ABC News: ‘Lee Harvey Oswald Has Been Shot (1963)’

Source:The Guardian– the day that Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, in 1963.

Source:The Daily Press 

“James R Leavelle, the detective who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when the killer of John F Kennedy was in turn shot dead by Jack Ruby, has died. He was 99.

Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby in a corridor of Dallas police headquarters.
JFK files reveal FBI warning on Oswald and Soviets’ missile fears
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Leavelle’s daughter, Karla Leavelle, confirmed her father’s death to the New York Times.

Kennedy was shot dead on 22 November 1963, as he passed through Dallas.

Reporting for the Guardian, Alistair Cooke wrote: “The motorcade was going along slowly but smoothly when three muffled shots, which the crowd first mistook for fireworks, cracked through the cheers. One hit the shoulder blade and the wrist of Governor [John] Connally [of Texas] who was taken with the president to the hospital, where his condition is serious.

“The other brought blood trickling from the temple of the sitting president. His right arm flopped from a high wave of greeting and he collapsed into the arms of Mrs Kennedy, who fell unharmed. She was heard to cry ‘Oh no’ and sat there all the way cradling his head in her lap.”

Kennedy was declared dead at Parkland Hospital.”

From The Guardian

“LEE HARVEY OSWALD HAS BEEN SHOT! (WFAA-TV COVERAGE)”

Source:David Von Pein– WFFA-TV News in Dallas, bringing ABC News’s coverage of Lee Harvey Oswald being transferred from Dallas city jail, to county jail in 1963.

From David Von Pein

A crazy month November, 1963: First the President of the United States, Jack Kennedy is assassinated, the National Football League suspends its games the following week, and then the man who assassinated President Kennedy, is killed himself.

November, 1963 sort of looked like the world was coming undone and perhaps the last time that president’s were allowed to be that open and vulnerable in public. And that security was even tightened for people suspected of killing high-profile people whether they are politicians, or other celebrities.

Great books and documentaries have been made about these stories and the Federal Government thought they figured out how to deal with people who are so intent on assassinating politicians. But they let someone slip through in 1981, when John Hinkley was almost successful in murdering President Reagan, when the President was leaving a hotel at the Mayflower in Washington. All of these events have made the American presidency less public and more closed to the American people.

A lot of people, columnists like George Will and others say and believe that the 1963 JFK Assassination was the end of the 1950s. And that assassination brought in the radicalization of the 1960s. And brought in a fairly violent decade. I and others would argue that a lot of that radicalism was necessary at least as it had to do the with civil rights movement and then later the anti-Vietnam War movement.

A lot of people were simply murdered in the 1960s that no one except for perhaps the haters of those murder victims see as positive things, like President Kennedy, Dr. Martin L. King and later Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

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Theodore White: The Making of The President (1963)

Source:Amazon– from Theodore H. White.

Source:The Daily Press

“In the 1960s, writer Theodore H. White changed journalism forever by putting the campaign for the White House under a microscope. The first of his bestselling series on presidential elections, The Making of the President, 1960, earned a Pulitzer Prize and became a TV documentary that won four Emmys®, including program of the year. This collection brings together three television adaptations of White’s influential books for a full, in-depth account of presidential politics during the tumultuous 1960, 1964, and 1968 elections.

Produced by Oscar® nominee David L. Wolper (Roots), these programs feature White’s insightful scripts and rare film footage that reveal the winners and losers in unguarded, behind-the-scenes moments. All the backroom deals, convention-floor drama, and campaign strategy come alive again in three historic races: Kennedy-Nixon, Johnson-Goldwater, and Humphrey-Nixon-Wallace. From preprimary jockeying to the final vote tally, these spellbinding narratives dissect the inner workings of our democracy and trace the path to power.

Journalist and author Theodore H. White served as China bureau chief for Time and as correspondent and editor for The New Republic, The Reporter, and Colliers. He won numerous writing awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and two Emmys.”

From Amazon

“David L. Wolper’s documentary film “THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960”, narrated by Martin Gabel, gives viewers a close-up look at the inner workings of the 1960 campaign for President of the United States, a hard-fought struggle which was won (just barely) by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.

The film made its debut on ABC-TV on December 29, 1963, just a month after JFK’s death.

Directed by Mel Stuart, who also helmed another very fine David Wolper-produced film about President Kennedy — 1964’s “Four Days In November.”

Source:David Von Pein– from Theodore White.

From David Von Pein

The 1960 United States presidential campaign was one of the best ever, because of who ran for President. The Democratic Party nominated the best person they had in Senator John Kennedy and the Republican Party nominated the best person they had in Vice President Richard Nixon. It was literally the best vs the best. Two men that represented the now and future of their party, who were the leaders of their party. It gave American voters a clear choice in who to select to be the next President and who to be the next President early in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The 1960 election gave people another choice as well:Do we want to continue to do what we were doing as a country, have the Federal Government stay the course and not make any big changes, or do we want to try a different path. Senator Kennedy tried and I believe was successful in making the argument that America was stagnating not moving and advancing as fast as it could. And that Vice President Nixon represented this conservative approach of not moving real fast, staying back and seeing how things develop. Where Vice President Nixon tried to make the argument that America wasn’t ready to chart a different course.

Dick Nixon didn’t want to chart a course with a somewhat young and inexperienced Senator that had never been an executive before. Thats the choice that America had for President in 1960. What Jack Kennedy represented for the country was a true vision of where he wanted to take the country and how we would get there. Making the argument that America was sitting still in the 1950s under President Eisenhower who was somewhat conservative. And that the country wasn’t advancing fast enough. And sitting still and even falling behind.

The recession of the late 1950s helped Senator Kennedy make the case that it’s time to move again. And Dick Nixon President Eisenhower’s loyal and influential Vice President represented the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Vice President Nixon I believe didn’t do much to counter this Democratic argument or defend himself. But what he did instead was try to make this campaign about Jack Kennedy’s youth and inexperience. Even though they both came to Congress the same time in 1947 to the House and were friends there. And remained friends when Nixon became Vice President in 1953 and Kennedy was elected to the Senate the same year. And Nixon was only four years older and we’re in the same generation, both men were also Irish.

One difference between Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon, was that Kennedy did offer the country a change of course, that would finish off what was created in the 1930s with the New Deal. But in a different way, focusing on health care, civil rights and tax cuts. Making the case the country was overtaxed.

I believe Nixon didn’t have what’s called the vision thing, at least in 1960. He developed that by 1968 when he was elected President. But 1960 for him was: “This is what’s been working, so let’s continue what we’ve done.”

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