Merriman Smith

Merriman Smith

Albert Merriman Smith was born in Savannah, Georgia, on 10th February, 1913. After leaving college he became a political journalist. As White House correspondent for United Press International he covered the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.

Smith was with John F. Kennedy when he visited Dallas on 22nd November, 1963. The motorcade left Love Field at 11.45 a.m. Smith was in the National press pool car in seventh place in the procession. Also in the car was Jack Bell (Associated Press); Malcolm Kilduff (White House press secretary), Robert Baskin (Dallas Morning News ), and Bob Clark (ABC News). When the shooting took place Smith was too far back to see what happened but did hear the gunfire. As William Manchester, the author of Death of a President (1967) pointed out: "Merriman Smith decided that the longer he could keep Bell out of touch with an AP operator, the longer that lead would be. So he continued to talk. He dictated one take, two takes, three, four. Indignant, Bell rose from the center of the rear seat and demanded the phone. Smith stalled. He insisted that the Dallas operator read back the dictation. The wires overhead, he argued, might have interfered with his transmission. No one was deceived by that. Everyone in the car could hear the cackling of the UPI operator's voice. The relay was perfect. Bell, red-faced and screaming, tried to wrest the radiophone from him. Smith thrust it between his knees and crouched under the dash then surrendered the phone to Bell , and at that moment, it went dead."

Smith reported: "Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painful loud cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker, but the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire. The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the chief executive's bubble-top limousine. Next in line was the car bearing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Behind that, another follow-up car bearing agents assigned to the vice president's protection. We were behind that car. Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. One sees history explode before one's eyes and for even the most trained observer, there is a limit to what one can comprehend."

On 23rd November 1963, Smith's reports were featured in a large number of newspapers. However, as William Manchester had pointed out: "Smith was not as astute a reporter as he seemed. Despite extensive experience with weapons, he had thought the sounds in the plaza were three shots from an automatic weapon, and in a subsequent message he identified them as bursts." Smith was the first reporter to convey the news of the shooting of Kennedy. The UPI Reporter argued that the report "shows… how a top craftsman dealt with the fastest-breaking news story of his generation."

In 1964, Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. He was the first to use the term grassy knoll regarding the assassination. Smith was also presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

Merriman Smith died at his home in Washington from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on 13th April, 1970.

Primary Sources

(1) William Manchester, Death of a President (1967)

Merriman Smith decided that the longer he could keep Bell out of touch with an AP operator, the longer that lead would be. So he continued to talk. He dictated one take, two takes, three, four. Indignant, Bell rose from the center of the rear seat and demanded the phone. Smith stalled. He insisted that the Dallas operator read back the dictation. The wires overhead, he argued, might have interfered with his transmission. No one was deceived by that. Everyone in the car could hear the cackling of the UPI operator's voice. The relay was perfect. Bell, red-faced and screaming, tried to wrest the radiophone from him. Smith thrust it between his knees and crouched under the dash then surrendered the phone to Bell , and at that moment, it went dead.

(2) Merriman Smith, UPI (23rd November, 1963)

It was a balmy, sunny noon as we motored through downtown Dallas behind President Kennedy. The procession cleared the center of the business district and turned into a handsome highway that wound through what appeared to be a park.

I was riding in the so-called White House press "pool" car, a telephone company vehicle equipped with a mobile radio-telephone. It was in the front seat between a driver from the telephone company and Malcolm Kilduff, acting White House press secretary for the President's Texas tour. Three other pool reporters were wedged into the back seat.

Suddenly we heard three loud, almost painful loud cracks. The first sounded as if it might have been a large firecracker, but the second and third blasts were unmistakable. Gunfire.

The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly. We saw a flurry of activity in the Secret Service follow-up car behind the chief executive's bubble-top limousine.

Next in line was the car bearing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Behind that, another follow-up car bearing agents assigned to the vice president's protection. We were behind that car.

Our car stood still for probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. One sees history explode before one's eyes and for even the most trained observer, there is a limit to what one can comprehend.

I looked ahead at the President's car but could not see him or his companion, Gov. John B. Connally of Texas. Both men had been riding on the right side of the bubble-top limousine from Washington. I thought I saw a flash of pink which would have been Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.

Everyone in our car began shouting at the driver to pull up closer to the President's car, but at this moment, we saw the big bubble-top and a motorcycle escort roar away at high speed.

We screamed at our driver, "Get going, get going." We careened around the Johnson car and its escort and set out down the highway, barely able to keep in sight of the President's car and the accompanying Secret Service follow-up car.

They vanished around a curve. When we cleared the same curve we could see where we were heading - Parkland Hospital, a large brick structure to the left of the arterial highway. We skidded around a sharp left turn and spilled out of the pool car as it entered the hospital driveway.

I ran to the side of the bubble-top. The President was face down on the back seat. Mrs. Kennedy made a cradle of her arms around the President's head and bent over him as if she were whispering to him.

Governor Connally was on his back on the floor of the car, his head and shoulders resting in the arms of his wife, Nellie, who kept shaking her head and shaking with dry sobs. Blood oozed from the front of the Governor's suit. I could not see the President's wound. But I could see blood splattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the President's dark gray suit.

From the telephone car, I had radioed the Dallas bureau of UPI that three shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. Seeing the bloody scene in the rear of the car at the hospital entrance, I knew I had to get to a telephone immediately.

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent in charge of the detail assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, was leaning into the rear of the car.

"How badly was he hit, Clint?" I asked.

"He's dead," Hill replied curtly.

I have no further clear memory of the scene in the driveway. I recall a babble of anxious, tense voices -- "Where in hell are the stretchers... get a doctor out here... he's on the way... come on, easy there." And from somewhere, nervous sobbing.

I raced down a short stretch of sidewalk into a hospital corridor. The first thing I spotted was a small clerical office, more of a booth than an office. Inside, a bespectacled man stood shuffling what appeared to be hospital forms. At a wicket much like a bank teller's cage, I spotted a telephone on the shelf.

"How do you get outside?" I gasped. "The President has been hurt and this is an emergency call."

"Dial nine," he said, shoving the phone toward me.

It took two tries before I successfully dialed the Dallas UPI number. Quickly I dictated a bulletin saying the President had been seriously, perhaps fatally, injured by an assassin's bullets while driving through the streets of Dallas.