Ike Altgens

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Altgens photograph made during the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Kennedy is seen behind the rear-view mirror with his hands near his throat, and with Jackie Kennedy's gloved hand on his left arm. Behind the limousine is the Elm Street entrance to the Texas School Book Depository; the Dal-Tex Building is seen photo-right.

James William "Ike" Altgens[1][2] (/ˈɑːlt.ɡənz/;[3] April 28, 1919 – December 12, 1995) was an American photographer and field reporter for the Associated Press based in Dallas, Texas. Altgens began his career with the Associated Press as a teenager and, following a stint with the United States Coast Guard, worked his way into a senior position with the Dallas AP bureau. Despite a modest career as a film actor, Altgens remained mostly anonymous outside Dallas until November 22, 1963. While on assignment for the AP, Altgens made "perhaps the most well-known of any still photograph"[4] of the in-progress assassination of President John F. Kennedy—a snapshot that led to a decades-long debate among researchers over whether accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is visible in Dealey Plaza as the shots were fired.

Altgens worked briefly as an actor and model during his 40-year career with the AP, then did advertising work until he retired altogether. Both Altgens and his wife were in their seventies when they died in 1995, at about the same time, in their Dallas home.

Early life and career

Ike Altgens
in the 1960s, from a photograph provided to author Richard B. Trask

Dallas native Ike Altgens was orphaned at a very young age and was raised by an aunt. In 1938, shortly after his graduation from North Dallas High School, he was hired by the Associated Press. The 19-year-old began his career by doing odd jobs and writing the occasional sports story; by 1940, he had demonstrated an aptitude for photography and was assigned to work in the wirephoto office.

His career was interrupted when he served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II, though he managed to moonlight as a radio broadcaster. Following his return to Dallas, he married Clara B. Halliburton in July 1944, and returned to work with the AP the following year. He also attended night classes at Southern Methodist University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech with a minor in journalism.[5]

By 1959, Altgens had enjoyed some success as an actor and model in motion pictures, television and print advertising. Credited as James Altgens, he portrayed "Secretary Lloyd Patterson"[6] in the low-budget science fiction thriller Beyond the Time Barrier (1960); his role included the film's final line of dialogue: "Gentlemen, we have got a lot to think about."[7] Altgens' brief acting career also included roles as witnesses in Free, White and 21 (1963) and The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964).[8]

Altgens photographed President Kennedy for the AP in 1961 at Perrin Air Force Base. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower were traveling to Bonham, Texas, in November to attend the funeral of U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn.[9]

JFK assassination

See also: Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Altgens had been employed by the Associated Press for nearly 26 years when he was assigned on November 22, 1963, to photograph the motorcade that would take President Kennedy from Love Field to the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was scheduled to deliver an address. Working that day as the photo editor, Altgens asked instead to go to the railroad overcrossing known to locals as the "triple overpass" or "triple underpass" (where Elm, Main and Commerce Streets converge) to make[10] pictures. Since that was not originally his assignment, Altgens took his personal camera, a 35mm Nikkorex-F single lens reflex camera with a 105mm telephoto lens, rather than the motor-driven camera usually used for news events.[note 1] "This meant that what I took, I had to make sure it was good—I didn't have time for second chances."[11]

Altgens later told investigators for the Warren Commission that he was denied access to the overcrossing by uniformed officers; he took up a position in Dealey Plaza instead.[12] Though there were seven snapshots altogether, Altgens described to Commissioners only his photographs that were published; of those three, the first came as the Presidential limousine turned from Main Street onto Houston Street. Afterwards, he ran across the grass, roughly east to west, toward the south curb along Elm Street, and stopped across from the Plaza's north colonnade. As he snapped his first photograph from that spot, he heard a "burst of noise [that] he thought was firecrackers." Kennedy had just begun to react, thrusting his hands toward his throat; Jackie Kennedy's gloved left hand can be seen through the windshield, holding her husband's left arm.

Just as Altgens was preparing for a second snapshot along Elm Street, he heard a blast that he recognized as gunfire and saw the President had been struck in the head. "I had pre-focused, had my hand on the trigger, but when JFK's head exploded, sending substance in my direction, I virtually became paralyzed," Altgens later told author Richard B. Trask. "This was such a shock to me that I never did press the trigger on the camera.

