Living History with John Sparks

[Music] all right good evening Algonquin College can you folks hear me okay all right hi there yeah if you if you haven't seen me before my name is Stephen Fagan I'm the curator here at the sixth floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas Texas and we are coming to you live from the first floor of the former Texas School Book Depository building we're actually up against the windows tonight so you can see all of the rush-hour traffic in downtown but we're right here at the corner of elm and Houston where the assassination took place 53 years ago this month we're looking towards the anniversary this is our third of four connections with you folks and tonight is absolutely my favorite program that we offer it's called living history and it gives me a chance to talk with someone who lived the experience of the assassination weekend and give you folks the chance to ask him some questions as well we always have a different guest and I'm joined tonight by John Sparkes who is a veteran producer and an on-camera anchor just a veteran of local VFW media outlets he's also done media work in New York City and so he's got a fascinating career in journalism we're going to talk a little bit about that but we're really going to go all the way back to 1963 when you were just a youngster in high school Wow and I always like to start these programs by giving you guys a sense of what our guests looked like back at the time of the assassination so we're going to put a picture of John up on the screen there it is and you have not changed a bit there right wow I knew then what I don't know John you were a Fort Worth native yeah so your dad as I understand it was pretty politically active and as a result for a young person in high school you were politically astute more so than your classmates tell me a little bit about your political awareness in the early 60s my father was a Democratic Party precinct judge which meant that like on Election Day he would go to the polls and he would run the elections for that particular precinct and his bro there was a local labor leader very involved in the Democratic Party former House Speaker the late Jim Wright was a family friend of ours and when I was a little shaver Lyndon Johnson was majority leader of the Senate and when he would come to Fort Worth Johnson would stay at the hotel Texas which is by the ways where the president stayed the night before he was shot and but Johnson would say there and my dad would take me down there and we go down to in the basement where the barber shop was because Johnson always do his hair cut down there and dad would you know he talked to Johnson and say to me and I'm you know five six years old said son a man is going to be President someday and you know what I know I'm five six years old Yeah right dad and dad was right I mean little did we know the circumstances and then I had the the my uncle it was a labor leader he was a Johnson delegate to the 1960 Democratic convention which of course is where Johnson surprised everybody in mr. Sam and ties him to take and accept the offer that kennedy had offered to be on the ticket so so we got quite a bit of history speaking of Kennedy I'm putting a picture of the President on the screen here now Eisenhower was the oldest president American history up to this time surely with the youngest everyone huh huh as a young person what did you make of this handsome new man occupying the White House what's really really interesting the picture you see here is black and white and in our world back then television was lacking white the newspapers of course are black and white now Life magazine has a few color pictures but the picture you have is black and white I remember Harry Truman who's president but the the really Eisenhower's the first one I truly remembered when the president United States President Eisenhower would address the nation I mean he come on television and the world would stop and you'd pay attention and I was telling somebody just today and I can't remember in eight years since Obama has been president I don't think except for when when he announced about bin Laden had been shot and captain Shawn kill I don't I can't recall and President Obama has ever addressed the nation from The Oval Office like but anyway look he was president I was like I like your grandfather he's an old guy bald-headed in kind of grandfather figure and then all of a sudden you get John Kennedy in 1960 who is young and full of vigor which is a phrase that he used to say but but the pictures black and white and I'll jump ahead a little bit in that I got to see the president the day he was shot I was at the hotel Texas for the breakfast and the man I saw there was in color I'd never seen him in color before I mean he had ruddy cheeks he's a big man - and Jacqueline Kennedy I mean she was you know on television and in the picture she looked very petite but she was a I mean very attractive woman was an attractive figure but she was a large woman and that surprised me um you were also high schools Jane oh yeah oh yeah yeah but what but but she was very de mer when she did the truth of why I don't look at there yeah well no they can't say okay I got there all right yeah but you know there's a picture here and this is a part of your band oh yeah trumpet section and you are the young man with glasses the only one with glasses they're on the second row farthest to the left on the second yeah the horn rain glass is there so this is the Eastern Hill High School band a compass that's the trauma section and and there's a story about how