Bob Schieffer Oral History

Bob Schieffer first visited The Sixth Floor Museum in 2002 to take part in an anniversary program. For a number of years, starting in 1995, the Museum held annual private programs for supporters called "Legacy" to commemorate the anniversary of the assassination. Bob Schieffer was the featured guest for a Legacy program on November 21, 2002. Impacted by the experience of being at the site of the tragedy, Schieffer closed his Face the Nation broadcast on Sunday, November 24, 2002 with a special commentary:

 "The top floor of the building where Lee Harvey Oswald hid in wait for Kennedy is now a museum. At first, the people of Dallas wanted no part of such a place. Some wanted to tear the building down. Many just wanted to forget what happened there. But wiser people prevailed. Today the Museum has become a repository for film, documents and any and all things connected with that day which can be cataloged and made available for research. And it is a place that has been tastefully arranged so that everyone can visit and get a better understanding of the awful thing that happened there... As I strolled through the Museum, it struck me that only in a land where the people rule would there be such a place. Totalitarian societies generally have no reliable history. Each generation rewrites the past to cover up mistakes and embarrassments. Only free people keep accurate histories. The people of Dallas are to be congratulated for the good thing they have done."

Almost exactly eleven years later, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Schieffer broadcast Face the Nation live from the seventh floor of the former Texas School Book Depository. The program included an interview with Luci Baines Johnson as well as reflections by eyewitnesses and historians on the half-century of the president's death. The broadcast was awarded the Emmy for Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis at the 35th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards on September 30, 2014. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator 

Bob Schieffer provided the narration to the five-minute video, "JFK's Final Days" - produced by the Museum for inclusion in the Dallas Museum of Art's special exhibition "Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy." The video can be viewed on our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtibe.com/watch?v=PQKvK-GLfbA - Megan Bryant, Director of Collections and Interpretation