19 Nov 2013

London reaction to JFK assassination – ITN archive (1963)

On the week of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, we look back at archive footage from 1963. Here, American citizens in London gather at the US embassy to express their grief.

As the shocking news from Dallas of the assassination of President John Kennedy began to spread around the world, ITN reporter Richard Dixon was dispatched to Grosvenor Square where he found American citizens arriving at the US embassy hungry for more information about the murder of their president, writes Ian Searcey.

Still digesting the news from Texas, one man describes Kennedy as the best president they had ever had, a man he had fully expected to win the 1964 election, and finds the news “unbelievable”. Another man, recently arrived in the UK and who had left America “peaceful” a few days before, expresses his shock. Asked his opinion about the “world situation”, he accepts that there will be “dire times for a while” until things are sorted out.

Two women express their sorrow for Mrs Kennedy and “all Americans”, while recalling the outpouring of grief that followed the death of President Roosevelt in 1945. At the time, they explain, it seemed like “the end of the world… Of course, it wasn’t… and America will go on.”

The last interviewee describes a “terrific blow for the country and possibly for the world”. When asked if he could think of a good reason for the president being shot he replies: “No-one can give a good reason for anyone to be shot.”