Talk:Timeline of the John F. Kennedy assassination

Motorcade Route
In the "Presidential Motorcade route" section, someone wrote,"Shortly before the limousine turned onto Main Street a male ran towards the limousine waving his arms and trying to stop the motorcade. Later, in his Warren Commission testimony, Kellerman would testify that the man was yelling for the motorcade to stop and not turn onto Houston but his screaming was ignored and he was thrust to the ground by a Secret Service agent and hustled away."

This is incorrect. Page 70 and 71 of Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman's testimony to the Warren Commission cleary states that there were no unusual incidents enroute to the downtown area from Dallas' Love Field, with the exception of a small boy running toward the president's motorcade and he was swiftly returned to the curb without the motorcade even slowing down. 


 * I removed the 2 sentences --JimWae (talk) 20:30, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

September Date
In the "Breaking the News" section, it says "The assassination of Kennedy was the longest uninterrupted news event in the history of television until just before 9:00 a.m. ET, September 14, 2001, when the networks were on the air for 72 hours straight covering the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington three days earlier."


 * I think the idea is that on September 14, the previous record was broken. GBC 19:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That's correct. The New York Times reported the same. SNIyer12, (talk), 20:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Convicted Assassin?
Oswald was never officially convicted in a court of law of the assassination of President Kennedy or of the murder of J.D. Tippit. Therefore, your headline calling him the "Convicted Assassin" is incorrect--not to mention, you're forgetting about a bastion of American democracy: the presumption of innocence until someone is proven guilty in a court of law.

According to my handy dictionary right here, to convict someone is "to prove guilty; find guilty after a judicial trial." (New Illustrated Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus of Synonyms and Antonyms, p. 220) As we all know, Oswald didn't live long enough to enjoy a judicial trial, so your headline should be taken down.

Breaking the News
These paragraphs:

''Those listening to the ABC Radio Network were the first of the national audience to receive word of the shooting from newscaster Don Gardner at 1:36 PM EST:

''We interrupt this program to bring you this special report from ABC Radio. Here is a special report from Dallas, Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade today in downtown Dallas, Texas. This is ABC Radio.''

should actually be at the top of the section, as they are at 12:36 PM CST, and the following paragraph:

Four minutes later, a CBS News Bulletin slide suddenly cut off the soap opera "As The World Turns" with Walter Cronkite's first report:

should then be "One minute later,". This would make the announcements in chronological order. GBC 18:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You might want to create a separate article on the media coverage. Keep this page on the timeline of the events. I think having the media coverage does disrupt the flow of the article. SNIyer12 (talk), 20:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The story of "breaking the news" of the JFK assassination is a classic in the annals of journaism. See: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1672

Although the roles that broadcast journalists played in informing the public of Kennedy's death is important, people like Walter Cronkite would have had nothing to say if it weren't for Merriman Smith of UPI and Jack Bell of the Associated Press. To credit anyone else with "breaking the news" is inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Douglastallman (talk • contribs) 13:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the line: "At 12:45 pm CST, the station abruptly cut from the prerecorded program to news director Jay Watson in the studio..." Other websites list Jay Watson as Program Director and Bob Walker as News Director. Bob had just concluded coverage from the airport landing and thus was not in nor even near the studio to be part of the initial coverage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.187.21 (talk) 22:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Live radio report
Back in 1978, the defunct CKO All-News radio network in Canada rebroadcast, on the 15th anniversary, a live radio broadcast by a reporter of a radio station in Texas who followed the speeding motorcade to Parkwood Hospital; the reporter was saying, "Something has happened... something has definitely happened". It was abbreviated, and followed by an announcer reading the official announcement of Kennedy's death. The CKO feature broadcast, which may in fact have been prepared by one of the American radio networks, continued by discussing and airing audio of Robert Kennedy's assassination, and his or Edward's eulogy - "He saw wrong and tried to right it, saw war and tried to stop it". There is a song playing, "What the world needs now, is love sweet love", with a man asking a young child some questions - "what is bigotry". I think I have a cassette tape recording of it somewhere, but I haven't had it off a shelf in decades. GBC 19:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The external links
The external links lead to nothing. Mph703 (talk) 13:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Pardo Bulletin
I feel I lack the expertise to edit this article; but, I think this statement is partially incorrect:

"Three minutes later, Don Pardo broke into WNBC-TV's "Bachelor Father" with the news (these first bulletins have been assumed "lost" as ABC and NBC did not start recording coverage until minutes later.)"

A fine web-archive of assassination materials located at http://www.JFK-Assassination-As-It-Happened.blogspot.com appears to contain the bulletin from Pardo, although I have no way of knowing whether it is the very first bulletin, or a mere repeat. Perhaps an assassination buff can clarify things... Best wishes, Xoloz (talk) 07:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is not a timeline
A timeline should just list what happened at each particular point in time, with sharp, spare prose. No analysis. No elaboration.

This article does not appear to be a timeline. Kransky (talk) 12:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. There's a lot of tangential material. Jfkadmirer (talk) 21:08, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

For future reference
This link has more detailed information regarding participants in the motorcade. Location (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

JFK had back brace on?
His back trouble went back a while. Did he have a back brace on when shot? I just saw the suggestion that, without a back brace, he'd have been knocked over. But supposedly the back brace kept him upright just before he got the shot in the head. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 18:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Testimony indicates that he was wearing a back brace: . Location (talk) 19:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

confusion caused by being hidden by sign?
I find:

"The Commission theorized both men were hit nearly simultaneously between Zapruder film frames 210 to 225, while the Committee theorized it happened at frame 190."

