*** Paul Piorek is editor and publisher of Paul's Local Weather Journal for southwestern Connecticut ... Paul is the on-air meteorologist at WICC 600 AM and 107.3 FM ... Paul is a New York Emmy award winner (2007), five-time Emmy nominee, and four-time winner of the Connecticut Associated Press Broadcasters' Association award for Best TV Weathercast (2006, 2008, 2009, 2012) ... Paul was voted Best Local Television Personality by the readers of Fairfield County Weekly Magazine (2012) ... Paul was inducted into the Housatonic Community College Hall of Fame and received the Distinguished Alumni Award (2012) ... The local weather journal is a two-time winner of the Communicator Award of Distinction (2012 & 2013) ... Paul is currently a full-time teacher of Earth Science and Mathematics in Fairfield ... Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulPiorekWICC ...

Friday, November 22, 2013

A Fateful Decision That May Have Saved JFK's Life

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The following is a CBS article on how the weather may have played a role on that fateful day.

(CBS News) President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas fifty years ago today. Among the young reporters on the scene that day were Peter Jennings of Canadian TV and later ABC; Dan Rather of CBS; Jim Lehrer of the Dallas Times Herald and later PBS; and a cub reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram -- our very own Bob Schieffer.

Those who covered the assassination and who are still around all these years later have had a long time to think about what might have been. It was a misty morning as the president spoke in Fort Worth. But by the time he got to Dallas, the sun had come out. Jim Lehrer was at Love Field assigned to cover the president's arrival for the Dallas Times Herald. He remembers seeing the bubble top on the presidential limousine.


"I asked the agent, a man I knew, who was the agent in charge of the Dallas office of the Secret Service," he said, "'You gonna leave the bubble top up?' I'll never forget it, Bob, he looked up at the sky and [said], 'It's clear.' So then he turns to the other agents who were all there by the car ... and he said, 'Lose the bubble top.'"

Lehrer believes it was a fateful decision. "I think Lee Harvey Oswald probably would not have taken the shots," he said had the bubble top been on the limousine.

The bubble top was not bullet proof, but it could have made the president a difficult target or it could have deflected the bullet.

Jim Lehrer ran into that same Secret Service agent later that evening at the Dallas police station. He recalls that the agent came up to him and said, "Jim, if i just hadn't taken off the bubble top."