Showing posts with label Lyndon Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lyndon Johnson. Show all posts

Friday, November 22, 2013

50 Details About Kennedy’s Assassination on the 50th Anniversary


President John F. Kennedy
November 22, 1963
It was 50 years ago today, November 22 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Although Kennedy’s legacy was short, the man inspired hope in a new generation that eventually brought about long sought after changes in this country. Kennedy urged U.S. citizens to take up the challenge when he said “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”


Here are 50 details you may not know about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The President, First Lady & Governor Connally
1) In 1963, it was still not a federal crime to
assassinate a president.
2) The Presidential Limo had been flown into Dallas for the occasion.
3) The presidential motorcade route was decided on November 18 and released to the public shortly after.
4) November 22nd, 1963 was a sunny Friday in Dallas.
5) Over a quarter of a million people lined the parade route that day.
6) Kennedy was in Dallas less than an hour before being shot. His plane landed at Love Field at 11:37 a.m. He was shot at 12:30 p.m.
7) Kennedy took a bullet to the upper back and one to the head. Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr. received one bullet to the body.
8) The bullet that hit Connally had already passed through the president’s body.
9) Mrs. Kennedy had just turned toward the president when he was shot: she saw his face as he was hit.
10) Both men were rushed to Parkland Hospital in the presidential limo.


At Parkland Hospital after the President's Arrival
11) Mrs. Kennedy realized just how severely her husband had been wounded. She tried to hold his skull together until they arrived at the hospital.
12) She gave doctors part of Kennedy’s brain-matter that she had been holding in her cupped hands and remained in the operating room with her husband.
13) The President never revived after being shot.
14) John F. Kennedy was the first president to have the last rites administered by a Catholic priest.
15) President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central time. He was 46 years old: the youngest man ever elected to be President


Walter Cronkite Announcing the Death of JFK
16) ABC Radio released the first UPI bulletin at 12:36 p.m. stating THREE SHOTS WERE FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S MOTORCADE TODAY IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS, TEXAS.”
17) At 12:40 p.m. Walter Cronkite of CBS Television News broke into the popular soap opera As the World Turns with a bulletin stating, President Kennedy has been seriously wounded…”
18) Dan Rather of CBS News was the first to send the report that Kennedy was dead. CBS Radio went with it – before official word had been given.
19) CBS, ABC and NBC covered the assassination for four days – from 10 minutes after the gunshots were fired until the body had been laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery.
20) This was the longest uninterrupted television coverage of a news event until the attacks in 2001 on September 11th.
21) From this weekend forward, America would turn to television for their news.




Mrs. Kennedy Leaving Parkland Hosptial
19) Lyndon Johnson, acting as president, told White House officials not to release the news of Kennedy’s death until after he had left the hospital, saying he feared a conspiracy.
20) Kennedy’s body was removed from Parkland Hospital before the Dallas coroner could conduct the forensic exam required by Texas law.
21) Mrs. Kennedy refused to change out of her pink Chanel suit, which was covered in the president’s blood.
22) Most Americans did not immediately know the color of her suit because television broadcasts were in black and white at that time.
23) The blood-soaked Chanel suit is preserved at the National Achieves and will not be displayed until at least 2103, and then only at the discretion of the Kennedy family.
24) At 2 p.m. Mrs. Kennedy was taken back to Air Force One with her husband’s body, which had been placed in a bronze casket.


Lyndon Johnson Being Sworn In As President
25) Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president at 2:39 p.m. aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway of Love Field in Dallas.
26) The only woman to administer the oath of office to a president was Federal Judge Sarah Hughes aboard Air Force One.
27) Johnson became president 99 minutes after Kennedy died.
28) Besides the new president, the new first lady and the former first lady, Air Force One was also carrying the slain president’s body back to Washington.



The President's Body Going to the Capitol
29) Upon arrival, the president’s body was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an autopsy.
30) The embalming and cosmetic restoration was also done at Bethesda.
31) The President’s body was then placed in the East Room for 24 hours as he lay in repose.
32) Two Catholic priests stayed with the body during this time at the request of Mrs. Kennedy.
31) On Sunday, the flag-draped coffin was taken on a horse-drawn caisson to the U.S. Capitol to lie in state.
32) Over 250,000 people passed through the Capitol to show their respects.
33) Hundreds of thousands lined the streets in mourning.


Texas School Book Depository
34) The gunfire that killed Kennedy reportedly came from the Texas School Book Depository on the sixth floor.
35) Lee Harvey Oswald had begun working at the Book Depository one month before.
36) Oswald was arrested at 2:00 p.m. in a movie theatre.
37) He was not arrested for killing the President. He was arrested for killing police officer J.D. Tippit.



Ruby Shooting Oswald
38) As Oswald was being transferred from the Dallas City Jail to the Dallas County Jail, he was shot and killed by nightclub owner, Jack Ruby.
39) This was the first homicide broadcast live on television.
40) Lee Harvey Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. at Parkland Hospital – exactly two days and seven minutes after President John F. Kennedy, the man he had killed.
41) Conspiracy theories quickly developed. Today almost 60% of Americans still believe the president’s murder was part of a plot or cover-up.
42) Jack Ruby was convicted of “murder with malice” for killing Oswald and sentenced to death. His conviction was overturned. He was awaiting a new trial when he died of lung cancer in 1967.


