The Inside Story | Shadow over Dallas

[Music] D Plaza is not some random place all the major thoroughfares and highways in the city essentially meet within that vicinity of that Plaza you really can't go anywhere in the City without having to turn your head at some point and say wow that that's where candy was killed nowas is really such a beautiful city and it's really a friendly outgoing open sort of city it always has been that really cast a shadow it looked as though the entire city had turned out something that is so ingrained in the average American's memory we've seen this image so many times in the movies and on television of Kennedy driving through D Plaza I can remember just as if it's a news reel running out in front of me and then the crack crack of two rifle shots I think did somebody just fire a shot at the president I didn't see any movement at all I didn't have a stethoscope with me but I couldn't feel any [Music] pulses we've had reports of three shots being fired at the motorcade in Downtown Dallas with reports that both Kennedy and Connie been hit president was indeed dead at which time I felt much more like weeping than talking I think that event changed the way we look at everything it was the weekend that America lost its innocence how could anyone in person do that to the president how could he do that to the city of Dallas and to [Music] Texas welcome to the inside story I'm vaa Midwest correspondent Kane fairbaugh the events that occurred here in Dallas Texas in November of 1963 are some of the most analyzed and controversial moments American history for those who were here in Texas to witness the tragedy unfold firsthand it was an event seared into their Collective [Music] memory several of the interviews in this program are with eyewitnesses who are no longer with us as the event recedes further into history their memories of those faithful days here in Texas and how it shaped the rest of their lives and our own national identity are now preserved we share those memories in this program to help us all remember and better understand the impact of the assassination of President John F Kennedy Friday morning 11:00 the presidential jet leaves Fort Worth for a short flight to Dallas where the president has a scheduled lunch in address I was a registered nurse here at Parkland Hospital and on that day I was working in the Outpatient Clinic Department something started to come into view here on the right side and so as I turned my head it was this the president's airplane it was close enough it was within two blocks of the hospital and I could see the presidential seal on the side several thousand enthusiastic Texans are on hand to give the president and Mrs Kennedy a warm welcome I showed up and was gratified to see that it looked as though the entire city had turned out the usual welcoming committee presents Mrs Kennedy with a bouquet of red roses there were some local conservatives and Texas conservatives in general who had developed quite an antipathy to the kennedies we knew that there had been some problems in Dallas previous to this trip and so it was considered it could be some problems that developed but we had no threats no information that would lead us to believe that it was going to be a major problem although the president is running behind schedule he pauses momentarily to shake a few hands which President Kenny was mixed and mingle he didn't like anybody to be come between he and the people Friday 10 minutes before noon the motorcade Begins the 11m ride to the Dallas trademark where the president is to deliver a major address governor in Mrs Conelly ride in the presidential limousine as I no more looked at the crowd here came a car through it with the flags on the fenders and then I remembered reading in the paper that President Kennedy was going to be in town that day traffic stopped in front of me and I sat there for a moment and got out of my car to walk three or four steps to get out from one the triple underpass see what was going on president is now turning on to Elm Street and it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the trademark I was on stemons freeway earlier and even the freeway was Jam pack with Spectators waiting their chance to see the president as he made his way toward the Trade Mark I can remember it just as if it's a news reel running out in front of me I was scanning to the left looking at the very sparse crowd on the left in this rather open area just grassy area and I heard an explosive noise to my right rear I know more than see the president's car and a couple seconds later somebody throws a firecracker I thought turns out it was the first shot I saw the president grabbed his throat and moved to his left I knew something was wrong it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route something I repeat has happened in the motorc route they tell me there was a second shot while I was running I didn't hear it something stung me in the face during the two rer shots and I'm standing there dumb panted trying to figure out what had happened I I think it's somebody just fire a shot at the president third shot had been fired H the president in the head caused a massive wound which caused blood and brains and Bone material to be exploded out onto the car onto me onto Mrs Kennedy I proceeded to get up on the car about that time Mrs Kennedy came up on the trunk she was trying to retrieve some material that came off the president's head went to the right rear I grabbed her and did the best I could to get her back in the seat when I did that the president fell to his left into her lap I got up on top and lay on top behind both