52 minutes of live audio from the ABC Radio Network on the day of JFK's death (Friday, November 22, 1963). JFK-Assassination-As-It-Happened.blogspot.com
Getting ready to get on the bus from school that Friday afternoon...we hear a teacher scream from down the hall...my teacher sends a girl down the hall to see what's going on...she returns to the classroom..and says she heard that "President Kennedy's been shot!" On the way home...someone flashes his headlights at my bus...I'm behind the bus driver...he opens his window..and the driver shouts that"Kennedy is dead...they just said it on the radio!!!" Seems like only yesterday...
I was 9 years old then and remember it well. Classes stopped and the radio was piped in all the classrooms through the intercom. I remember all the crying when they said he died... even all my grade school classmates cried. Back then all news was real news, even on TV. Not many TV stations and all black and white. All went off the air at midnight, with the national Anthem being played. All news back then was just what they taught us to do back then: "who, what, where, when, how." "Nothing but the news."
I was only six when President Kennedy was killed. The thing I remember the most is how upset the adults were. My mother burst into tears when the news came that President Kennedy had died. It was a long and gloomy weekend.
I was only 5 months old, but my brother had a birthday the next day. It seems my mom said they had a party, but sure wasn't much of one. I don't remember it first hand, but everybody was very sad.
@@TheBrooklynbodine I was in 7th grade and we were changing classes when we got the news. At that point, school was dismissed. That Sunday was the first time I heard the Navy hymn. It's stuck with me all these years.
This live radio broadcast is in my opinion, the best and most dramatic of the radio flash reporting that day. These voices, national radio professionals shaking with shock and grief yet keeping it together is one of the most dramatic narrations of a tragedy in broadcast history. At around 2:10 into the bulletin, Nick George comes in with the first announcement Kennedy had been hit and while starting to read "It is believed... " he mutters almost silently "God" under his breath at seeing the rest of the content and hands it to Gardner saying "Don...you better read this..." Just a terrible, terrible day.
I was 8 years old when it happened I remember I was in school we were watching a national geographic film in our teacher's classroom when the school principal announced over the intercom that the president had been shot, a little while later when we were getting ready to go home, the principal announced over the intercom that the president was dead, I don't remember a lot of things of things that long ago but I remember that as clear as if it was yesterday I'll never forget it just like 9/11.
No mention - that I heard - how Jackie Kennedy originally started crawling out of the back of the car, until Secret Service pushed her back in and the car sped off to Parkland Hospital.
At 45:55, there is a bulletin given in Spanish by someone from Radio New York Worldwide Spanish News Service, which seems unusual for 1963. Also, it's interesting how long ABC stuck to the reporting that Johnson had been wounded, which they repeat at 50:20. Fascinating stuff.
Did ABC have a separate fulltime Spanish network either for it's affiliates or on shortwave? I imagine this brief report on the network was to direct people to this service???
Joe Postove No, this had nothing to do with ABC. This recording comes from a shortwave station "Radio New York Worldwide" which had the call letters WRUL and this shortwave station was *monitoring* ABC's coverage because they had an affiliation with them. Thus, what we're hearing is a version of coverage we would have heard if we'd been listening to a shortwave set. The news director, who I believe is the announcer we hear doing their cut-ins, was Mitchell Krauss who later went on to a long career at CBS Radio doing top of the hour newscasts.
When the first bulletin rolled off the wire, the senior ABC radio manager told Gardiner to get into the studio and lead the coverage. A great and logical choice. Gardiner was calm and professional-set the right tone for ABC’s broadcast. Gardiner’s superb work was on par with Alan Jackson and Dallas Townshend of CBS. By comparison, NBC Radio’s coverage was somewhat disorganized until Edwin Newman was sent ti the radio side to anchor
@@garypounder3592 I think Jackson's intentional omission of the Clint Hill quote "He's Dead" substituting it with "...escorted the president into the hospital..." takes his reporting professionalism down more than a notch. Everyone covering the story read the comment at least once.
At the start, Bob Clark couldn't use the radiophone. Merriman Smith was next to the phone, and when the shots rang out, Smith grabbed the phone and started to dictate copy to the Dallas UPI office. Smith stayed on the phone until the radio car arrived at Parkland. His reports on JFK being wounded came around 12:39 CST. Don Gardner's announcement came at 12:35, and was the first national word. The first news went out at 12:32, in Dallas, where WFAA Radio reporter John Allen, who had been listening police chatter which mentioned the hits on JFK and John Conally, went on his air with the story. Clark had to wait (as well as the AP's Jack Bell) until they could get a phone at Parkland Hospital.
Some of his initial words in the first report were cut off by Nick George as, in his overanxious state, he talked over Clarke saying "President Kennedy was shot and critically, perhaps fatally, wounded... I think Clarke's reporting was amazing. Just a few, scant minutes after seeing the limo pull up to the emergency room and witnessing Kennedy's blood spattered, flaccid, all but pronounced dead body lifted from the car and wheeled in, he was able to provide lucid and comprehensive reports of the events. I don't think any reporter was closer to the wounded president and witnessed the graphic images of his condition than Clarke. Just a few minutes after, he began composed reporting. Think about that. Just amazing poise and control.
"5 bells" was AP wire code for the highest importance news bulletin. I used to work in newpapers and radio and heard it only once and it makes your blood run cold when it happens.
How arrogant of these eyewitness people to say there was three shots, when every professor of youtube knows there was at least 5. The Warren comission must have bought them.
Dr. Robert McClelland ...one of the first doctors to attend to JFK at Parkland Hospital in Dallas says that President Kennedy was still alive and was trying to breathe when he was brought in...and that his heart rate was normal.....
It was agonal breathing...spasmodic and not deep, rhythmic breathing. McClelland also said a portion of the right lobe of the President's cerebellum rolled out of his head onto the stretcher. He knew immediately the wound was not survivable regardless of his breathing or heartbeat.
45:55 De tantos documentales que he visto sobre el asesinato del presidente Kennedy, escucho como dan la noticia por onda corta para latinoamerica. Es la primera vez que escucho como se dió la noticia en español ese día de 1963 y me dió mucha emoción, es como retroceder en el tiempo y estar en ese día oyendo las noticias por radio en vivo. La próxima vez que este leyendo los diarios de esa fecha en la hemeroteca nacional, estare tambieb oyebdo este audio para estar en una verdadera maquina del tiempo. Saludos desde Lima.
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