WFAA-TV tape: "Pres. Kennedy Master PK-3"

Standing on the north side of Elm Street, Bill and Gayle Newman, along with their two young sons, Billy and James Clayton, were the closest civilian eyewitnesses to President Kennedy at the moment of the fatal shot. They were also the first eyewitnesses to be interviewed live on television, appearing here with WFAA-TV program director Jay Watson within approximately fifteen minutes of the assassination. In this first significant interview, Bill Newman recalled hearing two shots fired and indicated that the shots sounded like they came from the "mall" behind him. In subsequent interviews, Newman has said that three shots were fired, though he has always maintained that he felt like the fatal shot came from "behind." 

Bill and Gayle Newman recorded their first oral history with The Sixth Floor Museum in 1993 (Bill and Gayle Newman Oral History – Works – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza) and returned for a follow-up interview ten years later in 2003, which was later featured on C-SPAN (Kennedy Assassination: Bill and Gayle Newman, Part 1 | Video | C-SPAN.org). Following those interviews, Bill and Gayle Newman have generously participated in a number of public and educational programs at The Sixth Floor Museum over the years. Most notably, at the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination in 2013, the entire Newman family, including grown children Bill III and James Clayton, participated in a special Living History program, which may be seen here: Living History with The Newmans. - Stephen Fagin, Curator  

At the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the WFAA Communications Center Studios was located at the corner of Young and Record Streets in downtown Dallas, approximately two blocks north of Dealey Plaza. As a result of their proximity, WFAA-TV/Channel 8 was the first local television station to break into programming with news of the shooting on November 22, 1963. Program director Jay Watson, himself an eyewitness to the assassination, interrupted the Julie Bennell Show, a local lifestyle and fashion program, approximately fifteen minutes after shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. In another first, Watson was the first to interview assassination eyewitnesses on the air after collecting the stunned Newman family in the plaza and rushing them to WFAA studios. The coverage that followed represents one of the most substantial archives of Kennedy assassination broadcast news footage in existence.  

Amazingly, this historic news footage was nearly lost forever in the early 1980s. During that era, it was common for television stations to dispose of or recycle outdated broadcast tapes in order to save space and reduce costs. Prior to the age of widespread digital archiving, expensive videotapes were frequently erased and reused. Nearly twenty years after the assassination, a young WFAA-TV employee named John Sparks noticed all of the station's Kennedy tapes were boxed up and marked for disposal. Sparks, who had been part of the high school band that performed for President and Mrs. Kennedy in Fort Worth that fateful date, instantly recognized the historic significance of the material, and he singlehandedly rescued the tapes from destruction. The full WFAA-TV archive of Kennedy assassination news coverage was later donated to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in 1998. Hear the inside story about how John Sparks saved this historic broadcast news footage in this 2025 Living History conversation: Living History from Fort Worth, November 22, 1963. - Stephen Fagin, Curator   

WFAA-TV program director Jay Watson is joined in this early coverage from November 22, 1963, by his colleague, and fellow assassination eyewitness, Jerry Haynes (1927-2011). Haynes, then a recognized WFAA-TV personality, was a beloved local performer who hosted one of the nation's longest-running children's television shows, Mr. Peppermint, from 1961-1969 and again from 1975-1996. He was also a prolific local actor who appeared in a number of feature films, including RoboCop (1987). A 2004 oral history with Jerry Haynes may be found here in the Museum's online collections database: Jerry Haynes Oral History – Works – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. - Stephen Fagin, Curator  

More tapes from the Museum's WFAA-TV Collection (1998.010) can be viewed on the Museum's online collection database here: Results – Advanced Search Objects – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger

In addition to several interviews with the Newmans, the Museum's Oral History Collection includes interviews with a number of assassination eyewitnesses in Dealey Plaza. Subjects include James Tague (1999.003.0003), a bystander struck on the cheek by a bullet fragment; Mary Sue Bennet (2010.001.0083), an employee at the Texas School Book Depository; John Templin (1995.043.0018), an eyewitness who can be seen in the Zapruder film; and Dr. Toni Glover (2012.001.0024), an eleven-year-old standing on a pedestal at the corner of Houston and Elm Streets. More interviews can be found on the Museum's online Collections database here: Results – Advanced Search Objects – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger

This tape begins with a segment of the Julie Bennell Show, a popular local lifestyle, food and fashion program that aired at the weekday noon hour on Dallas ABC affiliate, WFAA-TV. Bennell, a local celebrity and longtime food editor at The Dallas Morning News, is largely remembered today because her live program was interrupted by assassination news coverage on November 22, 1963. However, she has another claim to fame as the woman who helped popularize German Chocolate Cake in the late 1950s. At the time, Bennell presented a daily recipe column in the Morning News. On June 3, 1957, she published a "Recipe of the Day" for "German's Chocolate Cake," named after Samuel German whose German's brand baking chocolate (produced by Baker's Chocolate Company) was featured. The recipe came from Lucy Clay, a homemaker at 3831 Academy Drive in Dallas. The owner of Baker's Chocolate Company, General Foods, was thrilled with the free publicity generated by Mrs. Clay's recipe and soon distributed it to other newspapers across the country, increasing sales of the product and popularizing German Chocolate Cake (which dropped the possessive form of German's). This led to a widespread, and completely inaccurate, assumption that the layered chocolate cake with coconut-pecan frosting originated from or had some association with Germany, similar to Black Forest Cake, which did originate with a German recipe first published in 1915. Interestingly, even though Julie Bennell helped popularize Lucy Clay's recipe in 1957, the actual first known published recipe - named at that time "Summer German Chocolate Cake" - was actually published a year before in the Irving News Record, a small local newspaper in Irving, Texas (where Ruth Paine lived and where Oswald spent the night before the assassination). - Stephen Fagin, Curator

Earl James "Jay" Watson, Jr. (1925-2001) went to work at WFAA-TV in the early 1950s and swiftly became program director in 1953. Although largely a behind-the-scenes supervisor, he became the Dallas face of ABC television coverage of the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. His initial break-in, seen in this original videotape as broadcast, and first televised interview with assassination eyewitnesses Bill and Gayle Newman (as well as his later interview with Abraham Zapruder) remain some of the most famous local television coverage from the entire assassination weekend. Watson left WFAA-TV in 1966 and eventually retired to Arizona. He passed away at the age of 75 on April 19, 2001. - Stephen Fagin, Curator