you guys ended up being the band to perform at the breakfast because it wasn't originally supposed to be the Eastern Hill High School it was supposed to be TCU Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and the event itself was a dual-purpose in a way in those days Fort Worth Texas did not have a diverse economy and most everybody in Fort Worth worked for General Dynamics it was before they was convair consolidated volte an aircraft plant in fact today Lockheed owns owns the bomber plant but at any rate during those days and my father worked out there at the time they had bid on on a plane bill building a fighter aircraft that became the f-111 but it was called the tf-x that said for tactical fighter experimental and boeing was the other competitor on the bid up in seattle washington and the economy was in such straits at the time that had Fort Worth and General Dynamics not gotten that contract you could have rolled up the carpet and and the city was gone under well Jim Wright I met who I mentioned before with Lyndon Johnson's help had persuaded the president to get behind gentlemen hammocks on their bed so so General Dynamics got the bed and as a thank you Jim Wright persuaded and they see a speaker right there oh I can't yeah you can see it there is there is Jim rod Jim right the fort with congressman later speaker of that grape fella great fella I at any rate he had persuaded the president to make a trip to Texas he and Lyndon Johnson - in Fort Worth the fourth leg of the trip was to thank him for his support because without it the city would have going under the other thing as many of you probably have studied and know about was it the election was coming up the election of 1964 and there was a huge fight internal fight within the Texas Democratic Party between Governor John Connally who is a conservative Democrat and senior United States Senator Ralph Yarborough who's standing next to Speaker right who is very liberal and and it got personal they wouldn't speak as as bad as you know in an American presidential race each day I mean these guys didn't what reason the same hair and so the other part of the trip was at Johnson told Kennedy you know if you're going to win reelection in 64 no president has ever no Democrat as president has ever been elected that did not carry Texas and so you need to come down here and we'll sit these boys down here and we'll make nice and and get them straight and get them on the same page and we'll go down to the ranch and we'll drink a few pearl beers and we get everything squared away so that was a two-fold premise of the trip but I digress TCU Texas Christian University was to be the band at the breakfast and the got to be a little run about was this a political event or was this an official visit by the president now the truth is it was the first time a first official visit by a President of the United States to Texas since 1948 when Harry Truman came in as the sitting president but he came around to campaign in the election of 48 now Eisenhower had I mean pardon me John Kennedy had come to Texas campaigning before he was elected after he was elected he did sneak into the state Sam Rayburn former Speaker of the House had passed away and and the president attended history and run Barnum but it was not a just came in went out so this is a big deal for president nice taste to come and visit Texas and so but because of the ramifications of some people saying it was a political event the Chancellor TCU he began to get a little defensive some of the his crowd was saying I don't know if you want the TCU band to be there and necessarily endorse the president Democratic Democratic function my band director man named Ronnie Martin who had gone and graduated from TCU I'm at Eastern Hills High School in Fort Worth Ronnie Martin was over the TCU band Hall Thursday afternoon I've been Thursday November 21st right well David yeah the day before and he overheard a conversation between the band director Jim Jacobson he was waiting outside his door and heard Jacobson talking to a guy talking to the Chancellor and and he realized what he was hearing was it they were canceling out it would not the Chancellor T she would not let the band appear at the breakfast so mr. Martin Ronnie Martin being thinking on his feet he had a friend in the Secret Service and mr. Martin had been doing some Democratic Party politics so he went around got the phone and called his friend said you don't know it but you know I have a band I got a bandeau you are banned and the guys thought yeah okay so then Ronnie Martin had to go back to the high school my high school convinced the principal Roy Johnson and mr. Johnson said well is this a political event or what and mr. Martin very coy they said well he is the president I did state and so Johnson has the phone up me he says he's about to call the administration building to get permission I will do it so he said so I get a call I say I get a call the loudspeaker comes on the classroom I'm a junior in high school and all band members report to the band hall and so we go down the band all we know was we had a you know football game supposedly gonna play Friday night but why would we be calling on a class four you know so they start passing out this music hail to the chief and mr. Martin says tomorrow morning your job here at the school of 6/3 we're going to get on buses we're going to go down to the hotel Texas and play for the president announce States Wow extraordinary you did not find out about that until Thursday afternoon that's right we're out about three o'clock afternoon we have some some