Remembering the Death of JFK

November 22, 1963

On November 22, 1963, I was a 29 year old news producer-director at KYW-TV,

Channel 3, in Cleveland, Ohio. I was working in the film editing room with Bud Dancy
(later “John” Dancy, NBC’s State Department correspondent).

Suddenly, we heard radio news reporter Ted Wygant burst out of the news wire room
shouting as he headed for the radio booth, “The president’s been shot!”

Dancy and I rushed into the newsroom. He shouted, “Get me a camera!” -- meaning the
TV camera permanently mounted in the newsroom for bulletins and headlines. I rushed
for the door and yelled as I went, “Call the control room; tell them I’m on my way!”

I ran down four flights of stairs to the Master Control Room on the first floor. The Mike
Douglas Show was on the air live by way of a second control room. Harry Caskey, the
veteran MCR technical director, was chomping on the remnants of a cigar while running
commercial breaks via a primitive computer tape system. Dave Lamoreaux was at the
audio board.

I said, “Harry, we gotta do a news bulletin!” I couldn’t bring myself to say why. Four
years of being around news production kept me from stating something so momentous
until it was confirmed as an actual fact. That would be Dancy’s job.

Harry quietly worked at his board, preparing to bypass the Douglas Show as I had
directed, but without the speed I impatiently wanted.

“Harry, please hurry,” I begged.

“These things take time, Dan,” he calmly counseled.

I glanced up at the bank of monitors and saw Dancy on camera frantically mouthing,
gesturing, pleading, “Come on!”

Finally, in desperation, I blurted, “For God’s sakes, Harry, the president’s been shot!”

Bang! Harry’s hand shot out, hit one button, and Dancy was on the air. He gave
whatever particulars he had about the awful news and promised viewers we’d give them
more details about the shooting as they became available.

We switched back to the Mike Douglas Show -- in progress and totally unaware of what
we had just announced to thousands upon thousands of viewers. Mike, his guests, and
the audience were in the midst of laughing at something funny.

“Oh, #@%#!” I thought. I had neglected to alert the Douglas crew before interrupting
their live program. I quickly switched my headset over to their channel and called out to
the show’s director, Ernie Sherry.
 Remembering the Death of JFK
November 22, 1963

“Ernie! This is Dan. We have just announced that President Kennedy has been shot!”

“Jesus Christ! Go to commercial!” he yelled to his crew. “Now! Do it now!”

By the time the commercial break was over, Mike was briefed and Dancy had come
down from the newsroom with more wire copy, ready to give whatever details he had
from the set with Mike. But, first, Douglas addressed the camera and said something
like, “Ladies and gentlemen, without getting into a lot of technical detail, the way this
program is done we cannot hear or see some of the things you see at breaks and such. So,
we did not hear what you in the viewing audience already know -- that President John F.
Kennedy has been shot.”

The collective gasp from the studio audience was one of the most chilling and sickening
sounds I’d ever heard.

Dancy gave additional details and discussion about the shooting continued until a short
time later when the NBC network came on with Chet Huntley, Frank McGee and others
to begin a long and somber description of the tragedy that changed the course of history.

I stayed at my director’s position in Master Control for a couple of hours until I was
relieved by another director. I stood up, put my face to the wall and wept like a baby.

Dan Hrvatin

Postscript:​​ About a year later, I gave copies of a small book about the assassination to
those of us who had participated in putting on the bulletin: Bud Dancy, Harry Caskey and
Dave Lamoreaux. Each book was inscribed in gold leaf with the name of the recipient.