48th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination & women’s page coverage
The 48th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s Assassination in Dallas was yesterday. Dallas Times Herald women’s page editor Vivian Castleberry covered the story. Below is a portion of her experience from the book manuscript I am writing:
There was a concern about politicians and safety in Dallas prior to President John F. Kennedy’s visit. On October 24, 1963, demonstrators who were opposed to the United Nations attacked Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. He was spat on, booed and hit with a picket sign. The national media described the event as creating “an ugly impression of America is registered throughout the world.” Texas Gov. John B. Connally Jr. said the demonstration was “an affront to common courtesy and decency. The actions of a handful of people who let their emotions run away with them and are not representative of the hospitality of the citizens of Dallas or the state of Texas.”
The Dallas Times Herald printed a front page editorial: “Dallas has been disgraced. Must our city gain the reputation around the world of being a place where a guest’s life is physically endangered if he expressed an idea of which a belligerent minority mob disapproves?”
Much of the stories from reporters who covered the assassination of President Kennedy were told by male voices. During a 1996 reunion of these journalists, former Dallas Morning News reporter Mary Woodward Pillsworth said, “I’m very happy to be here as a representative of my gender.” (This led to laughter and applause.) You may notice on your list of participants that I am an addendum, and that’s rather descriptive of my role on that way as well.” She went on to note that it was because she wrote for the women’s section – the only position available to women at that time. She covered their arrival at Love Field and no women’s page reporter from the Dallas Morning News was at the Trade Mart.
The only reporter’s notebook women’s page editor Vivian Castleberry ever kept was from the story she covered on November 22, 1963 – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Her press badge was number 18. Her job was to cover the First Lady while she was in Dallas. In a newspaper profile about Vivian years later, she was quoted: “I will never throw my notes on that day away. I am the only one in America who has the entire prayer in my notebook. I looked around the room and a woman was pouring cream in her cup without knowing what she was doing. Everywhere the words were the same, ‘My God. My Dallas’ Tears flowed. Then people began to go home. Everything closed up and Dallas was a ghost town.”
The 2,200 mostly untouched steaks were picked up and thrown away. A pile of wrapped toys meant for the Kennedy children would never be picked up by the First Lady –a fact that only Vivian wrote about.
Vivian sent her society editor, Val Imm, to cover the couple’s arrival at Love Field. Castleberry would then wait at the Trade Center where the couple would have lunch. The women’s section of the Dallas Morning News only sent a reporter to Love Field – not the Trade Center. Republican Val Imm was at Love Field and noted the charisma of the Democratic president: “It was actually like waves that went out into the crowd, including myself. I was most disappointed to find that I had succumbed to this.” After the president left the airport, Imm and the rest of the reporters from Love Field went together to a local restaurant. She called into the newspaper to learn what the day’s timeline. She was told to go to Parkland Hospital because there had been a shooting. She said they raced to the hospital, breaking numerous traffic laws in their hurry to get to the hospital. She had someone hold a phone for her while she went to ask questions. She found the hospital’s priest who said of the president, “He’s dead.” Imm got on the telephone. She spoke with Bob Johnson, who was the Associated Press bureau chief and had a desk in the Times Herald newsroom. His story was the first of the wire services to report the assassination.
Vivian arrived at the Trade Center mid-morning. She took notes on the seating arrangement and began interviewing those at the Center. She spoke with Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who would go on to swear in LBJ as president later that day. The Judge said it was an important day for Dallas but she was apprehensive. She said she hoped everything would go well in Dallas. Everyone was then seated to wait for the president and the rest of his party. The time for their arrival had passed and the room grew uncomfortable. She glanced over at Helen Hankins, who was one of the people in charge of handling the arrangements for the president’s visit: “One look at Helen’s face and you knew it was tragedy.”
Suddenly the door near where she was sitting burst open and she recognized the faces of press corps members. Their expressions were stark, drawn. The organ continued to play as people milled around the room. Them the music stopped. Her reporter’s notebook featured a series of starts and stops: “critical,” “faces that” and “I am not sure I can say what I have to say.” She recalled, “Dilemma. We had been told that we must keep our seats because no one would be allowed to enter the room or to move about after the President arrived. Up and down several times like a yo-yo, I tried to make up my mind whether to follow orders or to follow my instincts.” Within a few seconds she raced to the bank of telephones. Bob Hollingsworth, the Times Herald Washington bureau chief, confirmed that something horrible had occurred.
(The photo above is from the Space Walk in Titusville near Cape Canaveral.)
