Saturday, November 23, 1963

Photo by The Associated Press. Original caption: Personal belongings such as these two rocking chairs of the slain President John F. Kennedy are removed from the offices of the White House in Washington, D.C., Nov 23, 1963. 

* President Johnson's remarks to the Cabinet: @ (draft) and @ (final)
* "Nov. 23, 1963: The day after the assassination" (Washington Post): @ 

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Friday, November 22, 1963

-- United Press International teletype (image from kennedy-photos.blogspot.com)
-- Explainer (from UPI history website): @

Video

* David Von Pein's JFK Channel (this has an extensive collection of footage, including the breaking news reports of the major broadcast networks): @

* "The JFK Assassination: As It Happened" (Von Pein website): @

* From ABC News: @
* JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America" (The History Channel, 2009): @ and @ 
* Speech in Fort Worth: @
* "President Assassinated" (newsreel): @

Audio
* Lyndon Johnson taking oath of office aboard Air Force One (from LBJ Library): @
* Air Force One recordings: @
* Radio coverage: @
* BBC programs: @

President Lyndon B. Johnson
* President's daily dairy (from LBJ Library): @ and @
* From LBJ Library: "November 22, 1963 and Beyond": @
* From LBJ Library: "Nov. 22, 1963: Tragedy and Transition": @
* Selections from Mrs. Johnson's diary: @ (text) and @ (audio)

Front pages

* Dallas Morning News: @

* Dallas Times Herald: @

* Fort Worth Star-Telegram: @ and @

* Boston Globe: @

* New York Times: @

* Washington Post: @
* Los Angeles Times: @
* The Guardian (UK) : @

* Daily Mirror (UK): @

* Daily Trojan (University of Southern California, November 26): @
* Other newspapers (from www.downhold.org): @

* Other newspapers (from rarenewspapers.com): @

Other resources

* Timeline (from Dallas Morning News): @
* "Remembering JFK" (Fort Worth Star-Telegram): @
* "The Death of a President" (The Associated Press): @
* The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (National Archives): @

* The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza: @

* JFK Tribute website (Fort Worth, Texas): @

* The JFK Assassination (Mary Ferrell Foundation): @

* The Harold Weisberg Archive: @

* The Kennedy Assassination (John McAdams): @

* "November 22, 1963: Death of the President" (from JFK Library): @ 

* "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy" (Warren Commission report, from National Archives, 1964): @

* "Marking JFK anniversary, GPO releases digital Warren Commission report" (Washington Post): @
* "Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives" (from National Archives, 1979): @

* UPI reporter Merriman Smith's account of the day (November 23; Smith was the first to report the shooting, as shown in teletype above): @
* "Total Domination" (American Journalism Review, 1998): @

* "The Flight From Dallas" (Esquire, 2013): @
* "The Hours Before Dallas: A Recollection by President Kennedy's Fort Worth Advance Man" (Jeb Byrne, 2000): @
* Life magazine, November 29: @

* Life magazine, December 6: @

* Life magazine, December 13: @ 

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What didn't happen on November 22, 1963

President Kennedy

     * Speech at Dallas Trade Mart: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * Speech in Austin: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * President's schedule for the day: @

Music

     -- Symphony orchestras in Boston and Chicago, performing in the afternoon as the news of Kennedy's death spread, changed their programs and played the funeral march from Beethoven's Third Symphony.

     * Account from Boston (from time.com): @

     * Original introduction from Boston (from WGBH): @

     * Boston Symphony Orchestra program for 1963-64 season (revised program for November 22 is on Page 9): @

     * Account from Chicago (from orchestra archives): @

     -- On the same day that the album "With the Beatles" was released in the United Kingdom, the band was featured on "The CBS Morning News." The segment was to have been shown on "The CBS Evening News" that night. It eventually aired on December 10.

     * Watch the segment: @

     * "How Walter Cronkite jump-started Beatlemania in America" (from BeatlesNews.com): @

     * "Hello Goodbye: Why the Great Mike Wallace Instantly Forgot His Beatles TV Exclusive" (from The Huffington Post): @

     -- "The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars" was to have performed in Dallas on November 22. The show was canceled.

     * "Dick Clark on the Day America Lost JFK" (John Burke Jovich): @

     * Lineup (from A Rock n' Roll Historian blog): @

     * "Clark Show Off to Big Openers" (Billboard magazine, November 23): @

Television

     From the New York Times, November 23:

     TOKYO -- The first live American television transmission across the Pacific by means of the communication satellite relay was received clearly here today. Pictures transmitted by the Mohave ground station in California and received at the new Space Communications Laboratory in Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Tokyo, were clean and distinct. The sound transmission was excellent. The transmission was received live from 5:16 a.m. to 5:46 a.m. Viewers here saw and heard taped messages from Ryuji Takeuchi, Japanese Ambassador to Washington, and James E. Webb, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A message of greeting from President Kennedy to the Japanese people, which was to have been the highlight of the program, was deleted when news of the President's death was received shortly before the transmission. In place of the taped two-and-a-half-minute appearance of the President, viewers saw brief panoramic views of the Mohave transmitting station and the surrounding desert area. The American Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company shared in producing the program.'

     From The Associated Press, November 22:
     The nation's three major television and radio networks scrapped all commercials and entertainment programs out of respect for the death today of President Kennedy. The National Broadcasting Co., American Broadcasting Co., and Columbia Broadcasting system all said they would devote their entire radio and television programs to news of the assassination and all allied incidents. The Mutual Broadcasting System said it would ban commercials and entertainment features on its radio network until after the President's funeral. ABC said its commercial and entertainment ban would remain in effect indefinitely. NBC said it would observe the commercial and entertainment blackout until "sometime tomorrow night." CBS said it would not return commercials or entertainment programs to its network until after the President's burial. All networks said they would continue broadcasts on radio and TV through the night.
* TV listings for November 22 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; go to Page 19): @

"Dr. Strangelove"

     A New York screening for critics was canceled, and changes to Stanley Kubrick's new movie were made in light of Kennedy's death (detailed below). The film's premiere was delayed; the movie did not open until January 1964.

     * From "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography" (Vincent LoBrutto, 1999): @

     * From Time.com: @

     * From Los Angeles Times: @

Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping

    Three men who were planning to kidnap the entertainer intended to do so on November 22 in Los Angeles, but it was delayed until December 8 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

     * From MentalFloss.com: @

     * From TruTV.com: @

     * From Jan & Dean website (The band's Dean Torrence had loaned money to one of the kidnappers, a friend of his): @

     * Newsreel: @

Other

     * "The most famous magazine cover that never was" *(Washington Post): @

     * Kiplinger Washington Letter planned for November 23: @ and @

     * Where We Were" (People magazine, November 1988): @ 

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Monday, November 18, 1963: Push-button telephones

The American Telephone and Telegraph Co. began offering push button telephones to customers today as a regular service.
     Only residents of Carnegie and Greensburg in western Pennsylvania will be offered the service at first. They will be an extra charge of $5 for installation of the new telephone and $1.50 a month for each line into the house.
     Push button telephoning, officially known as touch tone dialing, has been called the biggest change in telephones since the 1920s, when conversion to the customary dial began. AT&T said that the new service is expected to be generally available throughout the Bell System in 10 years or so.
     The main advantage of the new system is speed, ease and convenience of operations. The company estimates that a seven-digit number takes an average of 10 seconds to dial. The same number can be tapped out on buttons in 2 to 5 seconds.
     -- Associated Press, November 18 (Link to story: @)

     -- Note: The * and # buttons were introduced in 1968.

     New push-button telephones, first installed in 1963, will eventually be able to connect households with receivers and computers in banks, retail stores, and other businesses. By 1970, individuals using the push-button telephone may be able to order merchandise, pay bills, make inquiries, and handle other business transactions by communicating directly with computers or related business machines. Order takers, salespeople, and other clerical workers in retail trade and service industries may be affected.
     -- "Technological Trends in Major American Industries" (U.S. Department of Labor, February 1966)
* Summary (from doyouremember.com): @

* Press release from Bell Telephone Laboratories (from rotarydial.org): @

* "Western Electric 1500-Series Telephone Types": @

* "Look What's Happening to the Telephone" (Changing Times magazine, May 1964): @
* "The Telephone Story" (AT&T poster, 1969): @
* "Why do phones have the * and # buttons?" (from Solid Signal Blog): @
* "Century 21 Calling" (Bell System video from 1962 World's Fair; push-button exhibit begins at 6:35): @ 

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Friday, November 15, 1963: Valium

Valium (diazepam), a tranquilizer made by the Swiss company Hoffman-La Roche, is approved for sale in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration. The name "valium" was derived from valeo, the Latin word for healthy.

