Living History with Bill Mercer
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- As part of the “Four Days in November” program series to commemorate the 56th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza presented a Living History conversation with Bill Mercer, moderated by Curator Stephen Fagin.
An award-winning broadcast journalist and sportscaster, Mercer is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. As a broadcaster with KRLD Radio and TV, Mercer reported live from Dallas police headquarters on November 22, 1963. At a midnight press briefing, he was the one to initially inform suspect Lee Harvey Oswald that he had been charged with the President’s murder.
This conversation was presented at the Museum on November 22, 2019. To see related films, photos, documents and oral histories from The Sixth Floor Museum's collection, visit our online collections database (emuseum.jfk.org). Or make a research appointment to explore the books, DVDs and other materials available in the Museum's Reading Room (www.jfk.org/rea....
Steven Fagin does a very nice job with these interviews. Great preparation before the interviews provides a great flow to telling the story and asking insightful questions.
Well, I was in Third grade in TEXAS and I remember vividly the announcement over the intercom. There was no cheering or applauding period. I remember we were SHOCKED and couldn't believe what had happened. Of course we knew little about politics back then but everyone I knew liked JFK and Jacqueline. They let us out of school, but there was no cheering about that.
Then a couple of days later we watched Oswald get shot. Once again a young third grader is shocked by events in his world. It was unbelievable, and the main emotion I remember was thinking it was the end of the world. Of course it was, the world as WE knew it. I was also ashamed that these things were happening in my beloved State. So yeah there was no cheering in any class room I am aware of.
55 years ago Bill Mercer was my instructor in the sports announcing curriculum in the broadcasting school I attended. I learned a lot from him and later did football, basketball and baseball play-by-play for both college and high school using most of what Bill had taught me. I'd guess he was in his 30s then, and probably in his 90s now.
Bill was the first radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys. I still remember listening to his call of the game. "And here comes the Cowboys" as they came on the field, always pumped m we up. He called the games by himself. He added a lot of interest..
And the voice of World Class Championship Wrestling at the Sportatorium
Didn’t rouse any interest in me. Cowboys are shit
I believe he did play by play for the Ice Bowl in Green Bay.
Bill is looking and sounding great at his age, he tuned 94 a few weeks ago
Bill had a most pleasant voice as I remember from back in the 60's. He was one of my favorite broadcast personalities.
It never ceases to amaze me how lucid
these people are after all this time .
I agree however you just don’t forget moments like those burned in your head and heart forever.
@@katherinechrisman5362 that's a great point . I'm sure it was very traumatic for them .
Well that’s the difference when you have a president who has dementia and you compare him with someone his same age who doesn’t. It’s a world of difference.
"Handing out sandwiches" How considerate of Ruby. He actually catered the assassination. geezus, these cops were either complicit or completely incompetent., or both.
What is so fascinating about these is you are brought back to that time in a very real way with these people who were actually there. Important work. Everything so stylish back then--even the cool hats worn by the cops. I love how this reporter just played it straight--just the facts. I wish we still had that professionalism today. Dan Rather falsely reporting? Impossible!
Dan Rather, now what does that tell you because he was caught lying when the Zapruder film was released, and then the whole story fell apart 🙄
Why would he buy a rifle through the mail that could be traced immediately? He didn’t he was the Patsy just like he said he was. His mother said that he worked for the Government.
One of my favorites, of all the interviews on SixthFloor. Thank you Mr. Mercer.
Ike was absolutely connected with the Communist Party because "that's called the President of the United States doing his job" as believe it or not the USA and USSR were Allies you dumb fuck!
@@doolittlegeorge thanks for knowing your WORLD HISTORY! 😉
@@doolittlegeorge Not really! My father shot down a MIG (a Russian fighter jet) in the Korean War. They provided all the air power and they also helped the communist with air power in Vietnam!
Please do not forget the Cuban Missile Crisis, when just 13 months before had hundreds of missiles pointed and ready to launch with more coming on ships. It was the height of the Cold War. Cuba still to this day has heavy sanctions on them!
You have to keep in mind that the House Select Committee in the late 1970’s determined that there was more than 1 shooter in Dealey Plaza. So if there was 2 or maybe 3 or 4 different people shooting then Lee Oswald probably wasn’t shooting at all. He said he was a Patsy, and it makes sense
Enjoyable interview. Good to put a face to the voice that was speaking to Oswald.
This guy is amazing. Sharp as a tack.
I can still remember his voice at the Dallas Sportatorium during the black & white days of wrestling on channel 11. I wrote him when he was announcing Round Rock minor league baseball, goodness I would have loved to have seen & heard one of those games, they suppose to have been an excellent team. A man with a very distinguished voice. Wow, those great days of Fritz Von Eric, the Spoilers & 'Bulldog' Danny Plechas, today I don't know anything about their wrestling, it's not my time.