great pictures to show you from the ballroom this is a Chamber of Commerce breakfast so here on the left-hand side of the screen you can see President Kennedy there in the background at the podium speaking and on the very very hard right-hand side of the screen it's probably pretty hard to see but that is where the band is and I'm going to zoom in on the the the far right side and if you look really closely you can just make out some of those shiny tubas in the background and that's one of the only pictures that exist that show any portion of the eastern hills band unfortunately they never appear in any of the TV footage there's no close-up pictures but but you were there that day and shared in that remarkable experience I'm guessing hail to the chief was a pretty easy song oh yeah you played for ruffles and flourishes is what is play for the president knighted States and then hail to the chief and 64 members of the band and they lined us up against that back wall in two rows and mr. Martin stood on chair and he was looking over at the kitchen we're The Secret Service guy was going to give him the high sign when the president walked through the doors and we'd play hail the chief which we did there is a the local independence station KTVT channel 11 at the time did the live pick up it was broadcast live the breakfast and you hear the announcements mention the eastern hills high school band will break out playing hail to the chief and so that I guess the best documentation we had that we were there are memories well we're going to actually look at that moment the crowd is cheering pretty loudly for the president so you can't really hear Haledon achieve that clearly but you are hearing the the smooth trumpet sounds of John Sparkes yesterday old high school band let's take a listen and a look here comes the president alright pause that Wow an extraordinary moment for you to get to see the president but also play for him at the same time it was you've already described what he looked like in Mersin but just give us a sense sitting there at the far back of that ballroom just what that experience was like when the president well we didn't get to see him as he walked in we're having to watch the band directors leading us playing hail the chief and then we but then we got to sit back and watch and even from back there again as I described him he was in color he said almost larger than life and we also way jackie had not come down she was late and so when she finally came in where we had been rehearsing did a lot of show tunes back to him and played everything's coming up roses for her when she came in but it was really something to see them in and we're again you saw from the photograph where were the very back there back against the wall but after the breakfast we got to go out on the street and I was within you know four or five feet of the president there is at the speech and I of course was very attended to what he had to say because he praised his Jim right he also Jackie Kennedy was very popular its fashion trends I mean here was a young woman instead of Mamie Eisenhower and her little bun hairdo you had a stylish young Jackie Kennedy and he started out by saying that he often tells people he was the one that accompanied mrs. Kennedy to Europe to France they made a trip to the continent and and then he said turning to President Johnson said nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear because all the ladies water our Jackie wore it's worth noting John that while the entire ballroom was munching on steak and eggs they didn't feed the thing is they but but our drum major Vicki Reece after after the breakfast azar where the president leaves mr. Martin let said go down on the street and you can see the president and Vicki went up to the table and she stole a roll off his plate he didn't eat my cheese that morning and she kept it for forty some odd years to the refrigerator find just disintegrated into black nothingness but there you this picture here that's a pretty good view of what the president I was you know I could have taken that picture I didn't but that's how close I was to him it was amazing no security like we see today and I mean I'll never forget it I just won't it's because I mean within a few hours we're back at school and we get the word he's going to Dallas and he's dead and here you know at that young tender age I had not experienced death I had a grant one of my grandparents had died but here was somebody and two weeks later by the way there's guy in the Bandit commit suicide and but it seemed like young this ushered in everything related to the offense unrelated well there's another story but if anybody's conspiracy buff I'll tell you that one too if you want it but it's not really it's not really related assassination at all I want to put a picture up here because this is on Main Street during the Dallas motorcade see thousands of people it was estimated that about two hundred thousand turned out now in Dallas to greet the president John you were very politically astute so you were certainly aware of some of the hostile activities and absolutely did you have any concern about the president's safety that day not really although it's really interesting as we were waiting for the president to rhyme in the ballroom the talk was about assassinations and we're we're kids in high school but ironically if you go back and you watch the broadcast of the KTVT announcer who's trying to wax and fill time waiting for the president to enter what's he talking about not only is he talking about the route that the president is going to take