ONE

"Where Were You?" There it was--the most universal of questions we ask one another

following an epic public event.

Now it was the title for a fifth anniversary discussion at the National Press Club in

downtown Washington. On that November, 1968, noon hour the complete question for the

discussion was, of course, "Where were you on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was

assassinated?"

I was delighted--excited, frankly--to be one of the three panelists invited to speak. And

proud to be a club member because this was truly the center of my universe. The bureau offices

of my newspaper, The Dallas Tribune, were on the fifth floor of the Press Club building on 14th

Street, two blocks from the White House.

I had told my own story before. It seemed that everyone in America had at least ten times

over. But this was the first time I did so in such a public way. More than 300 people--most of

them fellow journalists--filled the room.

The two other panelists spoke before me. The first speaker was a wire service man who

had been on the Washington news desk that November day. He told about the emotional

exhaustion of the conflicting pulls of duty and grief that gripped everyone taking in, writing,

confirming, packaging stories from and throughout the world.

The second, a Washington-based network television correspondent who had been in the

Dallas motorcade press bus, recalled the scraps of his and others' frantic searches for what had
actually happened. Was Kennedy really hit? If so, where? Was he dead? Where did the shots

come from? Has anybody been arrested? What was Jackie doing crawling back on the trunk of

the limo after the shots were fired? Where can I find an eyewitness? Where can I find a

telephone?

Perhaps I should have felt intimidated as the youngest and least experienced journalist of

the three. But I felt that I matched the other two speakers for interest and delivery. My dad, also a

newspaperman, always said I had "a gift of gab", a trait my mother saw as a good thing that

could someday lead me from print to television. ("Mark my words, Jack," she said more than

once, "you could be another Chet Huntley.") But I had absolutely no interest in ever being on

television. I was a print man. I was a writer.

But I did spend more time than usual on exactly what to wear to the press club event.

Brainy newspaperman was the look I was going for with my brown and black wool sportcoat,

gray slacks and button-down blue Oxford cloth shirt with solid dark brown tie. Back in Dallas, I

always wore a tie but it was, more often than not, loose from the collar. That kind of style was

OK for a local newsroom but not for a Washington correspondent. I did it up tight with a smart

military half-Windsor.

The other press club panelists spoke mostly from notes while I had written out my story,

which I read almost word for word after practicing several times in front of the bathroom mirror

at my apartment.

When it was my turn at the podium I began: "I was working as a reporter for the

afternoon newspaper, The Dallas Tribune, on November 22, 1963. My assignment was to cover

the arrival of President and Mrs. Kennedy at Love Field, stay at the airport until they came back

after a motorcade through downtown and a noon luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart, and then
report on their departure..."

In detail I told how I, at the behest of a rewrite man downtown just before the Kennedys

arrived on Air Force One, I had asked a Secret Service agent about the bubble top on the

presidential limo. Was it going to be up or down when the motorcade went through downtown

Dallas? It was strictly a weather issue and the early morning rain had ended. The agent, Van

Walters, after having some other agents check the situation, ordered the bubble top off the car.

The early morning rain had ended. I was there when Agent Walters gave the order. There was

some loose speculation afterward among law enforcement people and others, which I reported,

that the bubble top, if it had been there, might have prevented the assassination--or, at least, the

death of Kennedy.

I returned to my seat at the discussion table to what I felt was a dramatic silence. From

my perspective, the audience had pretty much hung on my every word. It may sound like a lot of

bravado but I swear I even saw some wetness in a few eyes. Clearly, the agent's what-if suffering

for having made the bubble top decision touched the audience.

A young man from the fourth row shouted out:

"What happened to that Secret Service agent--the one who ordered the bubble top off?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I lost track of him."

And that was how it all began.

CREDIT LINE:
Excerpted from TOP DOWN by Jim Lehrer. Copyright © 2013 by Jim Lehrer. Excerpted by
permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of
this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.