Page 4 - Bubble Top News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Correspondent and host of cbs' "face the nation." jim leher went on to launch the award-winning show "news hour" on pbs, even recently writing a fictional novel about the jfk assassination. i got the opportunity to sit down with these two legendary reporters about their experiences 50 years ago. thanks so much for coming in. it's so great to have you here on this solemn day. bob, you were at the ft. worth star telegram and jim, you were at the dallas times herald. the basis of your latest novel, "top down" is a conversation that you had with the secret service agent that morning? >> right. had...

With the orders of the president. he always wanted the bubble top down unless it was a weather emergency because he didn't want people saying oh, my god, there's the president under glass. so he did make a mistake. but my novel, this guy has guilt feelings because he thinks it might have saved his life if he had -- kennedy's life if the bubble top had stayed up. >> bob, you told me the story once. your brother is the one that told you kennedy had been shot. >> yes. i was asleep, because i worked the late shift. i was the night police reporter at the star telegram, so when all of this happened ...

Because my rewrite man, who was on the telephone, wanted to know whether the bubble top was going to be up or down. this was as the plane was coming from ft. worth. so he said, you know, it's clear and he asked what the weather was like downtown. he said, okay, it's clear, so let's take the bubble top down. i stood there for a few seconds while they started to take the bubble top down. now, the bubble top, a lot of people thought it was bullet proof. it wasn't. it was quarter-inch plex si glass. it was in six pieces. it was put together with snaps. i watch as they start taking it down. the rea...

>> the event and the vehicle in which it happened will be forever linked. >> reporter: five decades later, jfk's limo is one of the symbols of that day. the vehicle the president and first lady were riding in in dallas. the 1961 four-door lincoln. there is now near silence when people see that car where it now sits at the henry ford museum in dearborn, michigan. >> we have images burned in our mind and every one of those images includes the car, a vital intimate part of the assassination. that's where the president's life essentially ended. >> reporter: so many asking those what ifs. what if t...

Arrested him and confiscated his rifle and he would have been in jail not shooting at november kennedy. that's one of the incredible coincidences. if it was raining the president would have lived because the bubble top would have been put on top of the car. those are some of the coincidences that could have saved the president. if the car sped up after the first shot. if it sped up or swerved after the second shot the president might have survived that day. >> we talked about jfk's assassination and jackie o., what did she do? did she try to jump out of the car? >> not exactly. this was very m...