麻豆影院

I got the call at my pad in the Lazy J Motel, a housing complex on 28th Street across from campus. It was at 12:20 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.

It was听Mike Fallert听(A&S ex鈥�64), a听Colorado Daily听editor. I was editor-in-chief.

鈥淪ome鈥� cretin shot Kennedy,鈥� he said.
鈥淰ery funny,鈥� I said.
鈥淲e want to put out an extra,鈥� he said.
鈥淒on鈥檛 waste my time,鈥� I said.
鈥淎鈥揾ole,鈥� he said and hung up.

Ye gods! Could it be true?

I flipped on the radio. It was true.

The phone rang again. It was journalism professor John Mitchell, a听Daily听staff mentor. He was at the paper鈥檚 office.

He strongly recommended we put out an extra.

鈥淟et me think about it,鈥� I said. 鈥淚鈥檒l be right in.鈥�

Putting out an extra defied logic. It would be old news before the ink dried, and it would be distributed late Friday afternoon on a largely deserted campus. But newspaper people instinctively respond to a crisis by putting out newspapers.

I made a snap judgment while driving in. We would put out an extra.

The atmosphere in the newsroom was one of excitement, crisis, anger, fear and brittle professionalism. Our world had been shattered. We were liberals. JFK was our hero.

罢丑别听Daily鈥檚 UPI teletype machine was going nuts every five or 10 minutes, ringing five bells, the signal that a big story was moving.

There was only one story moving that day.

鈥湴粘蟊鹛�Camera听won鈥檛 print us, but Pruett [a 麻豆影院 printer] will print a one-page broadsheet for us,鈥� Mitchell told me. 鈥淲e鈥檒l have to set our own type.鈥�

Gad.

So we took copy from the UPI machine, retyped it into double-wide newspaper columns on the best typewriter we had and pasted up something vaguely resembling a newspaper page.

罢丑别听Camera agreed to handset a couple headlines for us, including a two-inch-tall banner announcing the president was dead. Other headlines were hand-lettered.

The lead story was cobbled together from the UPI wire. We were so rattled that one paragraph was repeated three times.

In terms of production and content, it was junk. Yet, it perfectly encapsulated the chaos and horror of that day. Not in spite of its errors but because of them.

My most lingering memory was when听Daily听蝉迟补蹿蹿别谤听Bruce Comstock听(Econ鈥�66), a close friend, and I drove to CU Vice President Eugene Wilson鈥檚 house at the foot of Flagstaff to deliver the extra. Several administrators were in his living room looking ashen and poleaxed 鈥� and instantly much older. It was the first time I genuinely saw them as human beings instead of authority figures.

Paul Danish (Hist鈥�65) firmly believes newspapers are the first draft of history, which explains why history contains so many typos.

Photography by听Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.