Mike Doan, a reporter at the Delaware State News in 1963, now writes a column for the News & Record in South Boston, Virginia.
When I covered President John F. Kennedy’s dedication of the Delaware Turnpike on Nov. 14, 1963, I had no idea he would give one of his last speeches.
Eight days later, I was returning to the State News office from a lunch with the staff, when a shock went through the newsroom.
“President Kennedy has been shot,” shouted a lady who had been typing copy on a teletype machine. “I just heard it on the radio!”
The Associated Press was slightly behind on the story, and our AP machine for small newspapers was a little slow. But we kept reading more, and news editor Joe Smyth, the publisher’s son, decided to publish a special edition, even though the daily run had already been delivered.
He made the decisions, but I put the front page together (with help from linotype and other backroom operators) with bold headlines. I remember that the headline typesetter, who did everything by hand, came in and shouted: “We don’t have enough S’s for ‘assassinated.’”
Smyth said to make a mirror image. The newspaper carriers, working by car, took the new edition and made their second delivery of the day.
The next day, I drove to Washington, just to be immersed in the whole scene. A gloomier day you will never find. Besides the rain, there were mourners in front of the White House and deep grief across the city.
It was on TV that I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald the following day. And, at Smyth’s house, I watched the sad funeral procession that Monday.
If a tragic assassination were to happen, I was convinced it would have happened at the University of California, Berkeley, when Kennedy spoke there March 23, 1962.
“Some crazy will try to take a shot at him,” the city editor of The Daily Californian student newspaper told me. She left me to run the office and coordinate coverage, while the rest of the staff went to the stadium to cover the speech. When all was quiet, she told me to come and watch the speech, too, and I did.
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