11-22-63.......what were you doing when you heard the news

[gregg75]

Most people seem to remember what they were doing that day.....when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot. What station(s) did you hear it on (TV or radio)? Do you remember what was going on in the days that followed?


I was just a lad then, but would be interested in reading your posts and thoughts.

 

[searadiofreak]

I was exactly four years old at the time, just before the age where most would remember. (I do have clear memories of the RFK assasination five years later, though). My main point here is that we are rapidly approaching a time window where fewer and fewer people will have any recollection. Perhaps this is the time when the entire story will come out, if indeed there is more to the story. I would predict around the 60th anniversary, which would be in 2023. I also wonder what kind of significance the 50th anniversary will bring, just three years from now in 2013. My guess is lots of specials, but little new information.

 

[Ultimajock]

...I was only two years old at the time (The Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show was on my third birthday), but my very earliest memory -- at least one I can apply a date to -- is seeing Lee Harvey Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby on TV two days after JFK...

 

[landtuna]

I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the rubber floor mats in Radio Central aboard the USS Orleck (DD-886) steaming west down the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

We had tuned the RBO (ship's entertainment receiver) to a Seattle station but did not have it on in the radio shack. Suddenly the door swung open and the Communications Officer literally jumped over me shouting "turn the radio on, Kennedy has been shot!".

I remember thinking how strange "President Johnson" sounded after three years of Kennedy but didn't think too much about the actual shooting.

We had no access to TV at that time even though we were probably within range of some of the smaller coastal towns.

On the following Sunday morning as we passed outside the Golden Gate we held a memorial service for the fallen president. It wouldn't be until we returned to our home port of Long Beach that we'd understand what really happened.

I had no idea then that the new president would escalate the Vietnam conflict and result in my ship, and me, being in-theater for two years come 1964.

 

[Stanislav]

Sounds like I'm about the same age as searadiofreak. I was 5 (would turn 6 in 7 weeks) and had just come home from Kindergarten. My mother was at work, but my grandparents were home. My grandfather was puttering around in his basement workshop when he heard the first bulletins on the little transistor radio he kept down there, and came up to tell us. My grandmother initially refused to believe him (I distinctly recall her muttering "It can't be...it can't be..." over and over). Soon, the TV went on, and stayed on for the whole ordeal (I believe we stuck with CBS -- we were a pretty committed Uncle Walter household.)

I don't recall much about watching the coverage that weekend, but do remember that I creeped my mother out when I kept imitating the cadences of the drummers in the funeral procession on my little toy drum.

Like searadiofreak, I was much more affected by the MLK and RFK assassinations in '68. I was old enough by then to understand what was happening in that tumultuous year (and I had a precocious interest in news and politics already...yes, even at the age of 10). I remember thinking "what is going on?" and started becoming very disillusioned with the grown-ups who were supposed to be running things.

 

[therealjm12]

I was in 7th grade at the time. My class was attending a dress rehearsal for the Senior Play. My older sister had a major part in the play. After the play the vice principal came out on the stage and made the announcement. I'll never forget what he said.
"While you we all here enjoying yourselves this afternoon, President Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas. The President is dead."
What a jerk that guy was. Somehow he passed the blame on us. He eventually got fired. I wondered how he ever got the job in the first place. Anyway, I remember the halls were pretty much silent when we went home and bus ride home was pretty quiet too. My feelings were basically really messed up even for a 12 year old. My favorite team (at the time) the Dodgers had just won the series so I was on a big high. Then our President, who had just taken us thru the Cuban missile crisis, had been murdered. What about Caroline & John John?
My family was pretty much glued to NBC for the weekend. I'll never forget John Chancellor's coverage at the garage when Ruby shot Oswald. I think the events of that week have had a huge psychological impact on my generation. Maybe more than most people realize.

 

[searadiofreak]

On a related note, it was announced tonight that Theodore Sorensen, one of JFK's top aides and apparent speech writers has died do to complications of a stroke at age 82. This goes back to my earlier point that the whole story of JFK's assassination may not come out until all the principles are gone. We get closer to that every year.

