Bulletins from Dallas

Reporting the JFK Assassination

An in-depth look at Pulitzer Prize–winning White House reporter Merriman Smith and his biggest story: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Thanks to one reporter’s skill, we can fix the exact moment on November 22, 1963, when the world stopped and held its breath: At 12:34 p.m. central time, UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith broke the news that shots had been fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade. Most people think Walter Cronkite was the first to tell America about the assassination. But when Cronkite broke the news on TV, he read from one of Smith’s dispatches. At Parkland Hospital, Smith saw President Kennedy’s blood-soaked body in the back of his limousine before the emergency room attendants arrived. Two hours later, he was one of three journalists to witness President Johnson’s swearing-in aboard Air Force One. Smith rightly won a Pulitzer Prize for the vivid story he wrote for the next day’s morning newspapers.

Until this book, the full story of how Smith pulled off the most amazing reportorial coup has never been told. With access to a trove of Smith’s personal letters and papers and through interviews with Smith’s family and colleagues, veteran news reporter Bill Sanderson cracks open the legend. Bulletins from Dallas tells for the first time how Smith beat his competition to the story, and shows how the biggest scoop of his career foreshadowed his personal downfall.

“So much of what we know about any story depends on how reporters do their work. Bill Sanderson takes us through every heartbreaking minute of one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, with sharp detail and powerful observations. As you read the book, you’ll feel all the pressure and adrenaline rush of a reporter on deadline.” —Neal Shapiro, former president of NBC News, current president of WNET