On Nov. 22, 1963, Mr. Barker was assigned to live coverage of the luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart where President John F. Kennedy was to speak.
“And so I was there on the balcony at the Trade Mart, waiting for the president to come there to the luncheon,” Mr. Barker recalled in 1993 for his oral history for The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
While gathered dignitaries awaited the president’s arrival Mr. Barker started “an endless narrative … I had to stay on the air,” he said. “You lose track of just what time it was, but that was then when this doctor came up and told me” the president was dead.
Just after Mr. Barker told CBS viewers nationwide that the president had died, “they immediately took it back to New York, and Cronkite, my dear friend Walter, said, ‘You know, that ain’t us, folks. That’s a hotshot saying he’s dead. It’s not CBS saying he’s dead.’”
Mr. Barker bore his place in history with a journalistic perspective.
“I don’t think it’s a question of being proud of being first, or regretting that I had such news,” Mr. Barker told The News on the 40th anniversary of the assassination. “I always thought of it as, ‘Here’s a story, I’m a reporter, and we’re trying to get news of what happened.’ It was a helluva thing to have to tell people, and you had to have some dignity in how you said it. It’s kind of a strange thing to be remembered for.”
Eddie Barker can be seen in this clip with Dan Rather during the reporting of the assassination. They clashed for a time (not in this clip), but they got over it:
I highly recommend this YouTube channel for all vintage footage of the JFK assassination. The CBS clips are in 58 parts, or about 14 hours.
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Former Boston University president John Silber, 86. He tried and failed in his run for Massachusetts governor.
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Actor Herbert Lom, best remembered for his role in the various Pink Panther movies, died at the premature age of 95.
