On this #JFK Saturday, I’d like to share with you one of the weirdest pieces of Kennedy memorabilia in my collection:
The MORNING Extra edition of the Los Angeles Times for Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. 📰
Somebody goofed that headline!
Here’s the full front page:
Evidently the @latimes was in a hurry to get this Extra edition printed, and forgot to change the dateline from morning to afternoon.
#JFK was killed at 12:30 pm Dallas time (10:30 a.m. CA time), so perhaps it was a morning edition technically speaking but oh, that headline!
Text of the story on Page 1: 📰
Let’s open up this crusty old newspaper and see what’s inside, shall we? 📰 👀
On Page 2-3, lots of coverage of President Kennedy’s Texas trip, obviously written and typeset before the assassination occurred.
If you hadn’t read Page 1, you’d think #JFK was alive and well…
According to Page 3 of the LA Times that day, all was going quite splendidly for #JFK and Texas Gov. Connally on their swing through Dallas…
The story continues with no mention of the #JFKassassination at all… 🤨
The story was obviously written and filed the night before the assassination on Nov. 21, for the next morning’s edition.
Coverage ends with #JFK and #LBJ’s arrival in Ft. Worth, where they stayed the night before flying to Dallas the next day.
As a poignant sidebar, #FDR’s two-term Vice President “Cactus Jack” Garner was celebrating his 95th birthday 🎂 in Uvalde on Nov. 22, 1963.
President Kennedy phoned him that morning from Ft. Worth to wish him a happy birthday.
It was one of the last phone calls #JFK made.☎️
The next day, Nov. 23, 1963, the former Vice President told reporters what was said between him and President #Kennedy, and expressed his deep sorrow over #JFK’s murder most foul in his home state.
The L.A. Times headline that day was obviously supposed to read “#KENNEDY ASSASSINATED,” not “ASSASSINATE KENNEDY.”
Oops 🙊!
The @denverpost got it right.
Of course, a newspaper headline like this could spark a thousand conspiracy theories — but most likely this was just an honest mistake made by a Times typesetter in a hurry to get the breaking news to print.
The error was corrected in Saturday’s paper, but only after several thousand copies of the goofed up front page had already been distributed.
A few of these rare 11-22-63 editions are still floating around in collector’s circles, worth a pretty penny! 📰
Here’s the fixed one!
The Times also re-printed a corrected headline and updated the story after #JFK was pronounced dead for their evening EXTRA edition on Friday, November 22, 1963.
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