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Ike Altgens

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Historical figures

   James William "Ike" Altgens ( April 28, 1919 – December 12, 1995) was
   an American photographer and field reporter for the Associated Press.
   Based in Dallas, Texas, in 1963, Altgens took arguably the most famous
   photograph of the in-progress assassination of President John F.
   Kennedy—a snapshot that led to a continuing argument among researchers
   over whether accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is visible in Dealey
   Plaza as the shots were fired.

   Altgens spent more than 40 years 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

   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; still, 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.

   By 1959, Altgens had enjoyed some success as an actor and model in
   television and print advertising. He portrayed the US Secretary of
   State in the low-budget film Beyond the Time Barrier, uttering its
   final line of dialogue: "That's a lot to think about!"

Motorcade

   Altgens had been employed by the AP 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 take 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. "This
   meant that what I took, I had to make sure it was good—I didn't have
   time for second chances."

   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. Though he took seven snapshots
   altogether, Altgens described to Commissioners only the 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 from the southeast to the northwest, toward the
   south curb along Elm Street, and stopped across from the Plaza's north
   colonnade. As he snapped his first photograph from that position, 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 could be seen through the windshield,
   holding her husband's left arm.

   Just as Altgens was preparing for the 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.

   "[T]o 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."

   Seconds later, Altgens had recovered long enough to take 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 the First Lady appeared to be
   "reaching for something coming off the right rear bumper" of the
   limousine—described later as pieces of the President's head—though Mrs.
   Kennedy's testimony suggested that she saw Altgens' photograph (or the
   corresponding still picture made from the Zapruder film) showing "me
   climbing out the back. But I don't remember that at all."

   Altgens testified that he followed officers and spectators up the
   so-called " grassy knoll" on the north side of Elm Street. "I wanted to
   come over and get a picture of the guy—if they had such a person in
   custody." 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. His first phone call, from the AP wirephoto office to
   the news office, led to the first bulletin 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.

Controversy

   Of the three Altgens photos published by the Associated Press, the
   first snapped along Elm Street would receive the most scrutiny: taken
   from the front and to the left of the Presidential limousine, Kennedy
   could be seen with his arms akimbo and his hands near his throat,
   apparently reacting to a shot fired by an assassin (presumed to be Lee
   Harvey Oswald). Secret Service agents in the car immediately behind the
   limousine reacted differently to the sound; at least three are looking
   towards the President, one towards the "grassy knoll", and two at the
   Texas School Book Depository to their right-rear.

   Several people can be seen standing in the main doorway to the
   Depository; one man bore a striking resemblance to Oswald. His presence
   there should have been impossible because, according to official
   investigations, he was on the sixth floor, firing bullets at Kennedy
   from a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. (Oswald claimed he was in the
   building's second-floor lunchroom, where he was spotted moments later
   by a Dallas Police officer.) The Warren Commission paid careful
   attention to the image, as did private researchers: if the man was not
   Oswald, it was not necessarily proof that he was the assassin; if,
   however, the man was Oswald, here was photographic proof that he did
   not kill Kennedy.

   Ultimately, a second Depository employee, Billy Lovelady, was
   identified by the Commission as the man in the doorway. That claim was
   bolstered several years later when photographs taken by an
   assassination researcher of Lovelady—wearing what appeared to be the
   same shirt seen in Dealey Plaza—closely matched the image in the
   Altgens photograph. Oswald, however, wore a similar shirt when he was
   brought in to the Dallas Police Department.

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 was
   often contacted for interviews 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."

   Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK rekindled that controversy by reenacting
   the assassination, in Dealey Plaza, using actors as the victims and
   witnesses. Altgens was portrayed by Dallas-area actor John Depew.

   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 played a role
   in their deaths. "With Mr. Altgens' passing," researcher Brad Parker
   wrote, "not only did history lose another witness, but many of us lost
   a valued friend."
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike_Altgens"
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