“THREE SHOTS WERE FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S MOTORCADE”: REMARKABLE ARCHIVE OF HISTORIC BREAKING NEWS OF THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION ON ORIGINAL ASSOCIATED PRESS INTERNATIONAL TELETYPE SHEETS, 11/22/63
(KENNEDY ASSASSINATION). Original Associated Press International teletype reports of the Kennedy assassination. Dallas: Associated Press International, 1963-64. Original teletype rolls, divided into hundreds of segments, of varying lengths. Housed in four three-ring binders and five manila folders. $15,000.
Original Associated Press International teletype with breaking news of the Kennedy assassination, beginning with text from Kennedy's (undelivered) speech and followed soon by "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas," followed by accounts of his being rushed to Parkland hospital. Teletype segments go on to record the president's death, the search for the assassin, the swearing in of Johnson as the new president, the arrest and shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald (and later the arrest of Jack Ruby), and Kennedy's funeral.
This initial bulletin regarding Kennedy on this scarce Teletype quotes extensively from Kennedy's undelivered speech, which was to be delivered at the Trade Mart in Dallas. On the fourth leaf in the first binder is the notation "Here is a bulletin from Washington: The Senate has recessed. It said it was doing so pending developments in the shooting of president Kennedy in Dallas." The initial reports capture the chaos and confusion of the situation as the details slowly unfold. The fifth sheet is the first bulletin with any details: "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas. He was shot as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed the President. She cried "oh, no" as the motorcade sped on. An Associated Press photographer, James Altgens, reports he saw blood on the President's head. The A-P man said he heard two shots but thought someone was shooting fireworks until he saw the blood on the President. Altgens said he saw no one with a gun." Shortly after, bulletins detail the shooting of Texas governor John Connally, the attempts at Parkland hospital to save the President ("Hospital officials said they had given the President a transfusion of B-positive blood from the bank and were calling for fresh blood of that type to have it ready if additional transfusions were needed"), the summoning of priests to the hospital, and the heartbreaking and brief "Flash— Two priests say Kennedy dead." Subsequent bulletins in the first binder record the search for the assassin ("The man being sought is described as a white man, about 30, of slender build, and weighing about 165"), Oswald's arrest, domestic and international responses, Johnson taking the oath of office ("Johnson asked as many of the White House people as possible to crowd into the executive suite of the plane to witness the ceremony. Judge Hughes wept as she administered the Presidential oath to Johnson"), and the developing official response to the tragedy. The next three binders of bulletins, from November 22nd through the 24th, detailing events up to shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the arrest of Jack Ruby and the ongoing preparations for Kennedy's funeral. The fourth binder in the collection is devoted to AP bulletins from the day the Warren Commission official report was released in 1964. Five additional folders contain: the Associated Press bulletins from November 23-24, 1963 summarizing the assassination facts as known at the time; AP bulletins from November 25-30 relating to Kennedy's funeral; AP bulletins from December 1963 relating to the assassination; AP bulletins from March 1964 detailing the conviction of Jack Ruby for the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald; and AP bulletins from November, 1964 on the one-year anniversary of the assassination.
Occasional notes and underlinings, numbers stamped on verso; one bulletin written out by hand in blue ink. A remarkable archive.