Altgens' final photo taken just after the fatal shot shows Jackie Kennedy and Secret Service agent Clint Hill on the back of the Presidential limousine.
Altgens poses in December 1963 with the three images published by the AP

"To have a President shot to death right in front of you," Altgens continued, "and keep your cool and do what you're supposed to do—I'm not real sure that the most seasoned photographers would be able to do it." Still, he said, "there is no excuse for this. I should have made the picture that I was set up to make. And I didn't do it."[13]

About four seconds later (as timed to the Zapruder film), Altgens had recovered enough to make his final picture of the limousine—showing the First Lady on the vehicle's trunk as Secret Service agent Clint Hill was climbing on behind her—as the driver had begun to speed away toward Parkland Memorial Hospital. Hill later told the Warren Commission that Jackie Kennedy appeared to be "reaching for something coming off the right rear bumper" of the limousine—described later as pieces of her husband's head—though Mrs. Kennedy's testimony suggested that she saw Altgens' photograph (or a similar still frame from the Zapruder film) showing "me climbing out the back. But I don't remember that at all."[14]

Photojournalist to witness to reporter

Altgens also told Commission investigators that he "wasn't keeping track of the number of pops," or shots fired, in Dealey Plaza. "I could vouch for number one, and I can vouch for the last shot, but I cannot tell you how many shots were in between."[12] Later, for Trask's book Pictures of the Pain, Altgens recalled seeing pieces of President Kennedy's head land "right at my feet. That was some heck of an explosion when it hit his head."[15] That recollection "has been cited by many investigators to support the conclusion that the President's head wound was caused by a bullet fired from the grassy knoll" to the front and right of Kennedy's limousine.[16] Altgens also told attorney and author Mark Lane that he saw several individuals, including a uniformed police officer, move toward the grassy knoll shortly before the motorcade arrived. Subsequently, Lane's best selling book Rush to Judgment cited interviews with Altgens and others in arguing for the presence of a shooter along the knoll.[17]

Altgens testified that after the shots ended, "he observed some Secret Service Agents and police officers with drawn guns on the north side of Elm Street running in the direction of the top of the triple overpass."[12] Though he "was satisfied" that the shots came from the rear of the limousine, he "didn't know where in the rear", and followed the authorities "to come over and get a picture of the guy—if they had such a person in custody."[18] When they came back without a suspect, Altgens then ran to a telephone to report the shooting, and hurried back to the AP offices in the Dallas News Building on Houston Street to file his report and develop the film.[19] His first phone call, from the AP wirephoto office to the news office, led to one of the first bulletins sent to the world:

DALLAS, NOV. 22 (AP)–PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS SHOT TODAY JUST AS HIS MOTORCADE LEFT DOWNTOWN DALLAS. MRS. KENNEDY JUMPED UP AND GRABBED MR. KENNEDY. SHE CRIED, "OH, NO!" THE MOTORCADE SPED ON.[20]

Controversial photograph

Of the three Altgens photos published by the Associated Press, the first snapped along Elm Street would receive the most scrutiny: made from the front and left of the Presidential limousine after Altgens had stepped onto the street. Kennedy can be seen with his arms akimbo and his hands near his throat, roughly simultaneous to Zapruder film frame 255 as he reacts to an apparent bullet strike. Secret Service agents in the car a short distance behind the limousine demonstrate various reactions: at least three are facing toward the Presidential limousine; Kennedy friend and aide David Powers also faces forward; one agent is facing forward and to his right, toward the north side of Elm Street; and two agents have turned rearward and to their right.

The man standing in the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository, thought by many people to resemble Lee Harvey Oswald

Several people can be seen standing in the main doorway to the Depository; one man bore a noticeable resemblance to Oswald. His presence there should have been impossible because, according to official investigations, he was on the building's sixth floor, firing bullets at Kennedy from a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. (Oswald claimed he was in the second-floor lunchroom when the shots were fired; moments later, he was spotted in the lunchroom by a Dallas Police officer. Later, when asked by a reporter whether he was in the Depository at the time of the shooting, Oswald replied, "Naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir.")[21] The Warren Commission paid careful attention to the image, as did private researchers: if the man was not Oswald, it did not necessarily prove nor disprove that Oswald was the assassin; if, however, the man was Oswald, this was photographic proof that he did not kill Kennedy.