of them see this gaping hole in the president's upper right rear of his head his eyes were fixed it appeared to me that had been a fatal wound and I turned and give a thumbs down to the followup car there was no mistaking what it was there were three shots several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time stand by just a moment please something has happened in the motorc route stand by please by the time the third shot was fired I was running across Houston Street trying to find out what happened and there were two people laying over here on the ground ground as I came around I said there're two dead ones to myself but as I got closer around and closer to them they started to get up have shooting Parkland Hospital has been advised to stand by for a severe gunshot wound the supervisor came hurrying from her office she said there's been an accident in the president's motorcade we know it's the presal call see Mrs Kennedy's Pink Suit there's a secret service man spre Eagle over the top of the car we understand governor and Mrs K are in the car with president and Mrs Kennedy and the door just exploded open I didn't have time to think what was going on then came the president's Carriage Jackie was leaning over his head and shoulders in fact her feet were up off the floor and her hands were across him holding on to the railing on his left side and there was a huge exit wound right below his atams Apple I didn't have a stethoscope with me but I couldn't feel any pulses and just now we've received reports here at par that Governor Connelly was shot in the upper left chest and the first unconfirmed reports say the president was hit in the head the dignitaries who had been in the motorcade were just Milling around in shock the conversations were quiet subdued uncertain and we did not know if president were alive was alive or dead when we entered the hospital and almost the first thing we saw was just a a group a wave of nurses coming down the hallway and crying hysterically and we knew immediately the president was dead as the time went on the word obviously spread through the crowd and there were more tears and I would have been crying too if I had had leave to do so instead I had to save my tears and just broadcast what I saw so we're now going to switch you to Sid Davis at the hospital in Dallas Jim uh we have just had the official word from Malcolm kilduff the associate presidential press secretary that President Kennedy is [Music] dead as the Press Corps covering the rapidly changing events in Dallas tried feverishly to provide the public with accurate information reporter Sid Davis with the westing house Broadcasting Company had an upclose view to an iconic American moment VA National correspondent Steve Herman met with Davis to talk about his role in an event immortalized in a photograph how did you end up getting from Parkland Hospital out back to Lovefield from the hospital a guy named jigs faer a White House Press office Transportation person said you're going to be a poer you've got to get out of here the president wants to put this on the air you've got to get out of here there's a police car waiting for you outside we went through the streets of Dallas in and out of traffic racing for R Field they didn't want Air Force One to leave without us and we got to Love Field Air Force One was gearing up I boarded the airplane at that point did you know what was going to happen next I followed Lyon Johnson around the airplane as he had met with sta he held meetings right in the immediacy of the Kennedy's death he's holding meetings talking about what we're going to do he picks up the phone he calls Bobby Kennedy the president's brother and says I think we have to go back to Washington Mrs Kennedy agreed she did not want the body to remain in Dallas because it would have meant an autopsy a delay she didn't want that to happen why do you think it Johnson wanted to immediately take the oath in Dallas and not do a ceremony back in in in the white house he saw the problems of going back to Washington that that would take three or four hours then there would members of Congress would get involved and say we're going to have a ceremony uh we're going to do this or do that and Johnson didn't want that Mrs Kennedy didn't they wanted to have the swearing in the only way to do that was to do it in Dallas and this there was decided to do it that way LBJ made that decision I heard him say we're going to take the oath here Johnson insists that Mrs Kennedy in her Blood Stained dress stands next to him he arranged the photograph why did he want her in the photograph with her Blood Stained dress right next to him when he was being sworn in I don't think the blood stain dress bothered him he want her in the picture he called her he put his arm on her shoulder and he called her at one point he called her darling you stand here Mrs Johnson stands here he knew she had to be in that picture what she was thinking was I've lost my husband but she was willing to do all of the things Johnson was telling her to do my judgment that she wanted to be in the picture you had to wait for Kennedy's body to arrive to be loaded into the plane but Johnson wants to fly back immediately you were asked to stay on the plane and fly back to Washington but you did not why no I I volunteered to get off and give the pool report there were 40 some White House Correspondents and since I was the only Pooler in that little group I volunteered to stay there and give the pool report to the rest of the White House Correspondents this wearing in ceremony took place in the presidential suite of Air Force One the large Boeing 707 fan jet that