     From a 1970 ad in the journal Hospital & Community Psychiatry: 
     35, single and psychoneurotic
     The purser on her cruise ship took the last snapshot of Jan. You probably see many such Jans in your practice. The unmarried with low self-esteem. Jan never found a man to measure up to her father. Now she realizes in a losing pattern -- and that she may never marry. Valium (diazepam) can be a useful adjunct in the therapy of the tense, over anxious patient who has a neurotic sense of failure, guilt or loss. Over the years, Valium has proven its value in the relief of psychoneurotic states -- anxiety, apprehension, agitation, alone or with depressive symptoms. (Link to this and similar ads: @ and @ and @)
     
-- Photo from The Science Museum, London

* Entries from U.S. National Library of Medicine: @ and @

* Drug approvals and database, FDA: @

* Prescription information (as of October 2013): @
* "Librium and Valium -- anxious times" (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008): @
* "Protecting mental health in the Age of Anxiety: The context of Valium's development, synthesis and discovery in the United States, to 1963" (Catherine Guise-Richardson, 2009): @
* "Addiction to Diazepam" (Maletzy and Klotter, The International Journal of the Addictions, 1976): @

* Does It Cure or Increase Anxiety? A Question for Valium Users" (Gilbert Cant, 1976): @
* "Tranquilizer Use and Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study of Social and Psychological Effects" (Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1984): @
* "Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac" (David Herzberg, 2009): @
* "The Age of Anxiety: A History of America's Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers" (Andrea Tone, 2008): @

* "Before Prozac: The Troubled History of Mood Disorders in Psychiatry" (Edward Shorter, 2008): @

* "Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs" (Jonathan Metzl, 2003): @

* "Inventor of Valium, Once the Most Prescribed Drug, Dies" (Washington Post, 2005): @

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Sunday, November 10, 1963: 'Message to the Grass Roots'

Considered to be one of the top hundred American speeches of the 20th century, Malcolm X's address unified many of the strands of black nationalism, Pan-Africanism and third-world revolutionary thought that had been emerging in his ideas for years. ... He claimed that a revolution centered on nonviolent activism was not revolutionary at all: "Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise." ... Ultimately, giving such a speech in Detroit, the center of labor activity and black working-class radicalism in the 1960s, opened Malcolm X to an entirely new audience from that of the Nation of Islam.

     --- From "The Portable Malcolm X Reader" (Manning Marable and Garrett Felber, 2013): @

     -- June 1963 photo from Corbis Images

* Transcript (from TeachingAmericanHistory.org): @

* Audio (from thespeechsite.com): @

* "Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements" (1965): @

* "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention" (Manning Marable, 2011): @ and @

* "The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X" (Robert Terrill, 2010): @

* MalcolmX.com: @
* The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University: @
* "African American Political Thought: Confrontation vs. Compromise, from 1945 to the Present" (2003): @

* "Say It Loud! Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity" (2010): @

* "Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit" (Angela D. Dillard, 2007): @

* "Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit" (Suzanne E. Smith, 2001): @ 

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Thursday, November 7, 1963: Deep Underground Command Center

To be built 3,500 feet below the Pentagon and connected to the White House by tunnels, this "logical, survivable node" would be built to withstand "multiple direct hits of 200 to 300 (megaton) weapons bursting at the surface or 100 MT weapons pentrating to depths of 70 to 100 feet." The DUCC was never built, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluding that it "would be too small, and its communications too uncertain, to serve as a military command center."
     -- From "Every Nuclear-Tipped Missile is an 'Accident Waiting to Happen' " (summary of "Command and Control," Eric Schlosser, 2013): @

* "Memorandum for the President" (Robert McNamara, November 7, 1963): @

* "Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara" (January 10, 1964): @
* "Editorial Note" (summary, from "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968"): @
* Documents (from cryptome.org): @
* "The Worldwide Military Command and Control System: A Historical Perspective, 1960-1977" (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1980): @
* "Command and Control": @
* "The Nation's Cockpit: The DUCC and Decision-Making Under Nuclear Attack" (from Atomic Skies blog): @ 

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Monday, November 4, 1963: Easy-Bake Oven

The baking toy, made by Kenner Products, goes on sale. 

From the packaging: "Bake your cake and eat it too! It's quick! It's easy! Simply add water and bake these delicious treats ... 'Cook Book' tells how to Easy Bake. You can get Kenner refill mixes or use Mom's ingredients."