Crazy....Bill Mercer is apart of my childhood via the WCCW tv show aired on ESPN...All the stuff I studied about this event and I had no idea Bill was tied to it
He's about believable now
Are you serious? You really didn’t know??? Fuck people are getting more and more retarded.
I remember Bill Mercer on tv when I was a kid in Dallas. If not mistaken he MC’d some of the old wrestling matches on Saturdays on channel 4.
11
Thanks for clearing that up. I left the area before all the broadcast companies changed their channel numbers.
Sure did!
Very interesting interview and good clips of the packed hallway, incredible to hear and tremendous clear memories. A moment in history that we will never forget.
When Bill Mercer and the Dallas cop laugh at the end of the old film clip, if ya read Bills lips it looks like he said: "Knock Knock? (who's there?) "Hutch." (Hutch who?) "GaZoont-hyke!"
enjoyed Bill with World Class wrestling. Seems like a great down to earth guy and turns 96 today
First time in history for live live TV and good quality too.
Bill Mercer I liked him when he was an announcer for World Class Championship Wrestling.
It was definitely a different time. Crazy to let all those people into the hallway, and walking Oswald right thru the crowd. And absolutely no women there!
Funny how they wanted to transport Oswald for his safety. Yet, gave the time, date and location of his moving
For him to say the Zapruder film confirmed Kennedy was shot only from the back is ludicrous.
More amazing is he's not even questioned by that 'host'
I have watched the Zapruder film many times. If President Kennedy had been shot from the right front (i.e., the grassy knoll), MRS KENNEDY, would also have been hit. One can clearly see that her head was very close, almost in front of his, as she tried to see why he was grasping his neck. Also, look at the people in the background. One person stands out: a little girl who had been running in the plaza behind the motorcaid. Just after the first shot, She suddenly slowed down & looked behind her, as if she had heard something that frightened her. As Zapruder continued to record the motorcade, the little girl went out of the camera's view.
@@karenmainor4275supposedly the bullet that hit Kennedy and Connolly was found on a stretcher in the hospital in very good condition. Where did the bullet that hit Kennedy in the head go? Did they find it in his skull? Seems to me Oswald had two different guns or he had a special gun that fired different bullets. Our government has lied to us our entire lives and never more than today.
Love these stories, I was born in 1963, love watching JFK.
11:53 The way they used to give everyone's address on TV, Radio and in Newspapers back then seems odd today.
Lady Bird would often go out to the pastor and suck off the bulls. Then come back in and kiss LBJ.
I worked for a company around 2000 that was having it's 80th anniversary. My job was to look up any mention of the company in old newspapers, magazines etc. at the library and find any name and address of the kids so they could be invited. I was shocked at how many times I read that little sally, age 11 is going to x address Tuesday at 6 pm for our class. Someone needs to find that old spreadsheet and run it across a missing persons database.
32:52 The Zapruder film did not show conclusively that Kennedy was shot from behind.
Common Sense IS sorely,sorely lacking in this interview with this news reporter.Jack Ruby,was involved with organize crime since the age of 17, running" errands" for Al Capone in Chicago,and he definitely,like J.Edgar Hoover,was" affiliated" with organized crime.The more I heard,the organized crime heads state Ruby had No connections to them,the more I realized,Ruby,probably was connected to organized crime!!
He must have watched a completely different Zapruder film than everyone else on the planet
Well, he was involved in professional wrestling. So he's accustomed to saying outrageous shit.
Thanks again for a great interview.
Oswald is very calm, considering the circumstances. He also seems to have an underlying seething anger and sense of injustice. It is always so ironic when people who reject our country’s principles are the first to scream ‘civil rights’ and that they want representation. (Not that I believe he didn’t deserve representation. He did, like anyone else. It’s just amusing because he would get no such privileges in Russia or Cuba).
@normagrimstad8869 Yep, Lee's just the kind of guy who would scream: Police brutality! after being roughed up while violently resisting arrest and trying to shoot Nick McDonald, one of the arresting officers.
Oswald wanted better civil rights for the black folk.
He had lunch with them on the 1st floor of the TSBD.
Thank you from Quebec
Good program
Alright, I promised myself I'd stop adding comments, but the story about the kids in school applauding when they heard that JFK had been shot (39:16) I actually recall in my 2nd grade class (Mrs Burckhardt) when the class heard that MLK Jr had been assassinated, one of the kids in class said "my parents said that's the best thing anyone's done for America". I thought that maybe it was RFK's assassination that had occurred, but if I look at the timeline, it was unlikely it was RFK, because that was during the summer vacation. And it was definitely in 2nd grade. I think two other kids in the class were also, let's say, not upset about the assassination of MLK Jr. I was really baffled because why would anyone be happy about anyone getting killed. But political leaders were getting wiped out all over the world, and now it seems horrifyingly obvious, but we were children, what did we know? And as little kids during that insane time period, we were all like "What, me worry?" as Alfred E Neumann was fond of saying on the cover of MAD magazine every month. I never got what that meant until I was in my late 30's. I'm still not sure. Probably just as the kids who are 4 now will always wonder what "Let's go Brandon!" meant....
