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Collection of original broadcast media and documentation from television historian and archivist Phil Gries, highlighted by his original 1/4-inch master reel containing his November 22, 1963 recording of Don Pardo’s first two NBC bulletins on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the ensuing early network coverage. Also included are the original 1958 Webcor reel-to-reel recorder that Gries states he used to make the recording; his original 1998 cassette recording of a telephone conversation with Pardo about the historic broadcast; digital and oral-history media relating to the recording; and significant provenance correspondence from Pardo, NBC News, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Television & Radio, and The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Items are as follows:
Gries’s original 7.5-inch reel of 1/4-inch American Recording Tape, containing 33 minutes and 49 seconds of NBC assassination-related coverage recorded on November 22, 1963, together with several earlier television airchecks on the same reel. Gries identifies the assassination material as beginning with Don Pardo’s first two NBC bulletins and continuing into early studio coverage by Bill Ryan, Chet Huntley, and Frank McGee. According to Gries, portions of the master were intentionally omitted when he later made duplication copies for institutions and researchers, leaving audio on the original reel that was not included in those distributed copies. The tape is housed in its original American Recording Tape box, labeled “Original Master” and extensively annotated by Gries with contents and timing notes.
Gries’s heavy original 1958 Webcor stereophonic 1/4-inch reel-to-reel tape recorder, which he states was connected to his 16-inch Andrea console television and used to make the November 22, 1963 recording. Gries notes that the approximately 42-pound recorder is no longer functional.
Includes the original cassette recording of Gries’s May 14, 1998 telephone conversation with Don Pardo, approximately 35 minutes in length, during which Pardo discusses his memories of announcing the Kennedy assassination bulletins and other aspects of his broadcasting career. The cassette is extensively annotated by Gries. Also included are Archival Television Audio digital reference discs containing material derived from the master recording, including an “Un-redacted MASTER digital dub,” and a Sixth Floor Museum Oral History Collection DVD of its August 24, 2021 interview with Gries.
Accompanied by correspondence documenting the recording’s later history and institutional use, highlighted by a May 19, 1998 signed letter from Don Pardo thanking Gries for sending him a cassette containing his Kennedy assassination bulletins. Additional correspondence includes an April 14, 1997 letter from Samuel Brylawski of the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Section; a May 31, 2005 letter from Ron Simon of the Museum of Television & Radio; a January 10, 2014 letter from NBC Nightly News senior producer Andrew K. Franklin concerning NBC’s use of Gries’s Pardo audio in its 50th-anniversary Kennedy assassination coverage; and an August 27, 2021 letter from Nicola Longford of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza concerning Gries’s participation in the museum’s oral-history project. These letters are presented in two frames measuring 22.5 x 16 and 22.5 x 26.5. In overall fine condition. Also accompanied by Gries’s extensive notes and documentation concerning the recording and its history.
According to Gries, NBC’s first television bulletin on November 22, 1963, aired locally on WNBC at 1:45 p.m. EST, followed about a minute and a half later by a national bulletin, both read by NBC staff announcer Don Pardo; the network’s continuous coverage began at about 1:53 p.m. NBC did not preserve recordings of the bulletins or the first three minutes and 53 seconds of that coverage, and no network recording of the material is known to survive. Gries was 20 years old when he made the recording at his Brooklyn home.
