The Kennedy Assassination As It Happened

[The Blackbird]

This coming Friday, of course, is the anniversary of another Friday fifty years ago, when John F. Kennedy was gunned down and the entire world basically ground to a stop. It was the incident where modern news coverage as we know it really came of age. Here are a number of links to footage of that extraordinary weekend:

Two 1963 radio interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald:


Television interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, August, 1963:


Interview with General Edwin Walker, who Oswald tried to assassinate in April 1963:


JFK's speech outside the Hotel Texas, four hours before his death (audio only):


JFK's speech at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast (just sit back and count the ironies):


The Kennedys arrive at Love Field:


Footage from JFK's secret service backup car:



Everybody knows the Zapruder film, but there were at least 15 (!) films taken in Dealey Plaza during the assassination:

George Jeffries film:


Robert Hughes film (the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository is visible in the moments before the shooting):


Mark Bell film:

Elsie Dorman film:


Orville O. Nix film:


Charles Bronson (not the actor!) film:


Jack Martin film:


Patsy Pascall film:


Tina Towner film:


Dave Wiegman Jr. film:


Mary Muchmore film:


Abraham Zapruder film (Note the little girl (Rosemary Willis) running along the grass trying to keep up with the limo. Just as Kennedy and Governor Connally are looking around on hearing the first shot, she pulls up short and, ominously, looks back at the Depository...):



Malcolm Couch film:


Jack Daniel film:


Ernest Charles Mentesana film:


James Darnell film:


WFAA-TV live coverage in Dallas (a local chat show is interrupted by station manager Jay Watson, who ran straight from Dealey Plaza to break the news. Later he interviews eyewitnesses and Abraham Zapruder himself):


CBS live coverage (Walter Cronkite interrupts a soap opera with a bulletin....):


NBC news live coverage:


Cronkite confirms Kennedy's death:


Crowds react in the streets to the news:


Reaction in New York City:


Reaction from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:


Reaction from Dwight Eisenhower:


Reactions from Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon:


Interviews with witnesses to Oswald's escape from Dealey Plaza:


Interviews with witnesses to the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit:


Coverage of Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater:


Interviews with Oswald's arresting officers:


Coverage of Oswald in custody at Dallas Police Department (at one point the camera inadvertently catches a glimpse of Jack Ruby lurking in the hallway!):


Press conference with Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade (Jack Ruby is in the room and corrects him out loud regarding the Fair Play for Cuba Committee):


Intervies with Police Chief Jesse Curry, who expresses confidence Oswald will be safely protected from any would-be vigilantes....:


Air Force One lands at Andrews Air Force Base, President Johnson makes a statement:


David Brinkley signs off for the night:


Jack Ruby is again picked up by the camera as he waits in the Dallas Police Department basement for Oswald to appear...:


Raw news footage of Oswald's murder:


Oswald's ambulance arrives at Parkland Hospital:


Interview with James Leavelle (the detective Oswald was handcuffed to when he was shot) hours after the murder:


Coverage of Officer Tippit's funeral:


Coverage of Oswald's funeral (the pallbearers are reporters):


Coverage of Kennedy's funeral:


Governor John Connally interviewed in Parkland Hospital:


Jacqueline Kennedy's statement of gratitude for all the messages of condolence she received:


Finally, you can take away a man but not his message:

[silentfilm]

WFAA Channel 8 is going to be televising two hours of uninterrupted video on Nov. 22nd of the assassination coverage as it was broadcast back in 1963. Apparently it will be the same video that you posted in the YouTube link above. I'm glad to see that it will be in the correct aspect ratio, and not stretched to 16:9. Some of the stories that they have broadcast in the last few weeks have had stretched video, and some have been displayed correctly.