3 months ago
AKRON, NY-- This weekend marks the 46th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Two days after the president was killed, so too was the man who shot him.
A Western New York man was not only there when Oswald was killed, he recorded it.
Within hours of the president's assassination, Izzy Bleckman of Akron, just two months after being hired as a cameraman for Movietone News, was on a plane to Dallas.
"We just got off the plane, ran over to the Dallas police station and walked in about the same time they brought him (Oswald) out, and he's being questioned by the reporters," remembered Bleckman.
Here's the guy who shot the president of the United States standing in front of me."
Scott Brown: "What were your impressions of Oswald when you first saw him?"
Izzy Bleckman: "He seemed like that cartoon strip the Sad Sack, he just seemed like a mopey guy I thought. And how could this guy have shot the President of the United States?"
That was Friday night, Oswald was questioned by police on Saturday.
Reporters were told Oswald was going to be moved Sunday morning from police headquarters to the Dallas County Jail.
Sunday morning an armored car was brought into the basement to transport Oswald, but it's a trip he would never make.
By the time Izzy got to police headquarters that morning, reporters and other photographers had staked out what they thought were the best location to see Oswald being moved.
"By the time i thought about how I was going to shoot it, there was no room left, there was no room left," said Bleckman.
So Izzy and his Bolex film camera, moved over to the elevator where Oswald was being brought down into the basement.
Izzy was waiting there with a Dallas policeman.
"He gives me a heads up and out the door they came. I shot the shot, the door opened up and they turned to their left."
"I then stopped the camera, I run down the hall, I cross the alleyway and I'm still cranking the camera because I don't want to run out of spring."
"Here I am going across the alleyway where I'm going to get my low shot underneath the CBS camera and wait."
It turned out he didn't have to wait long.
"I turn around and they walk right into my shot."
And then it happened.
"Jack Ruby's right there. And he steps in and I see something happening but I'm not sure what it is. A shot goes off, and then it's mayhem and they wrestle Ruby down."
Scott Brown: "The president had been killed on Friday, here it is two days later, is this whole thing kind of surreal?"
Izzy Bleckman: "It was surreal of course yeah, it was like a bad movie, if you wrote this out for a scenario they'd say get out of here with that, are you kidding?"
It was surreal, and of course, all too real.
And 46 years ago Izzy Bleckman was there, not only a witness to history, but recording it as well.
