NPC in History: The day JFK was shot
Sen. John F. Kennedy addressing the National Press Club shortly after announcing his 1960 presidential bid. Photo: TV Scout/NPC Archives
Nov. 22, 1963, one of the most unforgettable days since Pearl Harbor.
Jack Germond, the Washington columnist for The Baltimore Sun, was a Gannett News Service reporter, working out of the 12th floor in the National Press Building that day. Many years later he recounted what happened that day in the National Press Club.
“In those days, newspapermen writing their stories for the Sunday papers had a noon deadline on Friday. We got into a habit of getting our copy in and coming up to the dining room and have a few Bloody Marys and lunch because the copy was in.
“We just got our Bloody Marys, and the bells on the AP and UPI machines went off like I had never heard, ever. We ran over to the machines, which were stuck in a corner of the alcove. We were getting a flash on each wire service. UPI’s Merriman Smith had beaten Jack Bell of AP by grabbing the phone in the car in Dallas. They were flashing that the president had been shot.
“The whole floor emptied out. Some rushed to the airport to get on a plane to Dallas. Some of us went to the Speaker’s office because he was now second in line and the first in the capital. Some went to the White House. What we were afraid of is that this was an attack on the government. We didn’t know it was one gunman. For an hour or two we were uncertain of what was going on. Everyone was suspicious and everyone was frightened.
“About 6 p.m., I came up here again to see if we could get a hamburger because no one had had lunch. But there was nobody here. No one was in the bar drowning his sorrows. It was because of this incredible story we had to deal with.”
Bryson Rash of NBC News was president that year. He said that day he was meeting in the President’s Room with a group of international correspondents.
“The waiter came to me with the whispered information that President Kennedy had been shot during his trip to Dallas," Rash said. "I passed that information along to the members of the luncheon.”
Rash said he immediately went to seek additional information, and when he returned to his luncheon with his report, the gathering immediately ended as the international correspondents hurried to their offices.
“To my astonishment, as each left, he grasped my hand and offered his personal and his country’s condolences,” Rash said. “For that brief period, I represented this country to those representatives of another. It was a moment of high emotion.”
This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 111-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington, journalism and the Club itself. These stories will be published as a book, “Tales from the National Press Club,” due out April 27, 2020.