brought the president to Dallas today when did it hit you about the enormity of what you had witnessed that day the White House Correspondents have a reputation for the bottle and going back to Washington that night about 11:00 p.m. not a single one of the 50 reporters had a drink the most unusual thing the stewardess has turned out the lights and brought pillows so that we could sleep we arrived in Washington about 4: or 4:30 a.m. uh and I went immediately to Andrews Air Force Space to see what was going on and began preparations for the morning broadcast and uh I saw Mrs Kennedy come arrive at the airport sitting with the casket in the Lemoine sitting beside her and she had her hand on the casket I could see the red red dress and sadness of what had taken place that day and uh I wrote my first story that way I went on the air and I quoted the words of Robert Frost I said the woods are lovely dark and deep I have promised to keep and many miles to go before I sleep and with that this is Sid Davis reporting from the White House for many in 1963 word of the assassination of President Kennedy reached them by television a relatively new and unproven medium for news coverage the events in Dallas as reported by those covering the tragedy became a case study that guided news organizations and how they reported on all the major situ ations that followed I worked at krld AM FM and TV also associated with the Dallas Times Herald when radio reporter Bob Huffer set out to cover President Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas it marked a new shift in the way his organization was covering a live news event up until then I had done radio broadcasts from many scenes but that was the first day we actually marshaled our uh television mobile facilities newspapers with daily Edition in the morning and evening were still popular sources of news and information recalls former Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter Bob Sheffer they didn't just qu just quite didn't believe it until they saw it in the paper and then that kind of made it sort of official and uh from that weekend on of course uh it would be television would be the place where most people got their news what was on television during a 4-day ordeal from the time Kennedy was shot to his funeral in Washington was a mixture of fact speculation and unfiltered drama as millions of people watched events such as the killing of suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald unfold on live television through much of that coverage Huffer says he tried to be calm in A Storm of unfolding events amid a sea of misinformation we were concentrating during all of this time on reporting things as calmly as possible in the resulting coverage a a steady stream of facts about the suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald came through huffer's competition klif radio news reporter Gary Delon who had a well-placed source inside the Dallas Police Department and he'd say you didn't get it from me you're a liar if you ever mentioned my name but he he would go like this and I'd walk down the hall for a coffee or something and say okay this is a story and I knew this stuff before it never made it publicly and they were all factual what they discovered that it was not a an altogether dignified process people pushed and shoved and shouted and there was a lot of back and forth and I think it caused people to uh wonder about all this buter adds it was the first time the American public saw that process and since then the demand for more information sooner has only increased it was the weekend that America lost its innocence and the country has never been the same since that weekend in Dallas the assassination of President John F Kennedy shook the nation and the Secret Service the car the president was traveling in that day in Dallas is now on display for everyone to see here at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan agent Clint Hill would go on to protect three more presidents but overcome by depression largely because he felt he didn't get on the back of this car a second sooner he retired from the Secret Service in 1975 he rarely spoke about what happened that day in Dallas but in 2009 author Lisa mccubbin requested an interview for a potential book he'd done one interview in 1975 with 60 Minutes That's a classic interview in which he had basically a nervous breakdown on television and from then he went into seclusion but eventually Hill and other agents decided to talk in part to document how the assassination affected them Hill mccubbin and former agent Gerald Blaine collaborated on several books Hill says the release of the books has been therapeutic especially being able to go out and talk to the people about the book answer it a lot of the questions that they have because there are still a lot of questions out there there's no question that we failed in providing protection for President Kennedy agent Gerald Blaine was also in Texas that day but not in Dallas he says a lack of Manpower was partly responsible in 1963 we had 3 30 agents we had uh about 3 four agents on the White House detail the agents were visible but Blaine says they couldn't communicate with each other uh we didn't have radios we operated through hand signals we had to rely on each other to uh to work together as a team author Lisa mccubbin collaborated with Blaine on the book The Kennedy detail she says weaknesses exposed by the Kennedy assassination forced a change in how the Secret Service was funded so it made them realize I think even more how important their mission was um and they were able then to convince Congress to get more