James Reston, Jr. Oral History

In 2013, I met James Reston, Jr. literally in the middle of Dealey Plaza when he was visiting Dallas for a program at Southern Methodist University. Although he did not have time for a video oral history on that day, he kindly agreed to a telephone interview, which we recorded the next year in June 2014. His two books on Governor John Connally and the Kennedy assassination can be found in the Museum's Library Collection here: (Bibliovation | Details for The lone star) and here: Bibliovation | Details for The accidental victim. - Stephen Fagin, Curator  

James Reston, Jr.'s father, the late James Barrett Reston (1909-1995) was a longtime journalist and editor at the New York Times, beginning in 1939. During the Kennedy presidency, Reston, Sr. was the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the Times and frequently covered the White House. In a poignant article published in New York Times Magazine close to the one-year anniversary of the assassination on November 15, 1964, Reston notably wrote, "...what was killed in Dallas was not only the President but the promise. The heart of the Kennedy legend is what might have been. All this is apparent in the faces of the people who come daily to his grave on the Arlington Hill." In 1964, he became an associate editor at the New York Times, rising to executive editor and vice president by 1969. Reston retired from the New York Times twenty years later in 1989 and passed away at the age of 86 on December 6, 1995. The Museum has two of his books in our Library Collection as well as a biography of Reston by John F. Stacks: Bibliovation | Catalog Search Results. - Stephen Fagin, Curator