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WFAA-TV tape: "Pres. Kennedy Master PK-8"
WFAA-TV tape: "Pres. Kennedy Master PK-8"

WFAA-TV tape: "Pres. Kennedy Master PK-8"

Object number1998.010.0008
Date11/23/1963
ClassificationsVideos
Producer
Creator
ObjectVideo, 2"
Credit LineWFAA-TV Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumMagnetic tape; Video, Quadruplex, 2"
DimensionsOverall: 13 1/4 x 13 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (33.7 x 33.7 x 6.4 cm)
Collections
  • Lee Harvey Oswald
  • All Online Objects
  • Broadcast News
Description2" video reel with original black and white coverage by Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA-TV. The reel contains news footage and coverage from Dallas City Hall on November 23, 1963. Coverage begins within Dallas City Hall with reporters and police officers in a hallway. Approximately three minutes into the tape, accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Dallas police detectives emerge from an office. Oswald denies his charges to reporters before being taken into another room. ABC broadcaster Paul Good emphasizes that Oswald denies his charges despite the evidence against him. Good reiterates that the purchase of a rifle was traced to Oswald. Later, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry gives a statement on the charges against Lee Harvey Oswald. Chief Curry notes that there has been no progress toward a confession from Oswald. He also shows reporters a warrant of arrest. After Chief Curry leaves the hallway, Paul Good summarizes what was discussed. He notes that Oswald will be transferred to the Dallas County Jail the next morning, and final ballistics tests should be completed by tomorrow. He then reads part of an official complaint, summarizing the assassination of President Kennedy. The next fifteen minutes include more footage of reporters and police officers waiting in the hallway. Coverage then transitions to ABC reporter Paul Good standing outside of the Dallas City Hall at night. He reports that suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is currently held in a cell inside and has been interrogated several times. He notes that Oswald maintains his innocence and Dallas Police see no signs of imminent confession. Paul Good reports that the rifle suspected to be used in the assassination was purchased for $12.78. Police have said they have photographic evidence that the pistol and rifle may have belonged to Oswald, based on a photograph of Oswald with the weapons. According to Good, the evidence gathered by the Dallas Police Department suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin. Good notes that Oswald will be moved the next day from the city jail to the Dallas County Jail. Finally, it is reported that Oswald would like a lawyer from New York to represent him, and if that cannot happen, he will request the Civil Liberties Union for representation. Footage was recorded in Dallas, Texas on November 23, 1963. The tape is approximately thirty-one minutes long.
Curatorial Commentary
In 1963, a major news event like a presidential visit generated a significant amount of local coverage by newspaper, radio and television outlets. Large locally-broadcast events during President Kennedy's trip to Texas, such as the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast and the arrival of the Kennedys at Dallas Love Field, were often managed by cooperative pool coverage among local TV stations. In those instances, one outlet--such as ABC affiliate WFAA-TV at Love Field and CBS affiliate KRLD-TV at the Dallas Trade Mart luncheon--set up cameras to capture a pool feed that would be distributed to other local television stations for broadcast. This allowed for immediate coverage of an evolving news story in a practical and efficient manner, considering the transportation and setup logistics for bulky equipment and mobile news cruisers. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
More 2" videotapes from the Museum's WFAA-TV Collection (1998.010) may be viewed via the Museum's online collection database here: Results – Advanced Search Objects – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger

Select photographs from inside Dallas police headquarters during the weekend of the assassination may be viewed on the Museum's online Collections database here: Results – Advanced Search Objects – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger

Multiple individuals seen on WFAA-TV tape PK-8 have recorded oral histories with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza over the years. Among them are:

- Stephen Fagin, Curator, and Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger

The last segment of this tape, comprised of Paul Good's nighttime report outside of Dallas police headquarters, appears in a more complete form on the previous tape, WFAA-TV Pres. Kennedy Master PK-7 (1998.010.0007). In this truncated version here on PK-8, the last twenty seconds of Good's remarks are cut off. After Good says that the assassination brought "grief and anguish and uncertainty to millions of Americans," in the complete version on PK-7, he continues, "...in some perverted cause. Whatever the cause, he smirks today as he goes through the police corridors in this building. This is Paul Good, returning you to the studios WFAA." - Stephen Fagin, Curator
Paul Good (1929-2005) was a radio, television and print journalist. After stints at the New York World Telegram and Sun and NBC, Good joined ABC News in 1960. He was briefly the Latin American bureau chief, stationed in Mexico City, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia, as the Southern bureau chief. There, he covered the Civil Rights Movement in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. He left ABC News in 1964 and became a freelance writer. Good passed away on January 23, 2005. - 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