but he's talking about presidential assassin suits it's uncanny the foreboding of it all it's interesting this rarely gets broadcast but that he actually cites William McKinley shoot insurance no one as the last presidential assassination now not realizing that a couple of hours later the next nomination in the history book an extraordinary moment if you ever have a chance on on YouTube to look up that TV footage of the Fort Worth breakfast and hear the announcer it's really really is remarkable certainly take us back you you said you went back to school how did you find out about the shooting went to American history class and that was a fourth year we changed out of our band uniforms and gunner jeans and the is fourth period American history and mr. Mitchell and we had a split lunch period we our class you got thirty minutes then you go eat lunch and you come back in face class well at the lunch the mr. Johnson the principal again interrupted the loudspeaker and said that he knew many of the band members had seen the president morning but they just got a report that the President had been shot in Dallas and we're sitting at lunch eating and then he turned on the radio and we heard then the confirmation that not only had been shot we had been shot and killed and for the rest of the day we continued to go to our classes and we would you go to class had passed you know they had six periods I guess it was a finish up of the history then I I can't remember shooting glassed class I can't remember the one before I had to that but it was a long time ago all time yeah but anyway we would go and they would play the radio coverage over the loudspeaker and everybody's just in silence you know he passing the whole way to go your next class and we just everybody just and then we went home that evening and glued to the television coverage which is phenomenal this is an Eastern Hill actually North Dallas High School but I would assume that it campuses all across the country seems like this occurred where the flag is lowered to half-staff North Dallas High School as a friend of mine Billy Kennedy who was a junior at North Dallas high school I didn't know Billy then but Billy got to go down and see the president in the motorcade on the way between Love Field in downtown Dallas and he was Billy's friend was a the nephew of Dallas police chief curry and Billy actually got to shake Kennedy's hand when it came in the hell the bouquet stopped and so that's Billy's high school area and he has an extraordinary story he ended up in the emergency room at Parkland when also it was shot yeah Billy really saw both ends of the story you got to shake the president's hands and well my name is Kennedy - mr. president and then on Sunday mornings playing touch football Leaphart breaks his collarbone we the motor Parkland and they're working in the ER on Billy and all of a sudden the doors swing open here comes Oswald on a gurney extraordinaire we've got an oral history yeah Billy Billy's a great guy now give us a sense you know as a young person Fort Worth the the reputation that Dallas had there was already competition between Fort Worth and Dallas but Dallas Dallas is global reputation suffered a great deal what was it like to experience that well a few weeks early about six weeks I think it was two months six weeks Adlai Stevenson who had been the United Nations ambassador and actually he had been the Democratic candidate against Eisenhower in 1556 were spat upon in Dallas Dallas was very conservative very right-wing General Edwin Walker lived here that he had this group called the John Birch Society very ultra conservative it was a kind of atmosphere of hate Fort Worth was I mean the cities are 30 miles apart and then there wasn't anything really between the two cities today is just solid but but back in Stephen and up Fort Worth was a cow town it was on the Chisholm Trail had the reputation it was called where the West begins and and those of us from Fort Worth Dallas is where the East Peters out and so it was night and day and that the political atmosphere was was entirely different but Dallas is a pretty tense place during those days did you did you feel any sympathy for Dallas with saddled with this reputation city of hate did you feel like the City deserve but that kind of recitation no even then it could have happened anywhere and I resented the fact that there were national commentators that were pointing their finger at at Texas and at Dallas and Dan Rather who later became CBS anchor Bennett he was a correspondent he was here for the assassination and he had done his stories become legend around here that it showed a great school kids cheering and rather said in this thing they were cheering when they learned that the President had been assassinated it was not true the kids were cheering because there were schools being let out because out over here in Dallas and Eddie Barker who is a news director / champ or kick rather out of the newsroom and bored cause a lot of tension between CBS in New York and the local affiliate it almost got physical over the absolutely absolutely and to this day I'm out talking rather a number of times about this and he always wants to tell his side of the story Eddie's dead now but anyway there are a lot of stories that spring up but it became legends well this is a great segue because speaking of news media you had a remarkable and long career in news media you were at the ABC affiliate WFAA on and off from about 70 to 91 something yes yeah and during that time you saved some extraordinary footage of the assassination I'm going to put a little beauty shot of this collection which we are so fortunate to now have in the collections here at the sixth floor Museum at Dealey Plaza but what you're seeing is the original 2 inch videotape of the ABC affiliate WFAA their coverage of the assassination and John you saved this tell us that story well I had first came to I was a junior between my junior and senior year at the University of Texas I was an intern at WFAA that summer of 1968 and saw this this footage I saw that we had about 35 or 40 rolls of 2 inch tape what you look you see there in the shot that that reel in the mill is an hour reel and weighs a ton by the way and generated in those days was a production house as well in our studios we taped commercials most of the commercials were taped in the studio you didn't have the small rope cameras and you had some film production but because we were production house we had about 40 or 50 hours of brand-new two-inch video stock and Mike's repair of the general manager when and when things started coming down he said you know put it up and record everything because most of the coverage was originated out of our building and so anyway I discovered this stuff and then when I went to work full-time of the station in 72 I believe was the LBJ library is created they decided they would donate the footage to harry middleton in the LBJ library so it goes down there and then somebody had the idea they warned it back and it came back and it wasn't soon thereafter that I'm walking in the back of the building and all the tape stacked up parents on the dollies and I asked the security I once want stuff doing back here are they gonna throw it out well I had a conniption hissy fit and that's Texas for I got this is history you know and I saw it you know I told the man he can't do that is variable because in 50 years I'm gonna talk to school in Canada and telling the story about it you don't watch out anyway I got to save this stuff and it was preserved and we later made dubs of it and really I guess even that's an icon really for you guys but because now there was no 64 museum and they've done a great service by the way and what they do here folks and and and that is history but it the coverage for four days you did not have cable television or satellite in Dallas Texas you had NBC ABC and CBS affiliate and independent I'm trying to think I don't think we had UHF then we had a PBS station they call the e TV back then but at any rate for four days unheard of nothing that you saw no commercials but constant coverage out of Dallas and Washington of the assassination the president's service and of course what happened on Sunday morning when Ruby shot Oswald I'm it was phenomenal Audrey owes you a debt of things I've told you many times on this footage that we that we now have in our collection and had John not saved in the early seventies camera interview with Abraham Zapruder taken just an hour or so after shooting his famous home movie we have the first interview with the Newman family there's there's hours and hours of footage of Dallas police headquarters where you see Oswald being marched back and forth essentially much of the coverage that you now see included in documentaries around the world a lot of that originates with these channel eight WFAA tapes and there were no dub no back at that time so if these tapes had been destroyed as they were intended all of that footage would be lost to the ages and so mean is extraordinary that you just I'm just got a stumble on I had a fit if I don't they were gonna I mean I when I found out I just said you really bothered me but now as you mentioned the museum here which opened in 89 and I'm going to show you a picture inside our exhibits and we're fortunate to have the channel 8 collection along with you know 50,000 other artifacts but John back in the 80s when the museum with coming together you actually helped out with some of the footage yes well Robert and Cynthia Mundel or two filmmakers from Dallas and they were commissioned to put together some of the exhibits women from the museum 6/4 first open and I I guess because I kept the stuff from being thrown out I got stuck with being the I guess a curator or whatever way I I had all this stuff I made sure that didn't go back to get thrown out in the trash anymore and in 1983 which would have been the 20th anniversary I persuaded the management to take that footage and we boiled it down and over a Friday Saturday and Sunday night we boiled down 40 hours of footage to about 20 some-odd and I persuaded them to run it overnight just so that people could experience what I'd experienced in the 1960s when it actually happened or watching as it came down and so but anyway I got involved with the museum because in those days because of helping out with the exhibits and I was aware of I when I did this special in 83 I had logged all the tape and they were all the shots were and and so the bundles and I week Allen I said I think I said to Robert Allen it's nti I was able to point them to what I thought were some of the better things and they used in some of the exhibits that you all had the museum was a controversial project because many felt like not only should there not be a museum in this building but the entire Texas School Book Depository should be torn down I think the assassination could have happened anywhere but Dallas I will tell you this and I was a native of Fort Worth but spent most of my live in Dallas Texas and it is home but I will tell you this that Dallas has dealt is very aware of us of reputation it's sometimes a joke sometime it's not very image