Robert Haas Oral History

Object number2012.001.0095

Date11/05/2012

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Robert Haas

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file)

DimensionsDuration: 32 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Robert Haas. Standing with his parents on Houston Street, Haas heard shots fired at the presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza. His late father, R.E. "Buster" Haas, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News and covered the events of that weekend. Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on November 5, 2012 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is thirty-two minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

R.E. "Buster" Haas was an early interview prospect in the first years of the Museum's Oral History Project. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1995 before an interview could be recorded. Soon after joining the staff in the early 2000s, I reached out to his widow, Frances Alberta Haas, in the hopes that she would share her eyewitness account and discuss the life and career of her late husband. Unfortunately, she was uncomfortable appearing on camera and declined an interview. She passed away in 2011. I was incredibly grateful that their son, Robert Haas, agreed to an interview the next year to talk about his late father's career at The Dallas Morning News and share the family's account of the assassination.

Less than two years before his death, "Buster" Haas participated in a 1993 panel discussion with other journalists at Southern Methodist University. That panel may be viewed in full on the C-SPAN website: Journalists Remember JFK Assassination | C-SPAN.org. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator