Living History with Joe Carter

[Music] good afternoon everybody thank you so much for being at the Museum today my name is Stephen Fagan I'm the curator and uh this is a living history presentation to give you an opportunity to hear from someone who lived the experience of November 22nd 1963 and we have a really special guest with us here today this is Joe who came down from Oklahoma today with his lovely wife Michelle we're so honored to have you here Joe is 91 years old he allowed me to reveal his age and we are so honored to have him here he was the overnight editor at the Southwest Division of United Press International at the time of the assassination and on November 22nd 1963 he was aboard the White House Press bus that bus that you can see pictured behind you with that Banner right above it Joe was on board that bus when he heard shot SPID in Plaza so please join me in welcoming Joe to [Applause] cheering Joe thank you so much for being here um we're gonna just jump right in so overnight editor at the Southwest Division of UPI you were basically supporting the White House correspondent maramman Smith legendary UPI reporter uh on that trip to Texas that president made November 21st and 22nd that's correct when every time they stopped at a place I it was my job to as the editor to to be sure the story that marman Smith might have written or maybe I would write it under his by line about LBJ and and samon tone I and pardon me JFK and Salon tone with LBJ of course and uh that would go out that would be what you would read on here on the morning newscast and it'd be in the afternoon newspapers and I work till 6:00 a.m in the morning that day Alice BAC was routinely assigned to follow up and assist marman Smith he happened to be on vacation in Europe and and he tells me the other day they still paying on the credit card for that trip but uh I could not make it so I went out to Love Field after working all night long and I was going to follow up and go down to the inhabit Steak lunch and listen to the president and I thought it was a bonus wonderful wonderful thing and I felt like it was a perk well uh I want to show the uh Air Force One passenger manifest you can see number 30 on the check there is maramman Smith the uh dean of White House reporters and the White House correspondent for UPI all of the original manifests from Air Force One you'll find at the different City stock in our exhibit two days in Texas so uh please take a look at that so as you mentioned you uh were out at lowfield you had press credentials for the Fort Worth breakfast in fact you brought along today a little show and tell piece we're always happy when our guests bring along little show and tell pie so this is your press pass from Fort Worth with the breakfast here that's correct and this top one is your those are your press credentials for the te the Dallas part of the chur that's correct and then right here is your invitation to that presidential luncheon at the Dallas trademark and the interestingly somebody wrote my name and that which I've gotten the other invitation but that's the unique thing that uh that this original which really should be here is in the Oklahoma journalism Hall of Fame on a permanent loan yeah and but it's uh we can talk about that if you'd like those to end up here at the six floor Museum but let's talk about Lovefield so here we have a picture of the crowds gathered out at the airport uh Joe you had covered Lyndon Johnson before but you had not covered John F Kennedy give us a sense of what you what you thought of the president personally and what it was like to uh go out to see him at the airport well I'll tell you I'm from a red state but I'm a big blue State Democrat and I I was really an Admire of JFK for what he was this what he was giving to America and I also had strong very strong LBJ of feelings and uh and I'm still a Democrat so I have to I'm not making a commercial but I'm just making an a declaration so you know but I thought John Kennedy was doing a good job and I had been in Dallas uh here as a newsman when there were ugly things happening as you know and there were bad things in the morning Dallas Morning News that day about people taking an upward view for JFK when he got off the Air Force One and walked up with Jackie who by the way was a knockout beautiful woman and uh he I was as close as I could get to them and uh and went around that fence with and and I was so delighted that there was never an award word everybody was H happy to touch them shake hands and then they there were even little cheers now and then and I thought this is going to be a wonderful beautiful day there had been some concern that particularly in Dallas there might be some sort of a political protest or demonstration but you weren't thinking about the possibility of an assassination attempt absolutely I did not you know no one you know we've had we've had some political candidates who've been shot and of course Lincoln was assassinated than been others that I never thought about anything as as totally dumbfounding outrageous as what happened then later a few minutes later so after the kennedies go down that fence line get into the presidential limousine you get on board this bus the White House Press bus which is about 13 13 vehicles I think behind the limousine um tell us a little bit about what it was like aboard the bus who who else do you remember being on the bus with you that day well there were most of these people had were flying around with LBJ I mean with kfk in the presidential press Corp we actually actually we paid each guy