Kennedy was shot I was home recovering from surgery and I was bored and playing with my parents tape recorder, just recording random things off the radio. As fate somehow how had it, it was the precise moment I was recording something that the very first bulletins came on. And for some reason, I had to record everything that happened as it was unfolding.

As years went on and the archive grew, I began to get more recordings of the event, such as an original ABC Radio network recording, which was a much better version of the one I originally made.

The shock and urgency and the feeling of helplessness are still there, even listening to this tape 47 years later.

I don't think there is anything I can add to this that hasn't been gone over adinfinitum through the years.

Here is the first hour, exactly as it happened this day in 1963.