20131118-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_-- 11/15/2013 2:06 PM Page 1 $2.00/NOVEMBER 18 - 24, 2013 THE JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATON: 50 YEARS LATER The day everything stopped Cleveland icons recall the ‘intangible sadness’ they felt when they first heard the grim news By JAY MILLER “I was on the air, as a matter of fact, and all
[email protected] of the sudden the teletype went crazy,” re- called Bob Conrad, who was a co-owner of ot long after 1:20 p.m. on Nov. 22, WCLV-FM, then and now Cleveland’s classical 1963, workers at the May Co.’s music radio station. He went to the Associated downtown Cleveland store moved Press wire machine and ripped the story from a television set wired to an out- its roll. He rushed back to the booth and told Ndoor loudspeaker into a display window fac- listeners that the president had been shot. ing Public Square. Passersby soon were clus- “We continued what we were (playing) tered around the black-and-white glow. until we got confirmation Kennedy was Minutes earlier, President John F. dead,” Mr. Conrad said. “Then we put the Kennedy had been fatally wounded as his Mozart’s Requiem (the haunting ‘Requiem motorcade was carrying him to a speaking Mass in D Minor’) on the air.” engagement in downtown Dallas. He then canceled all commercials. For as long as the workday continued, ra- “We did that because I remembered lis- dios and televisions were turned on in of- tening to the radio when (President Franklin fices, schools and factories in Northeast D.) Roosevelt died,” he said.