conscious the Dallas Cowboys by the way they've hit America's Team Dallas glommed onto the Cowboys because they started winning because of this was something positive they could talk about instead of the assassination and so he had that it downs us all about image and and more the image took a hit when the president was shot kill and and so yes you're right the you know let's get level the building we don't want anybody never happened you know well it did happen and and what they've done here is a marvelous job I don't know if any of you have been to Washington DC to Ford's Theater work President Lincoln was shot but they I thought a wonderful job for years Ford's Theater was a private theater but it had finally I mean nobody wanted to anything there and so the federal government bought it for years it was a warehouse through old documents and finally somebody said well let's spruce it up and let's try to make it look like it did when President Lincoln was shot and then in the basement I mean it pales in comparison to what you've done here Steven but there's a nice I think they've done a nice job of trying to document the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln and all and you go call only in America across the street I know again if you've been there but I took my dog there years ago and right across the street from Ford's Theater you can go and you can see the room where Lincoln was taken and was laid in a bed and the pillowcases here there you can see the blood on the pillowcase at all and here was that this you know this is where the president says breathed his last and here's a common wall with an Arby's roast beef sandwich place I mean only in America you know it but I didn't have an Arby's here know without School Book Depository fortunately but yeah it is interesting you mentioned DC hearing Dallas you ultimately ended up working at the ABC affiliate the NBC affiliate and the CBS affiliate and then you went to New York and working for NBC NBC and you were in New York during the 9/11 so our Harris to tell us it's extraordinary that you were in Fort Worth saw the president up close on the day of the assassination and were then in New York covering the following 20 hours now was it a similar type of emotional experience the assassination in night well no 9/11 hit put a fear in me I know that you know there's a lot of fear when the President and President Kennedy was assassinated there was a fear initially that you know I had to be a you know you know you know Soviet and you know we were talking about you know we're gonna have World War II you know we just come off the Cuban Missile Crisis and you know the president you know had been predicated back to plan that already been in place to knock off Castro so there's all kinds of Johnson I think was I think one of the reasons why I even to this day there are some records that are still been sealed I truly believe that that President Johnson who are those records sealed believed that and I don't know what was in them but I believe that he felt like that they could start a world war and that it would be better for those secrets to just say secret till my generation had passed on then it would be to lose numerous American lives and lives all over the world in a resulting war I truly believe it that that was one of the reasons why he wore thanks eel but we know most of it now no but 9/11 was a very different well I was scared I sound scared I was I was producing the election coverage mayor Giuliani had been term limited out and the polls open in New York City at 6:30 that morning and I'd gone in I was I was executive producer over the political yen and I'd gone in and I'm in my office at Rockefeller Plaza and turned on the monitor in my office and I see why our tower cams punched up means a little wisp of smoke coming out on the towers I turn it up in Jane Hansen saying a plane is hit one of the towers and I'm thinking I wasn't least crazy New York Daniel I recover or something you know well I ran down the news room by the time I saw the second one hit and then I saw the Pentagon and what was scary about that was it well as a junior in high school I wasn't so worried about a world war at that young age I guess I thought I'd live forever and everything would be fine but by that time I had a wife it worked on 23rd Street he was closer to the towers and I was and I was I was fearful for her life until I actually got a hold of her I you know I was you know I was a lot of anxiety yeah it was more immediate yeah yeah and now after her I mean it's unbelievable I mean the first time we've ever attacked on on the count of the United States and it was a little bit different feeling you were back here in Texas in Dallas for the 50th anniversary or 2013 and I'm going to put this up on the screen you were with a network or a station called KEXP and you did 12 hours of live coverage on the 50th anniversary and you were on air for a bunch of them tell me a little bit about that 12 hour live coverage well the a bunch of us hold guys this was an independent station they got by to our local anchors from the the hey days of the 70s and 80s and we did this daily newscast and so the station manager said well we got the SAS station coming up can you do something for us and that's it oh yeah yeah so you said well I won't make it big so we went from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. then and there was a we did the live pickup for one hour noon of the ceremony right across the street Dealey Plaza but I I took a lot of the footage that I in cooperation with the sixth floor that you know footage