First Page of the Warren Commission's Report
43) The House Select Committee on Assassinations later concluded that President Kennedy had not been given satisfactory protection while in Dallas.
44) The Secret Service agents had not followed correct procedure to protect the President from a sniper.
45) In 1963, the Warren Commission released an 888-page final report on its investigation into the assassination of the president.


Mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy After Lighting the Eternal Flame
46) Businesses around the country, along with the U.S. Stock Exchange, closed their doors immediately after the President’s death and did not reopen until November 26th.
47) President Johnson declared Sunday, November 25th a day of national mourning.
48) On November 25th President Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
49) Mrs. Kennedy requested that an eternal flame be placed on the President’s grave.



50) President Kennedy is the most recent president to have been killed in office. In all, four U.S. presidents have been assassinated while in office: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy.

~ Joy

For an amazing Then and Now series of photo montages on the event and locations, visit the UK’s Daily Mail online @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509799/JFK-brought-life-photo-trickery.html

Friday, November 4, 2011

And That’s the Way it Is……


Walter Cronkite

Today would have been the 95th birthday of Walter Cronkite – “The Most Trusted Man in America.”   As a broadcaster and news reporter, I had my two news demigods – Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. While Murrow was the father of radio news - Cronkite was the pioneer of broadcast television news journalism. 

Walter Cronkite, Jr
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was born November 4, 1916 in St Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Walter Leland Cronkite, Sr. and Helen Fritsche Cronkite.  Walter grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and Houston, Texas.  He attended the University of Texas but dropped out to take a news reporting position with the Houston Post.

As a WKY Reporter
Betsey Maxwell Cronkite
Cronkite began his broadcasting career at a small radio station, WKY in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  He met his wife, Mary Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Maxwell in 1936 while working for KCMO in Kansas City, Missouri.  From there he worked as a wire service reporter for the United Press (U.P.) 



U.P. Reporter during WWII
During World War II, he was an overseas correspondent for U.P.  His style caught the ear of radio news legend, Edward R. Murrow.  Murrow offered Cronkite an opportunity to move to CBS. Cronkite considered the offer but the United Press countered with the position of foreign correspondent, reopening bureaus in Amsterdam, Brussels and Moscow.  Cronkite turned Murrow down.



With Douglas Edwards and
Edward R. Murrow at CBS
It wasn’t until 1950 that he joined CBS as a television news correspondent and host of “The Morning Show, “ a position he shared with a lion puppet named Charlemagne.




Cronkite at the News Desk
Reporting for CBS
He became the anchor of the 15-minute “CBS Evening News” in April 1962.  In September 1963, the news expanded to thirty minutes, five nights a week.  Cronkite served as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” for 19 years.  From 1967 to his retirement in 1981, the “CBS Evening News” was the ratings leader.

Cronkite receives the A.P. newsflash of Kennedy's death
One of the most powerful early memories of television journalism is of Walter Cronkite, stunned and  holding back tears when the A.P. (Associated Press) newsflash of Kenney’s death was handed to him.  Fighting to maintain his professional composure, Cronkite began “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: “President Kennedy died at 1 P.M. Central Standard Time – 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”

Fighting to maintain composure
Reading the announcement, Cronkite paused, put his glasses back on and swallowed hard in order to maintain his composure.
That moment sticks in the mind, just as Roosevelt’s announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor did for the generation before.


Reporting from Vietnam
Cronkite also reported on the Vietnam War.  Returning from Vietnam after the TET Offensive in 1968, Cronkite told his viewers, "It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate."  When President Lyndon Johnson heard what Cronkite had said he reportedly commented, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”  Just a few weeks later, Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection.



Cronkite at the anchor desk
Man on the Moon
Cronkite is also well remembered for his 27 hours of nonstop reporting during the Apollo 11 moon landing where he exclaimed those immortal words, “Go, Baby, Go!,” when the rocket was launched.


At the news desk
In his office at CBS
A 1972 poll announced that he was the ‘most trusted man in America,” besting the President, Vice President, members of Congress and all other journalists.


On March 6, 1981, Cronkite stepped down from the CBS anchor desk.  His leaving was due to a mandatory age retirement policy that CBS held firm to.






Guest shot on Mary Tyler Moore
After his retirement, Cronkite went on to host numerous television specials.  He appeared on several regular television shows including two news-oriented comedies, the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown. He was a regular on the PBS, Discovery, and A & E networks.



Cronkite always considered himself a working journalist.  His main philosophy towards news reporting was to get the story “fast, accurate and unbiased.”  His autobiography “A Reporter’s Life” was a best seller when it was released in 1996.





Cronkite died in New York City on July 17, 2009.  He was 92 years old. He was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri, next to Betsey, his wife of 65 years.



On the air
As President Barrack Obama said in a statement following Cronkite’s death, "For decades, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice in America..in an industry of icons, Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged. He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down. This country has lost an icon and a dear friend, and he will be truly missed."


"Happy Birthday ‘Uncle’ Walter!" 
And thank you for setting the standard for fair, impartial reporting, the likes of which may never be seen again.
And that’s the way it is………

~ Joy