Ike Pappas - obituary

[bijou]

Ike Pappas, who died on August 31 aged 75, was an American radio reporter who had just asked a question of the alleged assassin of John F Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, when the suspect was shot dead in the basement of Dallas police headquarters in November 1963.

As a reporter for radio station WNEW in New York Pappas had flown to Dallas to cover President John F Kennedy’s visit on November 22. Two days later he was in the media scrum in the police station as Oswald was being led away to prison.

Wearing a white raincoat, which made him clearly visible in photographs of the shooting, Pappas had just stepped forward to ask: “You have anything to say in your defence?” when the nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoved Pappas aside, fired a gun and Oswald crumpled, fatally wounded.

“There’s a shot!” Pappas blurted on the air, “Oswald has been shot! Oswald has been shot! A shot rang out. Mass confusion here; all the doors have been locked. Holy mackerel! A shot rang out as he was led into his car. Mass confusion… rolling, fighting.”

Pappas subsequently testified at Ruby’s trial and before the Warren Commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination.

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