A second Depository employee, Billy Lovelady, identified himself standing[22] in the picture, and other employees who had been nearby agreed;[23] a supervisor, however, signed an affidavit stating that Lovelady was "seated on the entrance steps".[24] Ultimately, the Commission decided that Oswald was not in the doorway.[22] That conclusion was bolstered several years later when photographs taken by a researcher of Lovelady, wearing what he said was the same shirt, appeared to match the image in the Altgens photograph (Oswald had been photographed wearing a similar shirt inside the Dallas Police station).[25] In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations also identified Lovelady after studying an enhanced version of the Altgens photograph and several amateur films.[26]

Ten years later, Texas journalist Jim Marrs wrote, "[m]ost researchers today are ready to concede that the man may have been Lovelady." In 2013, Marrs backed off a bit, adding that "there is a growing resistance to this admission."[27]

Also a prominent feature of Atgens' photograph, the Dal-Tex Building is seen behind and to photo-right of the limousine. Conspiracy theorists have used this image to argue that a would-be assassin would have had an unobstructed view[28] of the motorcade as it traveled along Elm Street.[note 2]

Aftermath

"After my pictures cleared the wirephoto network," Altgens told Trask, he was sent to Parkland Hospital with a second photographer. Both stayed at Parkland until Kennedy's body was taken by hearse to Air Force One at Love Field.

Altgens returned to Dealey Plaza to make photographs for diagramming the assassination site, then was sent to Dallas City Hall to retrieve some photos made by another AP photographer of Oswald in custody. This was "the first and only time" he would see the suspect, and thought Oswald looked like "they had put him through the interrogation wringer."[29]

Origin of the gunshots

In an AP dispatch credited to Altgens that same day, he noted that he initially "thought the shots came from the opposite side of the street," in the area that later came to be known as the knoll. He reiterated that he "ran over there to see if I could get some pictures. […] I did not know until later where the shots came from." Altgens also noted that he "was on the opposite side of the President's car from the gunman. He might have hit me."[30] While these and other quotes have been cited in arguments that Kennedy was shot from somewhere other than the book depository, Altgens in all published interviews to follow would never waver from a belief that the gunfire came from "behind" the Presidential limousine.

Altgens was interviewed in 1967 for CBS television, during which he repeated his assessment. Despite his phrasing that Kennedy was "struck in the neck [by] the first shot," Altgens went on to note that, when the head shot struck Kennedy, "it was so obvious that it came from behind—it had to come from behind, because it caused him to bolt forward (leans forward in his chair), dislodging him from this depression in the seat cushion". (This description appeared to contradict the Zapruder film, shot from the north side of Elm Street; Altgens stood back of the southernmost lane.)

"The one thing that did seem to be a little bit strange," he continued, describing the sudden commotion in the area of the knoll, "knowing that the shot came from behind, this fellow had to really move in order to get to the knoll area."

Asked specifically to give his thoughts with respect to any other shooters, Altgens told his interviewer that he'd been contacted many times by people "trying to get me to verify either photographs they had or to work out some information they thought they had come across to substantiate the evidence of, uh, substantiate the fact that there was another assassin. But at no time has any of this evidence proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was another assassin."[3]

Trial of Clay Shaw

District Attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Altgens to appear in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the 1969 trial against businessman Clay Shaw on charges of conspiring to kill Kennedy. Despite receiving a check for US$300 for airfare, Altgens did not want to go, calling the proceedings "self-aggrandizement" by Garrison. During a chance meeting with John Connally—seated in the limousine in front of Kennedy, Connally also was hit by gunfire in Dealey Plaza and had since recovered—the governor related that he, too, had been called to testify and sent a check for airfare, which he promptly cashed and spent. Connally urged Altgens to do likewise.[31]

Later life

Altgens retired from the AP in 1979 after more than 40 years, rather than accept a transfer to a different bureau. He spent his later years working on display advertising for the Ford Motor Company, and answering repeated requests for interviews made by assassination researchers who found him "polite and affable". Through all the telephone calls and letters, no one ever convinced him that the Warren Commission's conclusion—that Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy—could be wrong. "Until those people come up with solid evidence to support their claims," he told Trask, "I see no value in wasting my time with them." Still, he conceded, "there will always be some controversy about details surrounding the site and shooting of the President."[32]

By 1995, both Altgens and his wife were in declining health; their nephew, Dallas attorney Ron Grant, told the Houston Chronicle that his Aunt Clara "had been very ill for some time with heart trouble and many other problems. Both of them had had the flu for some time." On December 12, Ike and Clara Altgens were found dead in separate rooms in their home in Dallas. In addition to their failing health, police believed carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty furnace might have played a role in their deaths.[33]