I was already very familiar we didn't have the rights to it but but but you all did and we worked out a deal where you know you gave us permission you didn't have to really dig most of it up because I I had my own pirated copies of it but well that's truth be known but I couldn't do anything with a mother than you know enjoyment oh I guess but at any rate without your cooperation none of it could have happened but we we brought in people we brought in the guy that drove Oswald to work that day long as his name reared guy yeah you Buell West the fresh oh my word we brought in and he tells his story about the curtain rods that I was all had in the backseat of the car and behind his port car couldn't start when I thought it was a carburetor with a one-two carburetor maybe with something else I mean the guy was but we interviewed different people and many of you have heard this 7° to Kevin Bacon or whatever you know you mentioned that you know I was in 9/11 and the assassination well you know Jim labelled the man the hot cowboy had seen the picture were Ruby shoots Oswald with Jim of course was there when I was all got shot but Jim was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor so you know I get we joke sometimes say well where the Forrest Gump of real life Jim I guess I don't know but but it brought you full circle from from being there with your trumpet in the ballroom at the hotel Texas to broadcasting 12 hours 50 years to the day later but I relied on these personal contacts I got mr. Martin he got so the band guys talk about their saying I had a girlfriend in high school her daddy a peg routier dad was the Undertaker that it was stuffed Oswald I mean he was a you know and then he presided excavation and Paul was the wild guy and he if Paul is dead but Patti came in so I used all these contacts and along with the old footage and we we did 12 hours of coverage remarkable I remember and you can still see I think bits and pieces of it on YouTube if you look it up yeah I've gotten I've got a college stuff I want to turn over in the time we have left a little QA so that you guys have a chance to ask Johnson questions so just let's talk about what you want to talk about for a few minutes the cowboy boots in the cowboy hat oh okay well Johnson was a big personified texana so he gave they gave the president some cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and the president would not I mean he you know Jackie said all these trends for ladies but the President Kennedy would never wear a hat and up until that time men wore hats outdoors and so he kind of hesitates when they give him a hat and and he does he starts put on he says now you can come up to the White House on Monday and I'll wear it for you there something you know and but it was a typical John Justin had been the former mayor Justin Boot Company so they were Justin Boots and and so they gave him and they made a joke about how they were going down to the LBJ trains I never got down there for that peace talk with Colin Yarborough but you know say anyway it'll keep you from being bitten by rattlesnakes and also but that was Aztecs and I mean we're we're proud of our culture I mean young you call you know forth is still called Cal town my grandfather laid the bricks on exchange Avenue on the north side there where the packing houses are I mean it's we're proud of being Cowboys and there were some some western saddles for the two kids waiting at the trademart after that we're going to be presented at the Dallas luncheon and that that of course never happened yeah are there other questions you have for John sparks surely someone wants to ask what he believes about Oswald and is go ahead ma'am in the last two to three years of whatever their to call me talks they talking about relationship between the media and the police and a secret policy a spy and though you became prevalent in the company's books you see that role it's changed me and you fast forward today it's completely changed it was cozy back in those days and it was cold it changed things started being different and yet we had a very famous murder trial down here there's a millionaire named Cullen Davis that in Fort Worth it was at a big sensational murder trial was acquitted of killing his stepdaughter and another man but Cohen every day of the trial he walked in and the photographers all take his pictures and they joke back and forth even I mean here you know hey why don't you take my pictures yeah anything well Cullen if you wear the same suit every day we just react the film you know and so there's a relationship between the cops to and it but if you look at it today everything is very controlled down used to be even in sporting events we go in and you know you get the guys in the clubhouse after the game like but everything's orchestrated down they don't you know you can't just have to access even a political visit everything is controlled access is controlled and that's the other extreme of it and yeah maybe there's a little too cozy but I don't know there's got to be a better happy medium in between I think personal opinion good question let's see I was a junior in high school that would been 63 I was born July 47 so 16 I am 16 going on 17 others I started thinking about the conspiracy stuff yeah yeah well I mean you couldn't escape it I mean it was talked about and I've done a lot of studying about it the late Gary Mack who worked at the 6th floor here was a dear friend and he started out being a really probably one of the ringleaders of what we would call the conspiracy but if you will my personal belief is that