paid his share of the cost of the of the airplane they did allow four people on they allowed mman Smith for UPI an AP man a radio person and a magazine writer to Ride On Air Force One and then the rest of them rode on a chaser plane that followed them and they all got off and we all got on that bus there were about 30 I think perhaps on that bus that day I was on I was on the far side of you but you can see about the fourth window back and I was sitting next to a guy who name is PA left me worked for usia and uh but the people on there were men most of them were out of the they were all World War Two uh veterans who had gone into journalism and they were in their 50s and some in the 60s I was 31 years old which and 60 years later I can still stand here and testify that there were some awfully fine Riders on that on that bus how much was uh was UPI paying you in those days my regular pay was four bucks an hour I was a tops scale wire service Union uh correspondent for that day though at six o'clock when I finished my 8 hour shift I went I got paid time and half six bucks an hour and uh and Michelle invested it wisely and we [Laughter] rich so the motorcade goes through it's a 10 mile parade with about 200,000 people were you were you surprised not only by the turnout at the airport but considering that Kennedy wasn't particularly popular politically in Dallas were you surprised by the turnout when you got downtown and saw thousands and thousands of people lining the street the joke was everybody wanted to see Jackie they uh but there were admiring people out there but we're going along and all of a sudden the bus stops you we said what's up what happened well they had stopped and there were some school kids there and Kennedy had had ordered the the limousine to stop and he makes you know he recognized them and talk to him and we all were sitting back there having uh mild heart attacks and we thought oh my God it happened and uh it was a terrible moment and then they had a shi to shore radio there and said everything's okay to talking to school kids then we continued on right down yeah and as you got down here this was the end of the parade de Plaza right you you heard what happened tell us what it was like we were just making a hard left turn right on the go on to stemons in that bus and I I got to tell you on I'm I'm an army veteran I was in the Infantry I was trained I heard a lot of rifle shots I distinctly heard bang bang bang and it still haunts me folks it still haunts me there was three shots there were no other shots that I heard they were all consistent kind of evenly spaced as far as you remember you just can do it to it yourself you squeeze the tiger you do the Bol you squeeze the trigger you do the bolt Tre that's 6.2 seconds trying at home don't try to with your mind watch and she'll think you're nuts as far far as the origin of those shots I know we're going to talk about that in a little bit your your belief about the assassination but did they all sound consistent as far as coming from the same location absolutely same weapon same sound and and they came you know in a reasonable order the the rifle I was trained on was a Gras was a gas operated didn't went you know they popped it out but this one that he was using as a bolt action I've used those too but and he was lodged very well in the windows so there was no wobbling and he had a little scope and he could see what he was doing let me tell you when that slug hit Kennedy's head he was a dead man so suddenly here you are a journalist AB board this press bus in this presidential motorcade you distinctly hear gunshots how how do you spring into action at that point what are you able to do well I was I was I've been for newspapers and for the youit I had been a a crime reporter and I jumped up out of the bus ran up to get off because I wanted I saw people running up what this little Hillside you see down there and uh I wanted to get off and find out what was going on I thought somebody down there and and the cop had tossed his his motorcycle down and was running up this little Hill and uh I was watching all of that I wanted off but somebody blocked me I don't know who it was but said no one off the boook and I stayed on the bus yeah we can see in this this remarkable picture that was taken by a b named Jay scags there's your bus going through de posage just seconds after the shots are fired and you can see in the corner there people making their way running up the grassy null now let's talk about the term grassy null because maramman Smith uh who you were supporting on that trip is credited with coining that term grassy null the first time the phrase grassy null was used was in a UPI bulletin on The Wire about 25 minutes after the assassination now you pointed out to me that people didn't really start running up that hill until after Smitty's vehicle had already gone beneath the triple underpass but it was certainly happening as you went by tell us the story of uh calling the UPI office and and and how that term got on the wire well I first um I had had breakfast before we started this trip and I changed two quarters into five timeses that's how used to work and that was before an inflation but uh the the uh and I I got we got the bus went on to the trademark I because I was a wire service reporter and everybody gave way to us because we we operated under a CREDO of of deadline every minute so I dashed off and ran into the trademark and found a pay phone I called my Bureau Jack Bon and I said Bon I heard these and I saw these some people running you know up this green grassy no and uh and they so I later on his father and I his father was just a five-year-old kid I I was it Saturday I came drove down to saying what what did I say down there and I got down well by that that time that old Bermuda grass had turned brown and I I was puzzled I said that was green and so when they put it on the wire they did I don't think they put Grassle on they just set up a they a green they put up a grassy no but I figured out then they had this plastic on the Windows of that bus you can see it block blocks it out it little green plast speak stuff that they used to put on keep the Sun and uh but Smitty they had that that was that that term was used and under marman Smith's name there's a little sign down there giving him credit for it he can have the credit he also got the pller prize but I got six bucks so so that term grassy n which is just part of our popular culture you feel pretty confident that you're the first person to say grassy no if I'm I stand here before this distinguished crowd that is I can't believe that many people care and I'm delighted by the way but I'm telling you yep I said that now you we don't want that to be your final words here have a SE once you get an Applause like that you exit no no no not we still we still have to get to park on Hospital the proper way is it historically um real quick though why no why not grassy Hill I don't know I I like fany words I'm a writer you know like today I I wrote a speech I thought I tell me what we were going to do here I thought we were going to have a couple of drinks and go on home but they uh that's that's later we decided that I I got to I'm very careful about selecting words when I can and I find out if I write them down I read them back to myself I'm more apt to be able to stand behind them and I certainly with my memory uh I can always go back and point to them so I did I did like I don't know how it ever came but no just seemed to roll out yeah well it was a good term because we clearly adopted it as a as a culture so trademart you very quickly get a limousine to take you to Parkland Hospital how did that happen well what happened when the bus pulled in all of those other cars that were in the parade smothered it and I got on the phone and I had talked to my my boss who was out here on mckenley we had a little our Bureau was on the second floor of mckenley and I talked to him on the phone then I raced out and saw the bo the bus he he told me D Fon told me that Kennedy had been shot get to Parkland Hospital and uh so I saw that that bus wasn't going anywhere for a while I ran out on the curb been there with a limousine with one guy in it I don't know who he was but I ran up and pushed my head through the window and I said the president's been shot and he's been taken to Parkland Hospital and I can take you there if you want me to show the way I did not know where Parkland Hospital was it was a dumpy little Hospital out there to be they fixed it up late later you have to go somewhere to get your bullet wounds fixed time right recomended trying to keep them from suing me for saying yeah even even then Parkland was a major trauma center but I got in this and there was a stream of emergency vehicles going so we drove right there so I was able to get into the hospital and then somebody directed me to the second floor where they had a a little classroom set up and it became an improvised press room and I was able there to go look out a window right on to the uh parking lot of of the emergency room then they at some point they rolled out the casket and behind it was Jacqueline Kennedy and the woman I mean she was as close to me as that camera you folks in the back row about you were about and I could plainly see the the the blood that was on her clothes and even you could see stuff that sure looked could have passed her brain it was a very very traumatic thing the woman's Majesty has could never be fully conveyed she was really saying um I know my husband got killed and I know people are around I don't know who all are going to try to kill but I'm not I'm not going to be afraid and she walked bravely behind that and I think that the Americans that saw this woman then and later came to having faith that justice will prevail in America that we are brave people and we do face our adversaries you mentioned being in a nurse's classroom which became basically The Press Room there at Park London you were present when Malcolm killed up the assistant White House Press Secretary made the official announcement tell us about that now there there was just long period of time that uh we did not know who who was in charge you know and we were pretty sure that the president was had been shot and and but we who's running the country and then that was a matter you know we we have nuclear arms hanging around ready to be fired at any minute you know what was going to happen next and uh but mik Kilda who was acting press secretary peer Salinger the real protectory was in was it happened to be on his way to Vietnam to try to figure out a way to get us out of Southeast Asia in a war and M had been had been named acting press secretary for this trip and he stepped out and announced but he waited until LBJ had been secretly transported back to Air Force One I think that's well known but then he came out and he said the president was pronounced dead at 100 p.m. it happened that when I got there I had gone down the Hall ahead of everybody used one of my dimes and I got a a pay phone in Bill Hampton a first year graduate out of of University of Texas journalist had come to work and