"With Mr. Altgens' passing," wrote author Brad Parker (First on the Scene), "not only did history lose another witness, but many of us lost a valued friend."[34]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ For Pictures of the Pain (hardcover ed., Yeoman Press, ISBN 0963859536, pp. 308-309), author Richard B. Trask wrote, "Altgens brought with him his personal 35mm Nikkorex-F single lens reflex camera. He had purchased the camera mounted with a 50mm lens in January 1963 from Medo Photo Supply Corp. of New York, through the Associated Press. It cost $157 and was marked with serial #371734. Today the camera body was mounted with a 105mm telephoto lens and loaded with Eastman Kodak Tri-X pan film."
  2. ↑ Dozens of still and moving pictures made in Dealey Plaza before, during and after the assassination showed numerous buildings along the route from which a hypothetical assassin could, in theory, have had an "unobstructed" view of the motorcade. Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, based in part on Marrs' Crossfire and On the Trail of the Assassins (1988, Sheridan Square, ISBN 9780941781022) by Jim Garrison, posited that "the only reason for waiting to get [Kennedy] on Elm [street] is you got him in a triangulated crossfire" between the Dal-Tex building, the Texas School Book Depository and the "grassy knoll". (Jay O. Sanders as Lou Ivon, JFK Special-Edition Director's Cut DVD [SKU 18974627], Warner Home Video [1997] at 1:06:31)

References

  1. ↑ "Texas Death Records". rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  2. ↑ "James W. "Ike" Altgens, 76, the photographer who…". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "JFK assassination witness James Altgens gives his opinion of where the shots came from". YouTube. (CBS News). October 26, 2009. Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  4. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1998). That Day in Dallas: Three Photographers Capture On Film the Day President Kennedy Died (paperback ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 65. ISBN 0963859528. 
  5. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 307. ISBN 0963859501. 
  6. ↑ "Beyond the Time Barrier 1960 - Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved January 20, 2014. 
  7. ↑ "Beyond the Time Barrier 1960". YouTube. (American International Pictures). 1:14:00 (final line). Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  8. ↑ "James 'Ike' Altgens". IMDb. Retrieved January 20, 2014. 
  9. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 308. ISBN 0963859501. 
  10. ↑ Grace, Dierdre (August 22, 2012). "You don’t take a photograph, you make it.". British Columbia Institute of Technology. Retrieved February 7, 2014. 
  11. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. pp. 308–309. ISBN 0963859501. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "Warren Commission Exhibit No. 1407" (PDF). aarclibrary.org. Retrieved April 7, 2006. 
  13. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. pp. 315–316. ISBN 0963859501. 
  14. ↑ Sawler, Harvey (2005). Saving Mrs. Kennedy: The Search for an American Hero (paperback ed.). General Store Publishing House. p. 32. ISBN 1897113102. 
  15. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 315. ISBN 0963859501. 
  16. ↑ Fetzer, James H., Ph.D. (2000, 2007). Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know that We Didn't Know Then... (e-book ed.). Catfeet Press. ISBN 9780812698657. 
  17. ↑ Lane, Mark (1966). Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission's Inquiry Into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald (paperback ed.). Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 55–56, 353–354. ISBN 9781560250432. 
  18. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 317. ISBN 0963859501. 
  19. ↑ "AP Cleartime Online: 'A' Obits". Associated Press. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  20. ↑ The Torch is Passed. New York: Associated Press. 1963. p. 14. 
  21. ↑ "FRONTLINE: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?". pbs.org (transcript of broadcast). Retrieved January 19, 2014. 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy Chapter 4, p. 154". archives.gov. Retrieved February 7, 2014. 
  23. ↑ "Warren Commission Report, p. 644". archives.gov. Retrieved January 10, 2007. 
  24. ↑ Warren Commission Exhibit 1381, p. 84
  25. ↑ Groden, Robert (1994). The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy and the Cover-Up (paperback ed.). Viking Studio Books. pp. 186–187. ISBN 0670852678. 
  26. ↑ "HSCA Volume 6: Comparison of photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald and Billy Nolan Lovelady with that of a motorcade spectator" (PDF). aarclibrary.org. pp. 286–293. Retrieved January 29, 2014. 
  27. ↑ Marrs, Jim (1989, 2013). Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy (e-book ed.). Carroll & Graf. ISBN 9780465050871. 
  28. ↑ "3 Gunmen Involved in JFK's Slaying; 4 Bullets Fired". St. Joseph Gazette (St. Joseph, Missouri). UPI. November 16, 1967. pp. 1A–2A. Retrieved February 5, 2014. 
  29. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 318. ISBN 0963859501. 
  30. ↑ "AP dispatch, November 22, 1963". history-matters.com (gif image). Retrieved February 7, 2014. 
  31. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 321-322. ISBN 0963859501. 
  32. ↑ Trask, Richard B. (1994). Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (hardcover ed.). Yeoman Press. p. 322. ISBN 0963859501. 
  33. ↑ "Photographer of JFK, wife found dead". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on November 6, 1999. Retrieved April 7, 2006. 
  34. ↑ Parker, Brad. "Remembering James Altgens". acorn.net. Retrieved May 2, 2006. 

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