Kent Biffle Oral History

Object number1993.011.0012

Date06/23/1993

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Kent Biffle

Oral history interviewer Wes Wise

Oral history interviewer Bob Porter

ObjectOral history

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

MediumHi-8 videotape

Dimensions2 3/4 × 4 × 3/4 in. (7 × 10.2 × 1.9 cm)
Duration: 75 Minutes

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Kent Biffle. A reporter for The Dallas Morning News, Biffle was one of the only journalists inside the Texas School Book Depository while investigators gathered evidence on the sixth floor. He later covered the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans for Newsweek. Previously, as a young reporter at the Fort Worth Press, Biffle wrote stories in 1959 about Lee Harvey Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union. He once tried to reach Oswald by telephone in Moscow. Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on June 23, 1993 by Wes Wise and Bob Porter. The interview is one hour and fifteen minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

On November 22, 1963, Dallas Morning News reporter Kent Biffle was riding in the presidential motorcade some fourteen vehicles behind the Kennedy limousine when he heard shots fired in Dealey Plaza. As he describes in this oral history, he slipped his press badge for the president's trip to Texas inside his jacket and went inside the Texas School Book Depository alongside police officers. He was one of the only journalists inside the sealed building for several hours, during which time he took approximately 150 pages of notes as investigators discovered the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and other evidence. Biffle left the Morning News in 1968 for Newsweek magazine, only to return to the Morning News for another stint that lasted from 1975 to 2008. He was locally known for his long-running "Texana" column that highlighted Texas history and culture. Biffle passed away on August 23, 2015. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator