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The Assassination of President Kennedy; Obama to Honor JFK; JFK Conspiracy Theories

Aired November 20, 2013 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MALCOLM KILDUFF, WHITE HOUSE ASSISTANT PRESS SECRETARY: He died of a gunshot wound in the brain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Slow it down.

KILDUFF: I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people standing here are stunned, just as all of us are, beyond belief that the president of the United States is dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All over the world, people are going to remember all their lives what they were doing when they first heard that President Kennedy had been killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The crowds are standing around in silence and sorrow in the rain. The strange thing is you don't even notice it's raining, and if you do notice, you don't care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just can't believe it. I feel like someone in my own family has died. I just can't believe it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like a daze. You don't know what's going on. Why? Why did it happen? Who would have are done such a thing is the question.

DAN RATHER, JOURNALIST: In the first minutes and hours, chaos and confusion was radiating out from the scene itself. It was very pervasive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Secret Service agents thought the gunfire from an automatic weapon, fired possibly from a grassy knoll.

ROBERT MACNEIL, JOURNALIST: I saw some police. I thought they're chasing a gunman. I ran with had them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The report is that the attempted assassins, we now hear it was a man and a woman. MACNEIL: I got to the top, looked around. A policeman went over the fence so I went over the fence, too. There was nothing there.

WALTER CRONKITE, JOURNALIST: The television newsman said that he looked up just after the shot was fired and saw a rifle being withdrawn from a fifth or sixth floor window.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was originally thought that the shots came from in here and now it's believed that the shots came from this building here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see police officers running back toward the Texas School Book Depository Building. They are going to continue searching in that building for the would-be assassin of the president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The center of downtown Dallas is in a virtual state of siege. They are combing the floors of the Texas School Book Depository Building in an evident to find the suspects assassin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the building on the sixth floor, we found an area near a window that had partially been blocked off by boxes of books and also the three spent shells that will had apparently been fired from a rifle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crime lab Lieutenant J.C. Day just came out of that building with a British .303 rifle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a 7.65 Mauser.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A high-powered army or Japanese rifle, a .25- caliber.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A .3030 rifle.

RATHER: Much of the first things you hear are going to be wrong. And to some degree, you are constantly trying to separate out what seemed to be a fact.

CRONKITE: In Dallas, a Dallas policeman, just a short while ago was shot and killed while chasing a suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: J.D. Tippit, a good, experienced police officer, was shot three times in the chest in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Then the manager of a shoe store saw the suspect walk into the Texas theater.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone has been arrested in one of the downtown theaters. They don't know if it was the man who shot the policeman or the person who actually shot President Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police suddenly jumped this man and started to drag him out of the theater, hustled him out to the car as the crowd broke and started to maul the police officers and grabbed this man, trying to run with him. They shouted, "Murderer!" and the officers hustled him into the car and ran away just as fast as they could. RATHER: As we mentioned a short while ago, a number of arrests have been made in Dallas in the wake of President Kennedy's death. We have scenes of one of those arrests in the downtown area.

This was just after a Dallas policeman was shot in the vicinity of a downtown movie house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your first name?

DETECTIVE PAUL BENTLEY, DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Paul Bentley.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you approach him?

BENTLEY: (Inaudible) approached him, and as he approached him, the man hit McDonald (ph) in the face with his left hand, reached for the pistol with his right hand. And as he reached for his pistol, I grabbed him along with two or three other officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did he say to you after he was arrested?

BENTLEY: He just said, this is it. It's all over with now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our special edition of "CNN NEWSROOM".

I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

In just a few moments, President Obama along with the first lady and the Clintons, the former president and the former secretary of state, will arrive at Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for just two United States presidents, William Howard Taft and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. President Obama will lay a wreath at JFK's grave site. It's been 50 years since his assassination.

One thing we all saw in that historic film footage was the CBS newsman Charles Collingwood, making that prediction that became absolutely the truth. He said these words. "All over the world, people are going to remember all their lives what they were doing when they first heard that President Kennedy had been killed."

Of course, all of us who lived through that era do exactly remember where we were. I was in social studies classes in Kenmore, New York, outside of Buffalo. I remember my social studies teacher, Mr. Mucci (ph), telling us that the president had been shot. We didn't know he had been killed yet, but they called off school. They told us we should all go home. And I remember walking into my home in Kenmore, New York, seeing my mother in the kitchen, crying hysterically at the time, because by then, she knew, all of us knew, the president was dead.

Let's talk to some people here about that tragic and memorable day. John King, our CNN chief national correspondent, was just a baby in November, 1963. And you're looking at live pictures from the JFK grave site right there.

Doug Brinkley, presidential historian;

Gerald Posner who wrote a book called "Case Closed" about JFK's assassination;

The journalist Maureen Orth from "Vanity Fair," who has written extensively about the Kennedy family, and how Washington and the American presidency changed dramatically on November 2nd, 1963;

And Eleanor Clift, the reporter and author who just marked her 50th year at "Newsweek" magazine. And, Eleanor, you remember exactly where you were, what you were doing and what you were thinking.

ELEANOR CLIFT, CONTRIBUTOR, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: I was hired earlier that will year in 1963 as a secretary to the national affairs editor. And the bulletin came across on the news wire, that the president had been shot. Then we turned on the television. It wasn't like there were televisions everywhere like there are today. I think there was probably one television everybody collected around.

And, of course, when we learned that the president had died, the national affairs editor, he told everyone to go home and do their grieving. Friday is -- it happened on a Friday. It's the day that the news magazine goes to bed. And he said, Go home. We'll put out the magazine the next day.

And I watched him sort of draft a story list, you know, contact -- we had a bureau in Houston. This is kind of unheard of today. We had a stringer in Dallas. And he assembled what was really a vast machinery that a news magazine had to get the reporting in train, to assign the writers and researchers and just being among such professional people basically hooked me on journalism forever.

But, you know, the grief of that day is what lingers. And when you watch all this historical footage, you keep hoping that somehow it's going to turn out differently, even though you know the ending.

BLITZER: You know the answer. And I know you were inspired that day in your life, Maureen, because it had a powerful impact on you, as it did on so many other people.

MAUREEN ORTH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, "VANITY FAIR": Yes, I was at the University of California, Berkeley. And in those days, President Kennedy had just announced really the Peace Corps. And I had been inspired to try to join, and I had sent in my application.

And then I received -- when I received my acceptance letter, it was the next week and it was dated November 22nd, 1963. And it was just a huge moment for me. And that was what I think was so much of his legacy, was this inspiration to service. And he made the world a much bigger globe for so many young Americans. And his vision inspired us to go forth and to serve.

BLITZER: John, I don't know how old you were, but you must have been a little kid.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I was a week shy of three months. And my mom used to tell me that she was in the house and they heard the news and that I spent most of the day on her lap as she watched Walter Cronkite. And she would say that I was a bit of a distraction during the day, perhaps helpful in that.

But for the generation that wasn't alive, that doesn't have the memory, I think we grew up in the myth of John F. Kennedy. I don't mean that in a negative way at all.

If you're Irish Catholic kid and you grew up in Boston, most of the houses you went into, you remember growing up, somewhere in the house, probably in the kitchen, maybe in the front foyer, there was a picture of Jack Kennedy and a picture of Jesus Christ. And that's sort of how you lived.

And every house had them, and not just in the Irish Catholic neighborhoods, but that was what my neighborhood was like. And kids you went to school with, whether they were Italians, that was the way it was.

And, so I -- you have no firsthand memory. I did have the great privilege last year, you remember, I was gone a lot. I was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, the Institute of Politics. And because I was only part-time fellow, they let me stay in his dorm room at Winthrop House, where Jack Kennedy was a college student. And they've redone the room to be like it was when he was there. And it was quite a treat, because it was just full of memorabilia, pictures of him at Harvard, pictures of him later in his political career.

And so I do think it's a somewhat different perspective when you can only learn through the history books, but I think this 50th anniversary is hopefully stirring in people, especially because of what Maureen and Eleanor mentioned, the commitment.

At the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School, you see these young people from all over the world, not just from the United States, who have this commitment to serve. And if that can be a legacy of any president, forgive the language, that's a damn good.

BLITZER: And he certainly had an impact on former President Bill Clinton.

Gerald Posner, let me bring you into this part of the conversation, because we saw the former president, Bill Clinton, there with the current president at the White House. They're all going to be over at the wreath-laying ceremony in a few moments.

I want to put up on screen a picture of a young Bill Clinton, a high school kid. There he is right there. He's shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy. and clearly, like so many other young people, he was inspired there when he was visiting the White House.

I think, what, he was 16-years-old or whatever. There he is with the current president, 50 years later, getting this medal from the president today.

Gerald Posner, and then I'm going to bringing in Douglas Brinkley, give us your thoughts when you see these two presidents today about to remember JFK.

GERALD POSNER, AUTHOR, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Yes, you know, Wolf, you're so right, that's a picture of Bill Clinton at 16 in the Rose Garden shaking the hand, looking so eagerly at Jack Kennedy. It's an iconic photo that becomes a clear moment that Clinton always remembers. And next to him, Barack Obama today, giving him his award.

Barack Obama is really the first president without a memory of Jack Kennedy, born in 1961. It's the first time we've ever had that. We have a first lady today with Michelle Obama, born after the president was killed in 1964. So it's the first time we've had a couple in the White House without that memory. And I think that is a defining generational shift and change in terms of the White House and the leadership in Washington without that the visible memory of that assassination date the rest of us have.

BLITZER: Are you surprised, Doug Brinkley, you're a presidential historian, how powerful that moment 50 years ago has become for so many people, not only in the United States but around the world?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: No, I'm not at all. First off, being the first catholic president, you know, is a big deal. And he was so handsome. And we all get older and John F. Kennedy's the gallant president gunned down in his prime. Also, you've been pointing out, television was just really coming into dominating communications around the world. So all this footage went everywhere. You can imagine.