I keep seeing this "Let's go Brandon" and I don't know the entire story behind it. As far as the kids go, they are influenced by parents and/or other family members.
@Paula Harris Baca: Obviously, the kids applauding "when they heard that JFK had been shot" were in on a deep-dark, vast n' sinister conspiracy. By the by, weren't a few kids absent that day, and unable to prove they were *_not_* in Dallas on 11-22-63? Additionally, wasn't one kid (Peter Plotnik) seen in a photo of the crowd watching the presidential motorcade? (If not, 'twas certainly a ringer for him.) One kid tested positive for GSR, and another kid's dad owned a Mauser! Of course the WC confirmed a massive coverup by not even looking into any of this.
Oswald paid for his ticket. He had the money on him. The woman in the ticket booth admitted that he did. And conveniently, the bullets taken from Tippit did not match Oswald's gun. oops. But luckily, Capt Westbrook found a 2nd gun. But then he found the jacket and a 2nd wallet too.
You forgot to invent a reason for them to call the Cops on Oswald since he already bought a ticket. And how could Oswald have the money on him, if he gave his money to the ticket booth attendant? Pretty sloppy Conspiracy theory comment. 😂
@@radar0412 A dozen people called the cops. What was suspicious about him? Why would anyone call the police? Even if he did not pay for the ticket ( which the ticket woman behind the window confirmed that he had bought it) Do you really think in 1963 that Theater managers called the police when customers didn't pay? They made two arrests that day. One in the front of the building, and one in the back. Oswald's gun did not match the bullets in Tippit. Sorry, the conspiracy is not that Oswald shot Tippit. The Conspiracy is that they planted a 2nd wallet, a 2nd gun, and a jacket. ( One that was bought at a very upscale store in Beverly Hills with a dry cleaning ticket from Beverly Hills) You need to do more research on the crime.
@@davidarbuckle7236 You conveniently left out the conversation between the shoe store employee and ticket booth attendant. This tells me I'm dealing with a deceitful person. Also the shell casings found near the Tippit murder scene matched Oswald revolver to the exclusion of all other revolvers on Earth. Which now makes you a Dishonest person. I hereby ban you from the comment section for 5 years. There will be no appeal. My ruling is final. Good day Sir.
@@radar0412 The ticket taker burst into tears when she was questioned about Oswald buying a ticket. Why would she do that? Because she was pressured to do so. And why was that? Because a dozen cops showed up to arrest a delinquent ticket scammer in the theater. LOL. The Hulls matched, but the bullets did not. YOu have been told that over and over.
@@davidarbuckle7236 Do you Conspiracy theorists go to a seminar to be taught on how to be deceitful? Or is there a how to book on how to do it?
News media Help convect Oswald, "the bigger the lie the most people will believe it"
He said the network news mostly tell the truth?? Wow hard to respect his opinion with that disconnect from reality.
Interesting that neither Jackie, John Jr., Caroline, Ted, Joan, Ethel or Bobby ever indulged in these conspiracy theories. They accepted the truth.
Oswald keep saying he didn't do it
"failed at everything he did"?? the guy became a marine then promoted t o became a radar operator at a top secret U2 spy plane base in Japan and learned russian quite fluently - an extremely hard language to learn - all by age of what? 21? how many 21 year olds do you know who t each themselves russian fluently and are radar operators on a top secret air force base overseas?????
Did he say the zapruder film “ conclusively proved “ the president had been shot from behind ?!!!!
@BobH: Yes but no surprise with a program put on by the 6th Floor. Must have missed the backward hit movement and pieces of brain matter and skull being blown backward.
Bob Hawxwell
- Yeah, thanks what he said. He said it because that's what happened.
I know. Where the H did he come up with that?
@@donbartels153 Frame #312 of the Z-film proves Mercer's statement, a shot from behind.
@@stddisclaimer8020
Some people just don’t want to believe that a Commie, alone, killed JFK.
I used to watch Bill on wrestling as kid when I visited my grandparents in Big D. Good Stuff
Yes, he first did a show called "Studio Wrestling" which was before they wrestled at the Sportatorium. Studio Wrestling used to have Fritz Von Eric, Dukiamoko, Jose Lathario, Killer Karl Cox, and other regulars.