he they had sent him out to back me up and he was there and held the phone open so nobody so I'd have an open line when when when M Hub and later became a very good friend of mine uh announced the death I ran down the hall there there's photograph somewhere with everybody was looking at M except this guy with a big long nose he's going the other direction in the back and that was me running into that bone to to to relate to Jack Fen that the president died was pronounced dead at 1 pm and he Bill Hampton handed me the phone and I did and bill went off he told me later he cried I never have cried maybe I should you very quickly after getting to Parkland hearing this announcement you get back on a bus and then taken right back to lowfield where this whole journey started for you because that's where President Johnson was being swor in you weren't able to get on Air Force One though maramman Smith did but SM Smitt was on and the AP guy was on and one guy was on the list of of the correspondent uh and uh Sid Davis and then Sid Davis who worked for Westinghouse radio at the time and later would be Washington news chief for NBC was on as the pool reporter he got off the bus off there Force One and we're all gathered in up around on the tarmac and uhct those there he is I standing on top of a pickup I guess yeah and he telling you that when it happened that Sarah Hughes had come out and ENT had administered the bo the oath of office and just as he was doing it then Air Force One was moving out to fly back to uh Andrew's Air Force fa and as then he and all of the other traveling White House correspondent got on their Chaser plane that I mentioned and followed them I ran into the lobby of the Love Field to call to let them know about the inaguration of of lynon Bane Johnson it happened there was a pay phone there but there was a very stately lady she was standing there about ready to make a call I said ma'am I need that phone and she said she handed it to me without a word I reached into my pocket and where there used to be five dimes there was no dime I said ma'am I need your Di and I dropped it in and I called Jack Jack Fallon and I relay then what Sid Davis had said then I got to tell him the next BR you know where I went mate I do you made a remarkable detour that no one else thought to do you went to the home of a a local um uh General yeah general Edwin Walker kind of a local political extremist at that time here's a picture of him right there why in the midst of this breaking news coverage of the death of the president did you decide to go to a political activist's home on Turtle Creek Boulevard I wanted to find out who the SOB was shot my trth of that and and but the first suspect that came into my mind was this same man who had been commander of NATO forces and or something of that nature and had come back a very very anti Kennedy and he was flying the flag upside down and criticizing so I ran up to the door of his house down on once that street turt down and I pounded on the door I was not being a very nice boy and uh the mly lady opened the door and I said Carter with United president the General in she slammed the door in my face and uh it later turned out that Lee Harvey oswal had also the same rifle had been used to try to shoot Ed when a walker and they found the bullet ballistic matched up but the I went home and went to bed yeah because you had been you had been working pretty much since what time in that that morning yeah I I got in back you know I would always go in early so IID started at 9:00 the night before and you know this is a 20 hours later you know and under a lot of you know a 10 St time even before the shooting I mean you know all of this these stories had to be told what was taking place at the time I'll tell you there was there was one big poll in America and it showed that JFK was in was had a popularity problem and here he was just a year before the election he's on a big campaign swaying around state of Texas which is with with LBJ and there was all kinds of problems that they HED to song so uh you you did work the rest of that weekend but not not running around you never went to Dallas Police Headquarters and saw oswal Etc I do want to jump ahead a little bit in the story because uh Beyond UPI you were then a presidential speech writer for Lyndon Johnson tell us a little bit about working with Lyndon Johnson and and what kind of person he was well I I gotta tell you I uh I was a uh I had after staying a few more months in with J pres I got a job B in Honolulu and went on and worked on the honululu newspaper so dull and boring I quit and came back and and was became associate editor of a democratic newspaper in Oklahoma City and uh it and an old back in my early days with UPI I had wanted to be a sports writer so I was writing Sports and the sports information officer was a guy named Jim Jones and uh this is Bid not what the the U Jim Jim Jones was was a student working in sports information and uh I had became I I was really impressed with him and when he was graduated I think he got was offered a big time job maybe $12,000 a year to be sports information out at Texas Tech or somewhere but at the same time he got an offer to go to Washington as a congressional Aid and while up there he had volunteered during the 1960 campaign of the U 1964 campaign I'm sorry to run ladyb Bird's train across the South and had done a real good job and as a result of that when Johnson asked him to come to work in the White House and uh we had kept our friendship up just because we liked each other and he one day I he had asked