But also, he had a lot of great -- when you go there to Arlington, to that eternal flame, it's - you know, you have the Kennedy in space, Kennedy in civil rights, you know, Kennedy in the environment with Rachel Carson. A lot of what he was doing in the new frontier sets up the - you know, what future presidents have to deal with.

BLITZER: All right, I want everyone to stay with us because we're getting ready, the president and the first lady, the former president, former secretary of state, among others, they will go here. You're looking at live pictures of the JFK grave site. They will be here to lay a wreath and remember President John F. Kennedy. Our special coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: All right, these are live pictures from the John F. Kennedy grave site. The president of the United States, the first lady, the former President Bill Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, they will be there, among other distinguished guests. They will lay a wreath there remembering 50 years ago Friday when the former president of the United States was assassinated in Dallas.

Since then, there have been so many conspiratorial theories about what happened, Lee Harvey Oswald, did he act alone? Was he ordered to do so? What was going on? Gerald Posner is with us. He's been investigating this for years.

You've concluded, basically, Gerald, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's no evidence of a conspiracy. The Warren Commission basically got it right. Is that your conclusion?

POSNER: Yes, exactly, Wolf. I mean the Warren Commission got the basic conclusion right. They made a lot of errors along the way. They were lied to by the FBI and the CIA who were - sort of had a cover-up, not of a murder, but to protect their own bureaucratic behinds. They got the sequence of shots wrong, but they got it right when they said that Oswald killed Kennedy alone.

And this weekend, as we get to the 50th, you know, Oswald was interrogated for nearly 12 hours five different times by Dallas Police homicide detectives and the district attorney. And their first concern was the one you would expect from any terror investigation, are there accomplices, there others out there, is somebody going after LBJ, is there somebody else on the plot? And once they were convinced there wasn't, they sort of had their man, although 50 years later, many Americans don't believe that.

BLITZER: I know.

Doug Brinkley, there are so many conspiracies out there involving Cuba and Castro, the former Soviet Union, the mafia, the CIA. You can go on and on and on. You've done a lot of research in this. Your bottom line?

BRINKLEY: I agree with Posner. Have for a while. Anybody that looks into it knows that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. Now, what was Oswald's game? Why did he do it? What's his motive? Somehow I feel we're not positive about that. It would have been great if those Dallas Police would have tape recorded Lee Harvey Oswald, but alas it was a different era.

They didn't. There was some sloppy police work. The Warren Commission did some sloppy work. But just think how quickly they had to do it. And in the end, we probably need to thank people like Gerald Ford and John McCloy and Allen Dulles, people of the Warren Commission, for the pretty good job they did getting it right that quickly.

BLITZER: Not perfect, but pretty good in your opinion.

All right, guys, we've got a lot more to discuss. We're getting ready to see the president and the first lady over there at the grave site at Arlington National Cemetery. They will lay a wreath. They will have a little service there. Our special coverage continues in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: This is Arlington National Cemetery. In just a few minutes, President Obama will be here to honor the memory of President John F. Kennedy. The president will lay a wreath at JFK's grave. The first lady will be there, as well. The former president, Bill Clinton, will be there, as well. Stay with CNN. You will see all of that live coverage coming up in a few minutes. Let's continue our conversation though, as we approach the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. John King, Eleanor Clift, Maureen Orth, they are still here with me in the studio. Also joining us, the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, Kathy Horn (ph) with "The New York Times," and the author Gerald Posner. We've been discussing the historic moment 50 years later, what's going on.

That - you know, it's interesting, I want to show our viewers, here is the live picture. You see the eternal flame there at the grave site of John F. Kennedy. This was the idea of Jacqueline Kennedy. By all accounts, she was the one who told her associates and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved quickly. A last-minute decision to go ahead and establish that eternal flame.

She later told William Manchester, the Kennedy family friend, the author of "Death of a President," that the idea just came into my head, she said, because on an earlier trip to Paris, the Kennedys had seen a flame - a similar flame at the memorial to the French Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.

And, Maureen, this is typical. You spent a lot of time studying Jacqueline Kennedy. It's not surprising she would want that eternal flame at her husband's grave site.

MAUREEN ORTH, "VANITY FAIR": Absolutely. I think the whole focus of that administration outside the official - this sort of the official affairs of state was really to breed a sense of excellence and glamour and really trying to appeal to the very highest -- her parties, for example, would be Nobel Prize winners and the top people in -- who contributed to our society. It wasn't as it is today, a lot of fat cats and fund raisers. It really is trying to appeal to our highest nature.

BLITZER: Those three years she was first lady were unique three years as far as Jacqueline Kennedy and what she did to the country. You remember, Eleanor, those years well.

ORTH: And she was 31 years old. I mean, it's extraordinary the sense of history that she brought to the White House and the way that she so stylishly shifted from the sleepy Eisenhower years to really the first president who was born in the 20th century.

So she, you know, brought a sense of modernity to the White House. And everything this young family did was news. Helen Thomas, who covered the White House then, when Caroline Kennedy's hamster went missing or died, you know, that was huge news. The country was eager for all of that.

And, of course, the press, as an institution, we weren't uncovering the dirt then. I mean, we didn't really do anything to sully the wonderful image that this young family put forward.