't forget," Allman recalls.
The cars moved along streets lined with cheering crowds and at around 12:30 local time (CST) turned from Main Street onto Elm Street in front of the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza. Moments later shots rang out and both President Kennedy and Governor John Connally were struck by bullets.
Tina Towner Pender, then a 13-year old, remembers standing across the Texas School Book Depository with her father's home movie camera. Pender had just finished filming the presidential motorcade as it turned around the corner into Dealey Plaza when she heard three gunshots.
"As the first gunshot sounded I looked up to the building, thinking somebody was throwing firecrackers out of the window but I only had a split second before some stranger, and I still don't know who it was, pulled me to the ground," Pender said.
"I heard what I thought was a motorcycle backfiring, only it wasn't - it was the first shot and then in a few seconds, another shot and a third," said former Dallas Morning News reporter Hugh Aynesworth.
Kennedy was hit in the neck and head while the Connally suffered a wound to the chest. The limousine sped away under escort to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital where a team of surgeons, including Dr. Ronald Jones, then Chief Resident at the hospital, rushed to Trauma Room 1. Upon entering the room, Jones, who was previously unaware of the extent of Kennedy's injury, said he realized what a "hopeless situation it was probably going to be."
"The president was on a stretcher. His arms were out on arm boards like this and Dr. Carrico, who was a second year resident was trying to put a tube into his windpipe and then the tracheal tube to get an airway established, but the president was motionless. I never saw any movement. His eyes were open in a fixed stare," said Jones.
As live radio reports described the scene, the infant television news programs of the major networks ABC, CBS and NBC cut into their programming to bring the tragic news to the American people.
"From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00pm Central Standard Time; 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. . ." a visibly shocked Walter Cronkite of the CBS Evening News reported, immortalizing a signature moment of American history.
Distraught Dallas residents struggled to deal with what became the darkest moment in the history of the city. The Texas School Book Depository became a much-loathed reminder of the assassination.
"The city had gone silent, it was a kind of a stillness and that lasted through Sunday and I think at that moment, in that 24 hours, I think the community was going through a soul-searching process, maybe unlike any American community in this century," Allman said.
Fifty years later, the city of Dallas prepares to relive that fateful day in a commemoration ceremony at Dealey Plaza on Friday (November 22). The service will be a departure for Dallas, which has generally shunned publicity of one of the darkest events in its history.
The sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, once a much-loathed reminder of the assassination is now a popular museum that attracts visitors of all ages, from around the globe.
Associate curator Stephen Hagin says the popularity of the museum reflects how Dallas has come out from under the shadow of the assassination.
"Dallas came under a great deal of international criticism after the assassination, was called the City of Hate, the City of Shame and for many people in this community, this building where we are today was a manifestation of evil. There were two arson attempts on the building, there was an effort in the 1970s to tear it down. The fact that its here today - its an accounting office space and the museum occupies the top two floors- that I think is a testament to how far the city of Dallas has come in this progress from assassination to commemoration."
Aynesworth believes the assassination transformed the city.
"Dallas has changed quite a bit. At that time we had nobody of color, no black, no brown, nobody else in government, making any major decisions or even accountable in any way, or even acknowledge people that were not white, rich people. That changed like that, because we got so much hate, so much derision, so much attack," said Aynesworth.
But for some eyewitnesses, time has stood still since an assassin's bullet found its mark and killed a much-loved president.
"It doesn't seem like 50 years at all. When you come down here, it's forever 1963," said Allman.
Dallas will hold its memorial service at 12:30 p.m. local time (1830gmt) on November 22, 2013, at Dealey Plaza, the precise time and place that Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have shot Kennedy. - Copyright Holder: DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVAL AIDE - JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
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