Remembering JFK Breaking News

November 22, 1963

‘Hey Rodger, did you hear, the President’s been shot and the Governor’s been killed.”

I was in Albuquerque heading back to my dormitory room at UNM when a buddy delivered those words.   I wondered, why would anyone want to shoot UNM’s President Popejoy or New Mexico’s Governor Campbell?

It did not take but a few minutes for me to figure out what was really happening. In the lobby of Coronado Hall folks were gathered around a radio and the black & white TV. 

Not knowing what to do, I headed for the Anthropology Lecture Hall for 1:30 Sociology class.  

Dr. David Varley came in the side door, walked up to the green chalkboard, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote “No Class” turned and walked out the door. 

He didn’t say a word. 

He didn’t have to.

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In those days, reporting news as a bit different that it is today.  First word of the shooting came from radio stations across the country who heard clanging bells on news wire teletype machines.

UPI’s Merriman Smith, dean of the White House Press Corp, was in a vehicle provided by the phone company that was used for the pool reporters.  Pool reporters are those trusted to tell their colleagues what happens - because there's not room for everyone in one car (or bus or plane).   Smith, sitting in the front seat, had first access to the radiophone. He recognized the sound of gunshots, grabbed for the phone and had the operator call the local UPI Dallas Bureau.  

As a side note, in those days there were two very competitive wire services, UPI and AP.  UPI has since gone away.  AP, a cooperative of member media outlets, continues.

Here’s what the UPI teletype was doing at the time, and how UPI broke the news.  UPI’s wire was being used by another bureau when the New York headquarters broke in with the bulletin.

The Minneapolis bureau wanted to correct something they had said, and New York told all bureaus to "UPHOLD"… New York (NX) told Dallas (DA) to take over the wire "IT YRS".  Atlanta’s bureau then started filing a correction to an earlier story. Again all bureaus were told again by headquarters to "UPHOLD".

The Associated Press reporter, Jack Bell, Smith’s biggest rival, was in the back seat of the same vehicle along with Bob Clark from ABC News.  Bell pounded on Merriman Smith’s back, demanding to have the phone, but Smith did not relinquish until arriving in the parking lot at Parkland Hospital. 

First word on the Associated Press wires came via information phoned in to the AP’s Dallas Bureau from one of their staff members, Ike Altgens, who on that day was taking pictures for the AP photo service.  As recalled in an AP book on the assassination, "The Torch is Passed..." Bob Johnson answered the phone.

Johnson moved up the AP ladder, becoming Managing Editor for the worldwide operation. He moved to New Mexico years later and was a guiding force for freedom of the press and open government for many years.