 

[gregg75]

therealjim12 Wow, that vice principal sounds like a real nut. Oddly enough though, some were
not Kennedy fans at the time. Sounds like the vice principal may have been one of them.

 

[davalvideo]

I was 13, in an 8th grade class in Winchester, Massachusetts. We were let out early and I hurried home to put CBS on. For the rest of the weekend, I switched back and forth between all three networks, but mostly stayed with CBS. We had a color set even then, but nothing, except local WHDH-TV cut-ins, was in color. I currently own all of CBS's and NBC's coverage (purchased at great cost from the network archives some years ago) and once in a ghreat while, I'll watch a few hours from the weekend's coverage. A few hours, however, is all I can take. Even 47 years later, it's still painful to watch.

 

[Mark Giardina]

I was in 6th grade. Our class was listening to a classical radio performance by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra when station WHAM interrupted the broadcast to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.

Teachers and the principal were in the hallway for about a half an hour when I noticed the American flag in front of the school was lowered half-staff. That is when I said " He died." You could have heard a pin drop. A couple of students thought I was kidding (I was the class clown). I pointed to the flag and then everyone realized I was serious and that JFK had died.

 

[dhett]

I was swimming in amniotic fluid. I'm pretty sure I was so distraught at the news that I kicked my mother.

 

[davalvideo]

Just to correct an earlier post which said that NBC's John Chancellor was in the Dallas Police garage when Oswald was shot. Actually, it was Tom Pettit who was the reporter on the scene. John chancellor was in West Berlin, where he was NBC's bureau chief.

 

[landtuna]

Oddly enough though, some were not Kennedy fans at the time.

You may be too young to remember, or never heard, but the election of 1960 was one of the closest and most contested presidential elections in modern history. Nixon had been Ike's VP for the previous 8 years and was making his big push for the top spot. Kennedy was a Catholic and relative unknown outside New England but came off much more polished on TV than did Nixon. The big thing JFK had going for him was his father's political and business influence and his status as a war "hero" (the whole PT-109 thing).

Common belief at the time was that JFK's father "Honeyfitz" had called in his markers (as an old time politician) and got his boy elected with a lot of voting fraud in Chicago (what else is new?).

Because of his religion, "elitist" New England ties and the back room politics of his father there were a ton of people who didn't like Kennedy. After taking office and appointing his brother Bobby as Attorney General and going after the mob there were even more who didn't like the Kennedys. Added to that was the media crush on JFK and wife Jackie and the whole "Camelot" thing.

 

[Silkie]

Home from school sick that day.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Common belief at the time was that JFK's father "Honeyfitz" had called in his markers (as an old time politician) and got his boy elected with a lot of voting fraud in Chicago (what else is new?).

"Honeyfitz" was the nickname given to JFK's maternal grandfather; the former Mayor of Boston. Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK's father, was the bootlegger and called Ambassador because FDR named him U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain before the start of WW2.

Old Joe's political career died a sudden death when he claimed in a newspaper interview that Democracy in Europe was finished when Hitler was overrunning France and the low countries. Like Neville Chamberlain, Joe Kennedy was an appeaser.

 

[RicoGregg]

I was in 8th grade in San Bernardino, Ca. I was walking out of gym class when I heard another student tell someone that the coach had just said that the President's been shot. I didn't think much about it until I got to my next class, when we were all taken to a larger room that could accommodate two or three classes so that we could listen to the live radio coverage. In those days, TVs in the classrooms were virtually unheard of.

As soon as it was announced that two priests said that JFK was dead, a girl, who happened to live down the street from me, ran out of the classroom sobbing hysterically. About an hour later, we were all sent home and subsequently got the following Monday off for the national day of mourning.

There were a few dunderheads at school who said that they were glad Kennedy died. What can you do?

When I got home, of course everyone was glued to the TV set. I went to my room and scanned the radio dial. Regular programming there was of course totally disrupted.