From the patent (linked below): "This invention relates to toys and it is directed particularly to a toy oven in which a child may bake many varieties of foods 'just like mother's' but on a much reduced scale. ... (T)he oven is heated by ordinary light bulbs. The temperature generated by these bulbs is found to be adequate for baking purposes, but it is not so great that it cannot be effectively baffled, insulated and vented so that there is no danger of a child being burned by touching any of the exposed parts of the oven, even though it be small in size. ... (I)t is found that the average child can turn out excellent baked products with very little instruction using the oven of this invention."

* Short history (from Hasbro, current owner of Kenner): @

* Entry from National Toy Hall of Fame: @

* Early television ad: @

* Patent (from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office): @

* "The Evolution of the Easy-Bake Oven" (from Sociological Images blog): @

* "UC alum Ronald Howes creates Easy-Bake Oven" (from University of Cincinnati): @

* "The Passing of Mr. 'Easy-Bake Oven' " (from Super Chef blog, 2005): @

* "Light Bulb Baking" (Todd Coopee, 2013): @ (book) and @ (website) 

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Saturday-Monday, November 2-4, 1963: Freedom Vote in Mississippi

The "freedom vote" was a mock statewide general election to parallel the Mississippi gubernatorial election of 1963. It was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of civil rights organizations. Aaron Henry, a black pharmacist from Clarksdale, was on the mock ballot for governor and the Rev. Edwin King, a white chaplain at Tougaloo College in Jackson (and a native of Vicksburg), was on the ballot for lieutenant governor. Ballot boxes were placed in churches, businesses and homes across the state, and voting took place over the weekend. Henry and King "won" the mock election in which more than 80,000 black Mississippians voted. This event showed the country that African Americans would vote if given the chance.
-- Text from Aaron Henry biography, Mississippi Historical Society: @

-- Image from Freedom Summer Digital Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
* Summary from Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @

* Summary from SNCC Project Group: @

* Photos from rally for Aaron Henry (Hattiesburg, October 29; from Mississippi Department of Archives and History): @
* Election flier (from Amistad Research Center): @ and @

* Pamphlets: Freedom Ballot and Freedom Registration (from Wisconsin Historical Society): @ 

* Freedom Registration pamphlet (from Civil Rights Movement Veterans): @
* "No Small Thing: Visual Rhetoric and the 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote" (William Lawson, 2008): @

* "Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning" (Aaron Henry and Constance Curry, 2000): @
* Edwin King entry from Civil Rights Digital Library: @
* COFO summary (from Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute): @

* "The Washington Merry-Go-Round" (Drew Pearson, November 4): @

* "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi" (John Dittmer, 1994; see Chapter 9, "Conflicting Strategies"): @ 

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Friday-Saturday, November 1-2, 1963: Coup in South Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, is shot and killed on November 2, the day after a military overthrow of the government began.

Clutched by searing flames, a Buddhist monk martyrs himself on a Saigon sidewalk. A few days later, joyous hands hoist a Vietnamese soldier in a victory that belongs both to him and the suicidal monk. Opposition to the regime of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem had been gathering force like a thunderhead, overshadowing the U.S.-backed war against the Communist Viet Cong. First Buddhists, then students and other dissidents joined against Diem's government -- and the government had no answer but repressive brutality. Then Diem's own generals and the armies they command rose in revolt.

-- Life magazine, November 15, 1963 (link: @) 

-- Photo from Corbis Images. Original caption: In photo just obtained by UPI, the bodies of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (right) and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, disguised as priests, lie in armored personnel carrier, November 2, shortly after they were slain in revolution. They were reportedly being taken to Army staff headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Airfield. Note bindings on Nhu's hands.

* Short summaries from history.com: @ and @

* Summary from "Vietnam War Almanac" (James H. Willbanks, 2009): @ 
* "Walkthrough: Vietnam in Late 1963" (from Mary Ferrell Foundation): @
* "South Vietnam 1963" (from "U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective," David Sylvan and Stephen Majeski, 2009): @
* "JFK and the Diem Coup" (from National Security Archive): @
* "The Coup Against the Diem Government" (from "Foreign Relations of the United States," U.S. Department of State): @
* "Vietnam, August-December 1963" (from FRUS): @
* "The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May-November, 1963" (from the Pentagon Papers, U.S. Department of Defense): @
* "The Vietnam Revolt" (newsreel): @
* "Death of a Regime" (CBS News): @
* "Vietnam Climax" (Life magazine, October 11): @ 

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