Bill Scott: 1963 was a year of change: change in leadership and social change. This is Bill Scott, Director of News for Radio Press International.
In many ways, death became the hallmark of the year with the brutal assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the passing of Pope John XXIII. 1963 ran the gamut of human emotion and human endeavor. It was a year that began with high hopes for easing of international tensions, a year that sustained a terrible period of shock and mourning and ended with a nation and a world community coming to understand a new maturity in its ability to cope with sudden and enormously difficult circumstances.
You are about to hear the stories of the major developments of 1963, as told by the newsmen who reported those developments, with the actual voices of the people who made the news. Here are some of the sounds and voices of the news of 1963.
Lyndon B. Johnson: "An assassin's bullet has thrust upon me the awesome burden of the Presidency. I cannot bear this burden alone."
"(Foreign language.)"
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Freedom, freedom! Freedom now!"
