Overview

An in-depth look at one of the twentieth century's star reporters and his biggest story. Thanks to one reporter's skill, we can fix the exact moment on November 22, 1963 when the world stopped and held its breath: At 12:34 p.m. Central Time, UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith broke the news that shots had been fired at President Kennedy's motorcade. Most people think Walter Cronkite was the first to tell America about the assassination. But when Cronkite broke the news on TV, he read from one of Smith's dispatches. At Parkland Hospital, Smith saw President Kennedy's blood-soaked body in the back of his limousine before the emergency room attendants arrived. Two hours later, he was one of three journalists to witness President Johnson's swearing-in aboard Air Force One. Smith rightly won a Pulitzer Prize for the vivid story he wrote for the next day's morning newspapers. Smith's scoop is journalism legend. But the full story of how he pulled off the most amazing reportorial coup has never been told. As the top White House reporter of his time, Smith was a bona fide celebrity and even a regular on late-night TV. But he has never been the subject of a biography. With access to a trove of Smith's personal letters and papers and through interviews with Smith's family and colleagues, veteran news reporter Bill Sanderson will crack open the legend. Bulletins from Dallas tells for the first time how Smith beat his competition on the story, and shows how the biggest scoop of his career foreshadowed his personal downfall. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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9781510712645

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So much of what we know about any story depends on how reporters do their work. Bill Sanderson takes us through every heartbreaking minute of one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, with sharp detail and powerful observations. As you read the book, you'll feel all the pressure and adrenaline rush of a reporter on deadline. --Neal Shapiro, former president of NBC News, current president of WNET The life and work of a noted White House reporter... Focusing on [Merriman] Smith's reporting of the Kennedy assassination, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, Sanderson conveys the tension and confusion after the event, as Smith and other newsmen scrambled to ascertain facts. --Kirkus Reviews To read Bulletins from Dallas is to touch the fabric of history, through Sanderson's artful weave of many voices, from presidents across the decades to the last words uttered by J.F.K. Swept back through the corridors of time, we hear the urgent bells and clatter of the teletype machine: Merriman Smith's first report to the world, 'Three shots fired at President Kennedy's motorcade today in Downtown Dallas.' This compelling narrative takes us to that moment when our whole nation cried, and, even now, to tears of primal sympathy that never seem to end. --Allen Childs, author of We Were There: Revelations from the Dallas Doctors Who Attended to JFK on November 22, 1963 Bill Sanderson's Bulletins from Dallas is the story of UPI newspaperman Merriman Smith who covered the Kennedy assassination with energy and panache, and for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It's a clinic on how to be a newspaper journalist circa 1963, one with equal measures of precision and emotion. Smith was the Dean of White House reporters of his day, a man who 'could dictate perfect copy off the top of his head,' whose punctuation was unerring. Such focus and determination, and a competitive spirit that led him to beat out the AP especially on the JFK assassination story, makes this book exciting reading. You'll want to be a reporter even as the species is endangered. Merriman Smith, unlike other sycophantic reporters, did not worship his subjects. Wisely, he offered his allegiance not to individuals, but to the White House itself. This is an important book and a must for anyone interested in how a seasoned reporter covered the JFK assassination without mythologizing or distorting available history. --Joan Mellen, author of A Farewell to Justice and The Great Game in Cuba Bill Sanderson provides readers a probing, in-depth look at one of the most fascinating journalists of the twentieth century. From Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, Merriman Smith was a front row observer to people and events that shaped the course of history--Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb, the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement, LBJ's ill-advised and misguided conduct of the Vietnam War. And, of course, President Kennedy's assassination. In Bulletins from Dallas, the author uncovers new observations of and insights into Smitty's reporting on that tragic day, as well as compelling stories and anecdotes about the journalist's personal life and struggles. Anyone interested in presidential history, journalism, and that fateful day in Dallas, will love this read. I certainly did. --Dean R. Owen, author of November 22, 1963: Reflections on the Life, Assassination, and Legacy of John F. Kennedy Bill Sanderson resurrects the murder of JFK in Dallas through the experience of fellow journalists who reported it, chiefly Merriman Smith, who was in the parade behind the president's car and was the first to report the shooting to the world. He has also done his own research, corroborating for example the report that Jack Ruby was at Parkland Hospital when the president died. I found the book very readable, despite its irritatingly simplistic account of Oswald as the lone assassin, a threadbare theory which mainstream newsmen are apparently still expected to repeat. --Peter Dale Scott, author of The American Deep State