me if I was interested in joining this being as a writer one of the writers kind and I they had a pool of writers that write speeches proclamations thousands of letters and memos and all many a lot of things have to be written and so I I signed on the cause of Jim Jones now later I wrote I did two diplomatic trips with LBJ and had you know kind of I've been in cocktail parties with him and been around and watched him made a I wrote speeches that he gave one speech and Sam Salvador Salvador and the wife of the protocol chief of uh had had been flying back to Washington on Air Force One I so I she sat down next to me and she he saidwell who are you and I said I saidwell I'm one of the writers she said are you that newspaper man from Oklahoma and I said yeah she so the president said that your speech was the best one he gave on this trip so I want that writing but I never got it well it's documented now here uh here at the Museum you you mentioned I think earlier to me that you had gone down to the ranch and and you had had a few conversations with Johnson am I correct that at one point you talked with Johnson about civil rights after the P Civil Rights Act oh it was just beautiful it happened that I later was the the aid to the Governor of Oklahoma and a guy named David all the got all out of trouble and I got in trouble too but I got out of it I'm I'm innocent and uh the and Dale bumper the governor of Arkansas was another young governor and LBJ at wanted to meet these two young Governors so I went down with those two governors in Arie and and one of the guys that worked for for uh for bumpers and we spent an afternoon at the LBJ Ranch and it was wonderful talking to him and then we finally he finally figured out that I had been on you on the staff and and we talked about a number of things and it was it was wonderful and then took really LBJ the two Governors and RG schaer from AR who was the A and Joe Carter sitting there talking to the president with nobody nobody taking notes No cameras no no recording but I got a real real good and then we started driving around they wanted to show us and he got this he had this open top U linoln and he driving around he'd see an ant hill over there and he'd look at those so and he' pull over and he had had some insecticide he squirt that insecticide down it was wonderful and then we I'm lucky not a but we we were there was just Secret Service is following us in a old station wagon and we got out there and they opened up the back there was a nice bar in there so we kind of toasted today that's great I don't think I'm supposed to be talking about this no this is fine we we are running a little short of time so I do want to mention that you did write a little short Memoir it's more of kind of a long essay it's about 30 pages long called I heard JFK's death shut and it's an ebook so it's available online I believe it's 99 cents on Amazon so it's a real marget if you want to get even more stories Joe gter I was just mentioning that that book made me a double digit author in earnings but I'm sad to tell you that it's on the right hand side of the but I got I do want to I did prepare a speech I gave a friend my friend Matt who's holding that in the other man I gave him a copy but I wanted to say that one of the thing that here today I am just bowel be dled that all of these people care enough but I say looking in first I want to tell you a lot of people say do you who do you think killed Kennedy half a century after this thing happened here there was a mystery writer came down to the wellknown writer in the and named Stephen King everybody knows Stephen King he wrote he wrote a book and uh in it he said and it ask he quoted himself about oswal's guilt and he said I had put the probability at 98% or maybe 99 then he added this dodgy Old Warren Commission which maybe you've heard of was right Oswell acted alone I believe that and I don't and I tell you there was also another book written that P prays down all of the the the stories and the outright lies that have been written about this but wonderful thing happened in this town and it and a wonderful man showed up and I said that far in the future there will remain many quarrels and books including one mind about this matter I hope they will that the readers will care and and that the writers will will share any new truth than that 1% I mean maybe maybe Moses came back and got he might have but the uh I hope that we don't just openly accept those lies or these selfs serving tail that go around these excuses but I said wrote here vital in that search is the six floor Museum now expanded to seven splendidly in my view vividly and without bias this institution represents compelling evidence about the crimes what is shown has been carefully studied and excellent we curated by my long-term friend and historian Steven let's give him up you earned your $ six dollar today so we're we're good rather than do a formal Q&A uh Joe is very generously agreed to state but if you guys want to meet him or ask him a question he'll be around for few minutes up here in our special exhibit I hope you will join me in thanking Joe Carter for being our special guest today [Applause] [Music]

Channel: SixthFloorMuseum

Views: 2,077

Keywords: Kennedy, jfk, living history, sixth floor museum, upi, United Press International, John F. Kennedy, Assassination, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, The Sixth Floor, Joe Carter, Living History, Stephen Fagin, Dallas Museum

Id: wjwu24FEor4

Length: 40min 3sec (2403 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024