I really like these
There was 13 people which saw how LHO shoot Tippit ?!
If I got plowed from behind every time there was a conspiracy theory... wait, I think I do.:)
I ABSOLUTELY adore how they treat this whole thing like a joke!! This was a VERY Dark time in this country!!
Bill was great with WCCW!
That school teacher was only 24 , wow smh.
32:58, um not really , not sure how a shot from the top and behind can come out side front top of head
@soundbreak7: You misunderstand. The shot *_did not_* "come out side front top of head." The physical evidence is of a small hole in the upper rear of President Kennedy’s head, and a big hole in the right-side portion of his head, indicating conclusively that the shot came from behind.
How is it that Oswald could be in police custody for a day at least and never be informed that he was under investigation for killing JFK much less having to find out from a news reporter that he was charged in killing JFk??! How is it that he was never allowed legal representation and has to ask for that in a sham of a news conference? How could Ruby just walk into a police building a hour and half after when Oswald's scheduled transfer was to have happened at the exact precise moment to shoot him? Obviously Ruby was informed of when to show up to shoot Oswald. Sorry i trust Oswald more than the Dallas police or the FBI on this whole event!
The voice of World Class wrestling
I feel for Marina.
Journalists are like wild vultures .....the lowest of the low
Typical Rather false reporting.
LHO shot 2 ( two !! ) people, dead, that is why he said he didn't shoot anyone !!!!
Gun powder tests were negative. Palm pr int found on gun only after Oswald was killed and due to a police visit to the morgue where oswalds body was. The fact that Dallas police claimed to have kept no records of their interviews with Oswald due to interrogation room being too small for someone to record those interviews is beyond outrageous and insulting to the intelligence of the public. Is there not one person with the Dallas police with the integrity who was there that day to come forth and tell us what happened during those interrogations?
@julianciahaconsulting8663 Gun power test on Oswald's cheek was "neutral" not negative. Gun powder test on Oswald's hand was *_positive_* after shooter Officer Tippit with a revolver. Oswald's prints were not "obtained in the morgue." That's the decrepit stuff of conspiracy mythology. The Dallas Police Department already had two sets of Oswald’s prints (taken at 9:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963: CE 627-629, 17 H 282-284; 7 H 284-285). It was not common to record suspects back in 1963. However, there are 2-1/2 half pages of DPD Captain Fritz’s contemporaneous handwritten notes at the National Archives. Though Fritz’s notes were sketchy, he was noted for his memory, and said that “several days later” he wrote more extensive notes of the interrogations (4 H 209) In addition, detailed written reports were filed by each of Oswald's interrogators that weekend; many of these were collected as Appendix XI of the Warren Report, where they occupy some forty pages.
The first announcer who did it by himself.. Way before Joey styles
This clown makes absolutely no sense, which is, in his own head the logic he uses to create a cheesy confirmation bias on the lone nut theory.
@Lenard Melvin: Rather, it's the conspiracy kooks who "make absolutely no sense." In ~59 years, they've still no well-defined, coherent, viable theory of the crime, and absolutely zero evidence for any of the numerous far-fetched claims they make.
,
It's disappointing and off-putting (to say the least) to see clips of a reporter (Mercer) and at least one officer laughing it up at police HQ within hours of the President being gunned down, a local police officer being murdered and the killer of both being a few feet from them in custody. Did Mercer not understand -- even on the day of the assassination -- the horror and nearly unprecedented enormity of the events that were occurring around him? That it was perhaps the single, worst day in American history (at least of the 20th century) and he was reporting right in the middle of it? This video even has a segment of him whining on a hot mic at police HQ on the date of the assassination that he's "starving" and wants a sandwich and, I suppose, we are all to laugh whimsically at this along with a now aged Mercer (who, based on his incongruous laughter while the clips are being played for the audience, seems to have not obtained any further self-awareness of his behavior nor the import of the events of that day). Mercer's behavior in clips of him when he was not reporting live at police HQ on 11/22/63 ring of some local, virtually unknown reporter covering a ribbon cutting ceremony for a small business or something of equal, minor significance. Just callous in every way, both by Mercer and, frankly, the Museum.
Lee Oswald killed no one that day.
Damn good comment my man!
I’d say it’s more a function of Mercer, and the officer letting off steam after the shock of the murders, then being stuck in the chaos of the close quarters scrum that was that hallway for hours on end.
His wrap up of the day on the 23rd as well as his comments when he did the reports from Dealey Plaza a few days later and his sharing of stories of how the assassination impacted the children of the community indicate he did not take the assassination lightly.
The humor was directed at the circumstances of his reporting, the personalities of some of the people involved, the lack of technology of the era in comparison to today, as well as his youth, slight frame etc. It was not toward the events themselves.
Fool