One of the area's rock and roll stations, KMEN, was playing somber funereal-type music, and was providing frequent news updates. One of the stations DJs from that time, Brian Lord, has this recollection of that day from his blog:

http://www.radiowest.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=7466&sid=2cd2484098cd01778fbaf5cf6b79365c

Last add: As a high school senior in Coronado, Ca. in June of 1968, I got to shake hands with Robert Kennedy the night before he was shot. I was on the ferryboat back to Coronado the next night when I heard the news on the car radio.

 

[oldschooler1]

Brian Lord's blog states this about the first UPI flash:

It was garbled because the person at UPI was stunned.

Actually, it has since come out that it was garbled maybe because the UPI desk in Dallas was trying to override the main UPI feed -- and the two conflicting signals created the garbled copy. This, from Jeff Miller's super-excellent broadcast history pages:

It looks like what that actually is, is a wire fight within the New York office before they actually let Dallas start sending direct. But on the sending teletype there is a "break" key which can be held down and interrupt anything that is going out on the same wire in the same bureau or another one.

Read more here: http://jeff560.tripod.com/upi.html

For a great, very detailed account of those five days, go to your library and check out William Raymond Manchester's The death of a President from 1967. It's about 800 pages. It is eerie, because all the memories are still fresh, and Bobby was still alive. The white house was watching WRC ch. 4 all the time.

BTW, I wasn't even three yet. I rely on my brothers for their recollection of the day.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I was in my second year of college at a small school in south-central Kentucky. My answer may sound somewhat complex, but let me try and explain. Approximately a week earlier in that community, an elderly gentleman had been shot and killed by a young individual. The gentleman had been married to a much younger woman and there seemed to be some real anger about it in the town. On that November 22nd, I was in the vicinity of one of the dormitories when someone yelled out what I thought was, "The prisoner has been shot". I thought he was referring to the person being held on the local murder. As I walked closer to him, I properly understood him to be saying, "The President has been shot". Knowing there were negative feelings about President Kennedy by some, I disregarded what he said, but he continued to repeat it and insisted I turn on a radio. I went into my dorm room and turned on the radio (reception in that area for TV then was usually fair at best and television was not the immediate medium). The radio station that came on was one from the area and what I heard was......"repeating that bulletin from Dallas, Texas...". I had a radio with good reception for being in a dorm and began dialing across the AM band, but each station was giving the same news. People were then starting to come in from from lunch (that area was on Central Time - the same as Dallas) and began hearing the news. Some were stunned........one in particular starting laughing and gleefully stated, "Kennedy is dead". Another became angry and, believing whoever had shot the President was from Cuba or Russia, growled, "They think they can do that to us? We need to go over there and bomb them".

I had a 1 P.M. class. In the classroom, a couple of people had radios. The teacher was aware of what had happened and dismissed the class after only 15-20 minutes. I returned to my dorm room and in a short time, heard the announcement on radio of JFK's death. I always remember that as each station and/or network gave that dreaded news, the National Anthem was played.

When I look back on that specific afternoon, I remember the various reactions of the people. The one who was angry and said we needed to bomb the country where the shooter came from was someone who I never heard say one thing of that nature before or after and the guy who was laughing and seemingly rejoicing actually came from a state in the eastern part of the country.

 

[davect]

I was swimming in amniotic fluid.

Me too. I wouldn't be born for another 3 months.

 

[Ultimajock]

One of the area's rock and roll stations, KMEN, was playing somber funereal-type music, and was providing frequent news updates. One of the stations DJs from that time, Brian Lord, has this recollection of that day from his blog:

http://www.radiowest.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=7466&sid=2cd2484098cd01778fbaf5cf6b79365c

...ironically, Brian Lord & The Midnighters had recorded a surf novelty record for Capitol titled "The Big Surfer," the title character turning out to be JFK. http://www.united-mutations.com/l/brian_lord_and_the_midnighters_vigah.htm Frank Zappa wrote the thing, too...