The Missing KXOL JFK Assassination Tapes
Newsman Russ Bloxom with the bulletin from Dallas (11-22-1963)
Listen to the KXOL announcement
of JFK's death
Many Dallas/Ft. Worth area radio stations archived their coverage of the JFK assassination on November 22, 1963. Several stations like KLIF and KRLD would produce record albums containing their coverage of the events of that day. KXOL did in fact produce two recordings on the events of November 22, 1963 but these recordings would not be heard for almost 38 years.
On the morning of November 24, 1963, prior to the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, KXOL program director Bob Bruton sat down in the stations production room to record his thoughts and impressions of the events of the past 48 hours. This recording contains the final speech JFK made in Ft. Worth. In addition, KXOL produced a recording of JFK's final hours including his arrival in Ft. Worth on the evening of November 21, JFK's speech in the parking lot outside of the Hotel Texas and the formal speech during the Chamber of Commerce breakfast on the morning of November 22. The recording includes KXOL newsman Russ Bloxom reading the breaking bulletin of the shooting as well as reports from Roy Eaton, the late Bruce Neal and others from the KXOL news team.
What was considered to be lost artifacts of KXOL's history has been in safe storage for almost 38 years with Bob Bruton. These tapes were never aired nor played to the public, not even on KXOL at anytime in the stations remaining 22 years of broadcasting. Ironically, KXOL's last full day of broadcasting was on November 22, 1985 with the question being asked, "what happened to all the JFK tapes?"