THOUSANDS of Americans still remember where they were the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
But Peggy Simpson, 84, recalls it more than most, as she was right there, in Dallas, Texas, reporting on the event 60 years ago, and witnessed JFK’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, get shot right in front of her.
GettyKennedy was murdered as his cavalcade rode through Dallas[/caption]
AlamyLee Harvey Oswald shot the president[/caption]
“The country was in a state of shock,” the ex-journalist says ahead of the new National Geographic documentary series JFK: One Day In America.
“It was unbelievable. Kennedy’s death was a huge blow to a lot of people. I just couldn’t believe that that could happen in our country, let alone on my doorstep.”
Two days after the assassination JFK’s killer, Harvey Oswald was also gunned down, by club owner Jack Ruby.
The murders opened a Pandora’s box of conspiracy theories that survive to this day.
One theory blamed the Mafia, claiming they put Oswald up to the assassination in retaliation for Bobby Kennedy’s crackdown on organised crime – and that Ruby was persuaded to kill Oswald to wipe out a debt to the mob.
Other whispers claimed Russians were behind the plot or the CIA but Peggy believes Ruby, who died in hospital in 1967, held the key to the truth.
“When Oswald was arrested, it was discovered he’d been in Russia so people started up their own conspiracy theories,” Peggy tells The Sun.
“But there weren’t any coherent theories on why anybody would have gained from doing this.
GettyThe news rocked the world[/caption]
“What would Ruby have gained from shooting Kennedy unless he was all mobbed up? There’s no evidence of that.
“The Russians didn’t know Jack Ruby so that wouldn’t have applied. I just think it’s one of these unfathomable things that happened.
“When Jack Ruby was dying in hospital he could have put the record straight but there was no deathbed confession.”
She adds: “Jack Ruby prevented justice from being served when he killed Oswald.
“Ruby was so enamoured with the Kennedy family that this was vengeance on his part. He hated Oswald because he had killed John Kennedy so he wanted to kill him. And he did.”
Secret documents
In 1964, the Warren Commission, set up to investigate the assassination of JFK, “found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.”
Thousands of documents relating to the murders were released in 2017 with another 13,173 released in December 2022, with some still held back for “national security”.
Peggy believes they might contain revelations that are “embarrassing to the government” but adds: “The fact that they are not all 100 per cent released, feeds the conspiracy theories people can say, oh, you know, they’re not releasing that because no prove XYZ.”
But she believes the Warren Commission got it right and recalls a conversation she had with an aide of Bobby Kennedy, five years ago.
“He said he had never believed the Warren Commission Report but said ‘every day I wait for a deathbed confession, and there haven’t been any and so maybe I’ve really been wrong. Maybe this is really exactly how it happened, as unbelievable as that is.’ That’s where I am on this also. “
Getty – ContributorJack Ruby with dancers at his nightclub, the Carousel Club[/caption]
AlamyJack Ruby with Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker[/caption]
Peggy reported on events at the timeRex
On November 22, 1963, JFK, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
His wife, Jacqueline, was with him, as well as security guards Clint Hill and Paul Landis, and was forced to watch her husband get fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by former U.S. Marine, Oswald.
Oswald later shot lone Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit, and he was quickly charged with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit.
But, two days after Kennedy’s assassination there was another shock murder.
As live television cameras covered Oswald being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, he was fatally shot by local nightclub operator Jack Ruby.
Getty – ContributorOswald had Russian connections[/caption]
AlamyJackie Kennedy and kids Caroline and John Jr. at the lying-in-state service for the President the day after he died[/caption]
Peggy, the only female Associated Press reporter working in Texas in 1963, recalls how the day panned out.
She says: “My bureau chief called and said, ‘You know, I want you to be in the jail and show up at ten o’clock, because the cops are moving Oswald from the city to the County Courthouse.’
“I just assumed that he would come out, they would put him into a car, and he would be gone, and that was it.
“But everything was unusual about this whole weekend. It was just an unprecedented set of events, that you just kept following as they kept unfolding.”
Armed guards were stationed at points across the inside of the basement Oswald was due to be transferred through, and throughout Dallas, City Hall and the Police Headquarters
“When I arrived at the jail, there were so many people who were gathering and being angry at what had happened,” Peggy says. “The atmosphere, the paranoia and the atmosphere that was gripping Dallas at the time.
“There was a feeling of outrage that this could’ve happened, this could’ve happened here. Who is this person anyway?”
Officers were checking every vehicle coming in, and no one, who was not a member of the press and not able to show identification, could enter the basement.
‘Total chaos and pandemonium’
Despite all of this, Oswald was shot and Peggy was right at the front of “about 20 or 30 reporters” who witnessed it happen.
“Ruby came out of the crowd three feet from me and I didn’t see anything until I saw the gun flash,” she tells The Sun.
“I just knew that Oswald had been badly hurt, and that the cops were in astonishment.
“You could just see the horror on their faces. There was total chaos and total pandemonium. Nobody was quite sure what on earth was happening. “
AlamyOswald is shot in the basement of the Dallas Police HQ[/caption]
GettyReporters were present to witness the chaos[/caption]
“I went directly to the basement at the police station where they were banks of telephones was calling my office and dictating everything I had seen.
“Then I heard a policeman saying ‘It’s Jack Ruby.’ I told my editor on the telephone and he jumped a foot high and said ‘I drink at his bar.’ “
She continues: “There was just this sense of horror, and a sense of total disbelief. How could this be happening?
“You had to absorb the fact that somebody had been there to kill Oswald, and they did.”
Jack Ruby was a well-known nightclub owner, who was friends with the police, and “worked with them”.
He would often give police tickets to his strip club, and he hadn’t had to show any credentials to get in the prison, as “everyone knew him”
Rusty Robbins, who worked for Dallas Police at the time, explains: “Jack was known to carry a pistol and, back then, if a businessman was known to carry a weapon, he was overlooked.
“So maybe he was overlooked, like, ‘Oh that’s Jack.’”
Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died, and Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder.
However, the decision was overturned on appeal and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.
JFK: One Day In America starts on National Geographic on November 5, 9pm.
Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