So much of what we know about any story depends on how reporters do their work. Bill Sanderson takes us through every heartbreaking minute of one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, with sharp detail and powerful observations. As you read the book, you'll feel all the pressure and adrenaline rush of a reporter on deadline. --Neal Shapiro, former president of NBC News, current president of WNET The life and work of a noted White House reporter... Focusing on [Merriman] Smith's reporting of the Kennedy assassination, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, Sanderson conveys the tension and confusion after the event, as Smith and other newsmen scrambled to ascertain facts. --Kirkus Reviews I have known Bill Sanderson since his days as a cub reporter in New Jersey, thirty years ago. His skills were quite good then. They are superb today. I have read many accounts of the JFK assassination, but none has been anything like Bulletins from Dallas. This is the in-your-face story of Merriman Smith, the iconic UPI reporter who was in the President's motorcade and first told the world in real time, as it existed in 1963, what was happening to JFK. Bulletins is a page turner, and only a reporter with Sanderson's skills could have brought us so realistically back to Dallas through the sharp eyes and the meticulous work of the most significant journalist of the era. --Hon. Andrew P. Napolitano, senior judicial analyst, Fox News Channel, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School To read Bulletins from Dallas is to touch the fabric of history, through Sanderson's artful weave of many voices, from presidents across the decades to the last words uttered by J.F.K. Swept back through the corridors of time, we hear the urgent bells and clatter of the teletype machine: Merriman Smith's first report to the world, 'Three shots fired at President Kennedy's motorcade today in Downtown Dallas.' This compelling narrative takes us to that moment when our whole nation cried, and, even now, to tears of primal sympathy that never seem to end. --Allen Childs, author of We Were There: Revelations from the Dallas Doctors Who Attended to JFK on November 22, 1963 Bill Sanderson's Bulletins from Dallas is the story of UPI newspaperman Merriman Smith who covered the Kennedy assassination with energy and panache, and for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It's a clinic on how to be a newspaper journalist circa 1963, one with equal measures of precision and emotion. Smith was the Dean of White House reporters of his day, a man who 'could dictate perfect copy off the top of his head,' whose punctuation was unerring. Such focus and determination, and a competitive spirit that led him to beat out the AP especially on the JFK assassination story, makes this book exciting reading. You'll want to be a reporter even as the species is endangered. Merriman Smith, unlike other sycophantic reporters, did not worship his subjects. Wisely, he offered his allegiance not to individuals, but to the White House itself. This is an important book and a must for anyone interested in how a seasoned reporter covered the JFK assassination without mythologizing or distorting available history. --Joan Mellen, author of A Farewell to Justice and The Great Game in Cuba Bill Sanderson provides readers a probing, in-depth look at one of the most fascinating journalists of the twentieth century. From Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, Merriman Smith was a front row observer to people and events that shaped the course of history--Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb, the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement, LBJ's ill-advised and misguided conduct of the Vietnam War. And, of course, President Kennedy's assassination. In Bulletins from Dallas, the author uncovers new observations of and insights into Smitty's reporting on that tragic day, as well as compelling stories and anecdotes about the journalist's personal life and struggles. Anyone interested in presidential history, journalism, and that fateful day in Dallas, will love this read. I certainly did. --Dean R. Owen, author of November 22, 1963: Reflections on the Life, Assassination, and Legacy of John F. Kennedy Bill Sanderson resurrects the murder of JFK in Dallas through the experience of fellow journalists who reported it, chiefly Merriman Smith, who was in the parade behind the president's car and was the first to report the shooting to the world. He has also done his own research, corroborating for example the report that Jack Ruby was at Parkland Hospital when the president died. I found the book very readable, despite its irritatingly simplistic account of Oswald as the lone assassin, a threadbare theory which mainstream newsmen are apparently still expected to repeat. --Peter Dale Scott, author of The American Deep State What happened in Dallas that November had a profound effect on the lives and careers of reporters covering the story. Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Jim Lehrer, and Hugh Aynesworth all made their bones in Dallas that day. Merriman Smith deserves to be numbered among them, and Sanderson's book does a good job of reclaiming this forgotten figure a half a century later. --The Dallas Morning News

Author Information

Bill Sanderson spent almost two decades as a reporter and editor at the New York Post. His work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Observer, and the Washington Post. Sanderson lives in New York City.

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