the you know the planets just aligned I think it was just I think you can't make stuff up like this but but I think that you know Lee Oswald I think first of all the whole thing it said emotion was the fact that you know they did not pre-interview Oswald when the president was making the trip they they knew where these people were in town people like Oswald that had and and they would typically they would go around find out where they were interview them and make sure that you know they they knew exactly where they were every minute while the while the president was in town I was all slipped through the cracks it didn't happen so that enabled Oswald who and and I think by the luck of the draw he gets a job here the depository I mean he worked all kinds of different odd job stuff I I don't think he he got the job I do know this he wanted to he warned the assassinated the president I mean Bob gambling the FBI guy did the lion's share of the investigation he had a friend in CIA and I whoa n down to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City and told the Soviets that he would kill President Kennedy and they lasted Oswald and and say well yeah sure go ahead and try but they did I mean they thought it was a nut case and I truly think that you know I all want to be B of somebody and and he got the opportunity Jack Ruby was another person we were talking about before the broadcast here that he wanted to be at somebody and so after the president got killed I mean he he was an emotional basket case he felt for mrs. Kennedy and but he was going to write that wrong and I don't buy into the conspiracy I've read the Marklin the the magic bullet but the one thing we did story a few years ago what was the fellow's name out of Baltimore that said that the missing shot was the first one that hit the light standard next Thomas yeah Mac Hollen yeah and I went even up to the city the story was that the missing bullet was the first one that Oswald got buck fever you know when you're shootin going deer hunting and that he got so excited when the when the car pulled around the corner from Houston on the Elm that he actually hit the top of the traffic signal and so we went and tried to see if the city had any records if we had been replaced or if we could find you know go up there and you know try to see we could find you know led there on the top of the traffic signal well there this guy named pin Jones was the Midlothian paper and he would take tourists through Dealey Plaza and say well here's her government number eight was he was down in the sewer and all this stuff I don't badge man I don't buy the badge man stuff either I think I think there are a lot of people that want to have explanations for some of this stuff I just don't think it's there yeah ed Hoffman yeah you know Gary mackay-steven just eight millimeter and you'll know the name of the old guys : but it shows a wide shot of the depository and Gary swirly you can see little speck going from you know down the hallway here to this Robert yeah and I said Gary come on I mean you know eight millimeter film is a millinery wide that's a piece of dust or something you're looking at and I truly I I mean I think I was well did it I think he did it by himself I think he wanted to be a big shot his brother has said that he thought Castro was going to invite him to come to Cuba and be a national hero he always want to be a big shot and I believe that I believe that through a uncanny series of circumstances it happened one of the you mentioned ed Hoffman just to clarify that you know one of the problems that has been raised with mr. Hoffman's story he's deceased now but he didn't come forward for many years four decades after the assassination and any time an eye witness comes forward 15 20 years later it always makes their story more skeptical especially if it's a rather explosive account that they actually saw someone firing a shot from the grassy knoll there's also as I recall an issue about where he said he was standing and what his perspective would have actually been in 1963 versus when he took book authors and documentarians up there in the 1980s they're just there are some problems with mr. Hoffman's story although there are plenty of people out there that believe he did see something but he was just ignored because he was a deaf-mute and unable to communicate effectively at the time but you know it's one of those things for every eyewitness there's always going to be two perspectives two camps as far as what you believe and if you're if you're skeptical but that's that's really all the time we have tonight or we're going to be back next week for our last installment and I'm going to talk a little bit about this building and the history of the museum and also take whatever questions you have about this subject but I hope you'll join me in thanking John Sparkes for being our guest speaker tonight regarding this has been fantastic thank you for thank you for letting me visit with you I appreciate y'all are up in Ontario is that right y'all drive up truffle blue jay fans is it snowing up there oh wow yeah but well thank you for for letting me tell you so my war stories I enjoyed it all right folks we'll see some of you next week I hope take care all right [Music]

Channel: SixthFloorMuseum

Views: 15,122

Keywords: John Sparks, Sixth, Floor, Museum, Dealey, Plaza, Dallas, Texas, JFK, John F. Kennedy, assassination, Stephen Fagin, Fort Worth, marching band, WFAA-TV, Hotel Texas, Eastern Hills High School

Id: oqhJnrlD54U

Length: 50min 12sec (3012 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2017