Confusion over when this happened is cause by the sign getting in the way? JFK has been hit by the time he comes back into view from behind that sign. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

40% of current article spent on the TV - radio coverage
40% of the current article is spent on just the TV and radio coverages. This is way to much, and could/should be separated into a different article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.139.70.179 (talk) 08:42, 1 September 2014 (UTC)   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.139.73.80 (talk)
 * I agree. A timeline typically displays events in chronological order. This article somewhat rehashes the main article, but adds in-depth discussion of the motorcade participants and breaking news media coverage. Although some of these things may be discussed in chronological order as they happened, there is really nothing in the way of a timeline. I have added a bit of a traditional timeline using material cited to secondary sources. There is much more to add. - Location (talk) 06:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * A related link for future reference. - Location (talk) 21:03, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Timeline
The times in the timeline have supporting citations. If you are going to change the times in the timeline, then please find a reliable source for the change. You cannot simply change the time and leave the a citation that no longer supports what you have inserted (e.g. diff). - Location (talk) 20:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Cornnich/User:96.249.0.196: Two sources support the version that you are altering, so it is not appropriate to change the timeline and leave the citations in place, especially not without providing another reliable citation.  You appear to be refusing to engage in a discussion, so I will request additional opinions on this. - Location (talk) 03:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Contributions with reference to J.Mayo's book
I would like to make a modest contribution based on Jonathan Mayo's book The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute (2013). Below is a draft regarding the deletions by SundayClose:

November 21: Arrival in Forth Worth

On Thursday, November 21, 1963, at 11:07 p.m., Air Force One lands at Carswell Air Force base on the ouskirts of Fort Worth, Texas. When walking down the steps of Air Force One, the president and his wife are met by Raymond Buck, president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.

Also travelling on board Air Force Two are the vice president Lyndon B. Johnson, the Texas governor John Connally, and Senator Ralph Yarborough. Connally and Yarborough dislike each other so much that Yarborough is unwilling to travel in the same car as Johnson, who is an ally of Connally. The following day, the president tells him to ride with Johnson.

At 11:35 p.m., the First Couple arrives at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, after being cheered by thousands of well-wishers lined on the route towards the West Freeway, despite the late time and rainy weather.

November 22: Fort Worth breakfast speech

On Friday, November 22, 1963, at 8:45 a.m., the president is speaking before breakfast in a square across Eighth Street, accompanied by Congressman Jim Wright, Senator Yarborough, Governor Connally and Vice President Johnson. Kennedy is praising Fort Worth’s aviation industry.

At 9:10 a.m., JFK takes his place in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom for the scheduled speech, the First Lady arriving amid loud applause 15 minutes later.

After the speech, Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge of the trip, is advised by Kenny O’Donnell that the presidential limousine should have its bubbletop off if it’s not raining in Dallas.

Later, press secretary Mac Kilduff shows the First Couple a disturbing advertisement seen in The Dallas Morning News, ironically and critically headlined ‘Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas’. JFK tells Jacqueline: ‘We’re heading into nut country today. […]’

Thanks in advance for "cleaning up" the "atrocities".

the incompetent Treflon (talk) 20:17, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Coverage of the Return to Washington
In the return to Washington section; there is a brief list of the network correspondents in Washington covering the return of Air Force One with the body of President Kennedy along with Jackie; new President Johnson and Lady Bird and the rest of the party that had made the fateful trip to Dallas. For ABC, one of the journalists listed for ABC was Frank Reynolds, according to a producer's recollection in 2013. Earlier, I had misread the section and thought it was suggesting that Reynolds had somehow arrived in Washington to cover the return, but on reading the section further realized that due to CBS' Dan Rather also mentioned as covering the return, more likely Reynolds (like Rather {in Dallas} and Ray Scherer of NBC) was handling covering in the studio. WAVY 10 Fan (talk) 17:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Frank Reynolds (ABC), Dan Rather (CBS), and Ray Scherer (NBC) contributed to the return to Washington during a conversation that NBC director Max Schindler did in 1965 with LBJ at the White House, as they were White House correspondents in 1965. He talked about in his autobiography, The View From the Control Room. In 1965, Schindler, who directed the coverage of the return to Washington, did a conversation with LBJ at the White House that was to air on all three networks. Reynolds, Rather, and Scherer were in the conversation. Schindler talked about the return to Washington from Dallas with Johnson and asked him if he was in the plane watching television and asked if Schindler panning his camera back to Air Force One was his cue to come out. SnoopyAndCharlieBrown202070 (talk) 01:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to split up article
Considering that the article has been tagged with a notice of being too long to read comfortably along with the fact that there had already been a proposal to create a separate media coverage article in 2015 (with nearly 40% of the article devoted to media coverage at that time) but no action was taken, I suggest possibly splitting the article into one specifically devoted to the timeline of the assassination and its aftermath and others devoted to related aspects (again, such as media coverage). WAVY 10 Fan (talk) 14:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. We need to split up the article. We need to have an article about the media coverage. SnoopyAndCharlieBrown202070 (talk) 01:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, the focus of this timeline article needs to be sharpened; overall, this article has more the feel of a content fork than a timeline. The events included here ought to highlight only what the key players did and when between (around) March 13, 1963 and November 22, 1963, and on the immediate November 22–25 aftermath of the assassination. Now, as the Assassination of John F. Kennedy article may become too large after the excess material from this timeline (not already there) is transferred there, splitting it (perhaps media coverage) might well be warranted. Drdpw (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Another option is to merge this into Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Jfkadmirer (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2023 (UTC)