A Photographer's Story: Bob Jackson and the Kennedy Assassination

My task that day was to meet Air Force One in left field. I would ride the caravan to the trademark cover. The Kennedy speech I have. I have many photos at the airport of the crowd waiting for him and then when he arrived. and it was actually just my transportation, you know the brand's engine and we were in an open convertible. Sitting on the back of the seat, I was. I didn't really worry much about my position. I would rather have been in a better one. but you know the way it was set up, all I could do was take pictures of the crowd along the Route and take pictures of the caravan in front of me when we were on a curve, say like at Turtle Creek or when we turned towards Conor, then I had the opportunity. to film, you know, put some of the presidential cars there out front as we approached Maine and Houston to turn right.

I had just unloaded my camera, so we had previously agreed that I would pass my film to a reporter. I was standing on the corner so I unloaded the camera I put the film in an envelope when we turned the corner I threw it at Jim Featherston the reporter reached for it and the wind caught the envelope and blew it up and he had to write Chase it, so my attention was on it, we were laughing, you know, he had chased my movie across the street and we heard the first gunshot. Tom Dillard and I looked at each other, you know, the first thing we thought was it could be a gun then we heard two shots closer to each other.

I just looked forward because that's the direction the sound was coming from and I saw two black men leaning out the fifth floor window looking straight up, my eyes continued I went up to the next floor and there was a rifle. I could see the rifle in the butt and they were pulling it out the window, so the car moved pretty jerkily toward the intersection. I looked to my left. I couldn't see grass. the slope where all the people were people were running in different directions people were covering their children I asked the driver to stop and he let me get off so I got out I ran back under the underpass going up the hill I was standing there there was less than Ten minutes after the shooting, there were a couple more

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s who approached me, one I recognized as a UPI White House

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, and we hitchhiked with a lady and she took us to Parkland Hospital.