money they had been asking for more money for years and years to get more people they knew they couldn't protect the president with what they had agent Clint Hill stayed with the Secret Service after the assassination he rose to the rank of assistant director and witnessed dramatic changes in the way the agency conducted presidential protection one of the most important No More Travel in open autom BS like the one President Kennedy was in that day in Dallas it's everything has changed and yet the agents today are no different than the agents were in 1963 but several months after Hill retired from the Secret Service in 1975 despite the increased protection not once but twice as salant tried to kill President Gerald Ford during separate visits to California and in 1981 another disaster narrowly averted president Ronald Reagan emerging from a Washington hotel was shot by John hinley Jr Mr Reagan was rushed to a nearby hospital for life-saving surgery secret service agent Tim McCarthy was shot in the abdomen press secretary James Brady was struck in the head and seriously disabled but no one died in the attack and McCarthy says the incident led to even more changes after that uh metal detectors were used to screen anyone who gets near the president uh shortly thereafter and the legacy is that since that time there has not been another tech on the Pres on any of our Presidents by the historic assassin which is The Lone Gunman there's no such thing as 100% protection there's always something that develops so I always said you never know it's around that next Corner President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas Texas put the building behind me the Texas schoolbook depository on the map of History despite several efforts to tear the structure down the old Warehouse is now now both a museum and a tribute to President Kennedy's Legacy I do know that it was a real contentious issue for a long time what to do with this site history Professor Jeffrey Engel of Southern Methodist University in Dallas says Community leaders long struggled to balance the reality of the assassination with the way it negatively impacted the city the Kennedy assassination confirmed the the identity of Dallas in American Minds Dallas was a place that was known at the time as a a hateful Dark City in many ways on a national scene in terms of politics so when Kennedy was killed here in Dallas there was this kind of collective oh Dallas that's where things like this happen the Dallas is a toxic environment where extremism can Thrive it was an unfair characterization but it lingered as a dark cloud over this community for decades Steven Fagan is the curator of the sixth floor Museum which now occupies the sixth floor of the former Texas schoolbook depository where investigators say Lee Harvey Oswald fired at at President Kennedy's motorcade we are a historical institution that explores the life death and Legacy of President Kennedy and the broader history and culture of the 1960s the sixth floor Museum situated at the edge of De Plaza opened in 1989 and quickly became a top tourist destination D Plaza is the second most visited tourist attraction in the state of Texas right after the Alamo there are sites in this country that are stained by violence and tragedy Del Plaza is one of those much like Pearl Harbor or the footprint of the World Trade Center and and sites like this allow us to do justice to a tragic event by remembering it properly Fagan says remembering it properly does not mean the six floor Museum draws definitive conclusions about exactly what happened in Dallas in November of 1963 well the assassination like so many other things it's a very divisive topic people typically arrive here knowing whether they believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or whether there was a conspiracy the Kennedy conspiracy theorists still hold a grip on the nation's psyche in some ways that you can go to De Plaza and tell yourself I've heard the story maybe I can piece it together a little bit myself now differently because I've seen it with my own eyes you may be intrigued by the nuances of the assassination the lingering questions surrounding bullet trajectories and medical evidence but at the end of the day something died here and de Plaza sort of stands for that unfulfilled hope and promise that John F Kennedy represented the six floor museum is not just a series of exhibits for visitors to walk through it is also a repository and archive some of the film footage of the moments during the assassination are preserved and licensed by the museum as are recordings of oral histories of eyewitnesses and key figures in the events collectively they fill the sixth floor museum with more than just physical artifacts that help put a watershed moment of the 20th century into perspective historically and locally certainly I think Dallas has tried to come to terms with the dark moment in in its past uh and internalize the assassination in many ways and where we're standing this Museum I think has played a very key role in helping this community kind of exercise the last remaining demons from 1963 thanks for joining us on the inside story you can connect with us on Facebook and Instagram at vaa news you can also visit our website at anytime at voanews.com be sure to catch up on past episode of the Inside Story also on our free streaming service VA plus I'm Kane fairbaugh and we'll see you next week on the Inside [Music] Story

Channel: Voice of America

Views: 146,275

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Id: G5fZ9k-tZDU

Length: 25min 0sec (1500 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2023