November 22, 1963

 

  Can you remember what you were doing 45 years ago?  I have problems remembering what I was doing yesterday.
  But I can remember what I was doing 45 years ago today.  I can remember and will remember until I die what I was doing on November 22, 1963. 

  I was at home listening to WRUL – Radio New York Worldwide on a shortwave radio when I heard the announcement that shots had been fired at the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy.

“…The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in a Presidential motorcade…”
 

  I then turned on the TV and watched Walter Cronkite on KCMO (CBS)  channel 5. 

“…While speaking, he was handed a bulletin by one of the news editors, who had just pulled it off the AP wire machine. Cronkite stopped speaking, put on his glasses, looked over the bulletin sheet for a moment, took off his eyeglasses, and made the official announcement:

"From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: (reading AP flash) President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago."

After making that announcement, Cronkite paused briefly, put his glasses back on and swallowed hard to maintain his composure. There was noticeable emotion in his voice as he intoned the next sentence of the news report:

"Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th president of the United States."

With emotion still in his voice, Cronkite then proceeded as he had before in recapping the events after collecting himself, reminding the viewers that it had now been confirmed that the President was dead, that Vice President Johnson was now the President and was to be sworn in (Johnson had been sworn in aboard Air Force One at approximately the same time that Cronkite received word of the President's death, but word had not been passed to the wire services yet), that Governor Connally's condition was still unknown but many reports said that he was still alive, and that there was no report if the assassin had been captured (despite the reports of arrests earlier at the Texas School Book Depository). He then tossed coverage of the events to colleague Charles Collingwood and left the newsroom…”