Eyewitnesses Bring New Perspective To Tragedy In ‘JFK: One Day In America’

Looking directly into the camera with a sadness in his eyes, Buell Frazier says, almost quietly, “When I left to go to work that morning, that young boy has never come home.”

He’s thinking back to November 22, 1963, the day of the assassination of then President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, TX.

Frazier, who drove gunman Lee Harvey Oswald to work at the Texas School Book Depository that day is just one of the subjects interviewed for the documentary series JFK: One Day in America.

Using testimony from some of the last surviving witnesses, the three-part series produces a comprehensive account of a day that changed American history forever.

In addition to Frazier, interviewees include Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who was assigned to protect Mrs. Kennedy; Sid Davis, a Washington news correspondent; Rusty Robbins, who was with the Dallas Police Department at the time; Bill Mercer, a Dallas news anchor; Peggy Simpson, who worked for the Associated Press; Paul Landis, another Secret Service agent; and Ruth Paine, a friend of the Oswald family.

The series is part of National Geographic’s Emmy Award-winning franchise One Day in America. From 72 Films, and made in official collaboration with the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the project is helmed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin.

Elected in 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, at 43 years old, became the youngest elected President in American history.

Although considered a popular politician, like most government officials, Kennedy was not without his detractors. By traveling to Texas, he’d hoped to alleviate the tension that had arisen with the state’s Democratic party, and to stir up support for his re-election bid.

Although he knew about an incident just two weeks earlier that had taken place in Dallas — when Adlai Stevenson, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, had been hit on the back of the head — Kennedy decided to forgo suggested security measures and opted to ride in an open convertible, wanting to give maximum exposure to the thousands along the parade route.

At 12:30pm that Friday, as Kennedy’s motorcade traversed through the city, shots rang out. Kennedy was pronounced dead a mere 30 minutes later at 1pm CST.

What followed was chaotic – a police officer shot and killed, a manhunt for the assassin ensued, and then on Sunday, the killing of the assassin while in custody was carried on live television.

While there has been plenty of content produced investigating what may or may not have occurred that day, JFK: One Day in America uses archival footage, some colorized for the first time, interspersed with witness accounts to provide a minute-by-minute retelling of what transpired in Dallas, and its aftermath, by people who were there.

While the colorization process was painstaking — it took 12 weeks to turn 53 minutes of black-and-white images into colored shots — it was done with the intention to appeal to a younger audience, says Alex Nicholson, a production executive with 72 Films.

“We wanted to be able to present the subject matter in a way that hadn’t been seen before,” she says, while explaining that the footage left in its original format was done so with much consideration. “We realized that when we were putting the film together some archival footage just lended itself better to stay black-and-white.”

But, both Nicholson and series producer Charlotte Rodrigues, believe that the most important part of the documentary is the people who participated, and the stories they tell.

“Our subjects are these normal, everyday people, who were going about their lives that day, doing their jobs, and suddenly they became wrapped up in this horrendous event that was life-changing,” says Rodrigues.

She notes that six decades after Kennedy’s death, some of the last living witnesses to the events that day are now in their 80s and 90s.

“We felt this was probably the last time that we were going to be able capture their testimony and we felt it was really important to do that before that wasn’t a possibility anymore.”

She adds that viewers will, ‘feel like you’re in the [point of view] of the eyewitnesses.’

“It feels like you’re there at that time, in that moment, and it’s their testimony that makes the series so immersive and emotional.”

One of those people is Peggy Simpson, who was working as an Associated Press reporter at the time — the only woman in the role at the news organization’s Texas bureau at the time.

In an odd twist, Simpson wasn’t actively working for the AP that afternoon because she was prepping to go to a dinner that Texas Governor John Connally and Kennedy were to attend that night.

When she was finished getting, as she calls it, ‘gussied up,’ Simpson’s bureau chief told her to go down and watch the motorcade. After the procession passed, she headed back to her office, where she heard someone on the phone say that the president had been shot.

“So, I just ran out and went to Dealey Plaza and sort of embedded myself with the cops,” Simpson said, recalling the events of that day.

Two days later, Simpson would witness club promoter Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, killing him as he was being escorted by detectives inside Dallas Police Headquarters.

Simpson recently revealed that this is the first time that she’s spoken on-camera about her movements on that day.

As for the finished product, she says, “I watched the whole film and I was just trembling at the end of [it]. It was a lot to watch. It brought me back.”

For the police and the reporters that day, Sid Davis sums up their actions, saying that none of them could stop and think about the enormity of what had happened, for if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to do their jobs.

Along with these thoughts, the documentary is full of astonishing tidbits and exclamations, including Jacking Kennedy refusing to change out of her blood-soaked suit before Lyndon Johnson’s swearing in on Air Force One, as she is reported to have said at the time, “Let them see what they’ve done,” Bill Mercer uttering, on the heels of Ruby gunning down Oswald, “Who else is going to get shot,” and Sid Davis, as he was watching Kennedy’s casket arrive at midnight at the White House, “This is an earth shattering type of experience. Something that many people believe could not happen in the 20^th century.”

Ruth Paine, who was just trying to be a friend to Oswald’s wife, Marina, says in the series, “It hurts to go back to that time and remember the feelings. I felt angry that I had unwillingly been helpful [to Lee] in some way.”

To Paine’s point, “What happened defined a lot of people’s lives,” says Nicholson. “It was a turning point for many, some more than others. I think it’s really fascinating how this was a global event and yet it also affected people deeply on a micro level as well.”

Given that the subject matter is so heavy, Nicholson says that she and the creative team understand if some viewers are reluctant to tune in, but she offers, “This is about family, hope, and a nation coming together during a very difficult time, and people rebuilding their lives after tragedy, and I think that even amid all of these somber events, that’s something to hold on to, and to use as a cornerstone going forward.”

All three episodes of ‘JFK: One Day in America’ air Sunday, November 5^th beginning at 8/7c on National Geographic, and will be available for streaming the next day on Hulu and Disney+