We are going to talk to you a little bit about some of the photos from your collection on display. The first one that we have , at least chronologically, is the photo that was taken on november 22. Can you tell me a little bit about that photo of the kennedy motorcade . Mr. Heikes sure. I was given a camera that i normally dont use, but i used that one. I got out and they ride in the street. The dallas cops were pretty lenient, they always were with the dallas press. We could go anyplace we wanted to. I positioned myself at the corner of main and harwood because the limo would have to turn. So it gives you a different perspective, and it is just driving straight down that street. It was just making the turn off of harwood on to main. Across the street from harwood and main is dallas city hall. Which i would return to later that night, but day, rather , then night also. I was set up, and there was a woman who had a character across the street who had a caricature across the street, all the way with a jfk head caricature. I went over and talk to her and told her that when the motorcade came by to be sure to have it straight up and high. I arranged myself so that when they got there and they were waving, i waited until that caricature fit in to what i was doing and i made the frame. Because of the camera, i only made like two pictures two frames were all in made, because it was too far and afterwards, they were passed it. So once the picture was made, i was about six blocks from the Dallas Times Herald, which is where i was working for upi. So i started running in the street to get there so that we could get the picture out. As it turned out, i had gone about maybe a half a block, and his motorcycle cop had run over the foot of a pedestrian, which turned the motorcycle over. So i had to wait until he got picked up and picked up the motorcycle, so i could keep on going because the streets were too full of people to try to run on the sidewalks. So iran up to the dallas times ran up to the Dallas Times Herald building and i got to the entry and i pushed the elevator and it did not come in about two minutes. So i used the stairs and i ran upstairs and went into the newsroom. The newsroom had all of the people that were at their desk were in tears, they were crying, heads down. Iran right into the photo lab, where i gave my film and found out what had happened. I then went into my locker, got my other gear that i needed that i had not needed for the picture i wanted, because the whole idea was the picture of him in the motorcade was going to be used clear across the whole front page of the Dallas Times Herald. Talked to everybody, found out exactly i gave my film to woody allen, who was a photographer for upi. Grabbed my gear and headed to the book depository, which was only two and a half blocks away, three blocks at the most. So i ran over there, and when i got to the book depository, i was just across the street from withd the place is ringed cop cars and there are cops with guns everywhere, pointing up at the window, putting up at the building. There were cops and newspeople standing in front of the building. So i was hunkered down looking, and finally i stood up, grabbed , he is notid, hell going to shoot me, he will shoot the cops, and ran across the street. I was there with the News Conference the cops were trying to have. Reporters were talking. When the police radio squawked. It was from a man named temple, and he lived in a suburb of dallas. He called in to say that a police man was shot. I got a hold of a times Herald Reporter who was there, and i said, lets go. Oak cliff was a baptist part of dallas. It was basically a crime free area, no alcohol, a lot of things were going on. I dont know how many cops had ever been killed down there. We got in his car, which was parked in the basement of the Dallas County courthouse , directly across the street from the book depository. Cliff, the corner in oak where the police were going through. Forensics people were going through the car. The body was not laying there anymore, his body was gone, but they were going through the car, and there were neighbors and people looking all over the place. I made i dont how many pictures, but the thing that became very interesting is i was the only photographer there. It is kind of hard to get beat on a job if you are the only person there, but nobody was there. There was one television crew. Of course, Dallas Police photographers were there. Then all ofng, and a sudden the radio squawked again, and they came on that they had the shooter trapped in the texas theatre, which is only two or three blocks away. So we grabbed a car and headed for the texas theater. When we got there, the car was pulling out and one of the cops that the reporter knew said, we just got a guy who killed a cop and shot the president. They were taking him to city hall. So we jumped in the car and went straight to city hall. While he parked his car, i went upstairs and i got in the hall outside of will fritzs office in homicide, which was where i stayed until oswald was brought in. When he was brought in, i made a photograph of him with his handcuffs. He was pointing at his mouth, sort of under his eye, and his comment was, do you see what they did to me . The homicideinto office, which is where he stayed. A little bit later, the gun Police Walked in carrying the gun overhead to get in. There were probably by that time at least 100 photographers and reporters in that hallway. About an hour later, marina, the oswaldnd margarita arrive also to go in the homicide office. Photographed that. We were then just waiting. The times herald and upi had decided that i should stay there to see what happened. Later that night, at the urging of the networks, they took us down for a lineup. The thing that was very interesting about that time, that is when Walter Cronkite came on the air to announced that president kennedy was dead. The photograph they showed was my picture of them in the motorcade on cbs. That was the first picture they showed. That was because i got it back to the office, got it processed quickly, and they transmitted it quickly. We have a good chance to beat whatever the ap was doing. So that picture was used. I stayed in the cop shop. There was a Little Press Room just down the hall from fritzs office, and they told us they would have a lineup in the basement. They took us all downstairs and then they brought oswald in. When he came in, the reporter asked him a question about shooting the president and he said, that is ridiculous. He was basically a little bit arrogant, but just saying those kind of things. And then they left and i went back upstairs and went back into the Little Press Room, which was a two see, four chair Little Press Room outside of will fritzs office. I stayed there all night. Maybe they would wake him up at 2 00 or 3 00 in the morning and question him again, which they did not do. I was relieved the following morning and went back to the paper, and then i went home. And the thing about it was, i was supposed to be going to National Guard duty. I was planning on going and i just decided, i really didnt want to do that. It had been such a day. My wife didnt know where i was. She had been up in the window looking at the kennedys coming by at a Department Store when they had been on main street driving by. And she didnt know where i was. When reports came out, they did not know who was shot, how many people had been shot, what was going on. There,nt home, sitting supposed to go to guard duty the next day, and what i did was stay at home and sit on my bed and watch jack ruby shoot lee harvey oswald. Then, later on, i started going to the Dallas County jail just about every day. As soon as the trial started, i was there for probably 80 of spent covering the ruby trial, which was basically him being walked in and walked out from the courtroom. We put remote cameras on the wall so you could see him when he actually walked by. I covered most of the trial, and then of course, when the verdict was going to be announced, they photographerool in. One of the things that they had used in the trial was this picture of oswald that i had of him with his handcuffs. They printed it seven or eight feet high. I dont know what that really had to do with it, but they used it in the defense for jack ruby. Show hirschhorn shell hirschhorn was the pool photographer for the verdict. I had also photographed, during the course of the ruby trial, i photographed sam ruby, his sister, photographed his talking to tommy. If i can jump in, it is interesting we often say that these news photos that we have here in our archives and that we collect our evidence. There is a case of one of your photos literally being evidence during a trial. Did you have a sense as the motorcade photo appeared on tv did you have a sense of just how historic that image would be . Mr. Heikes not until i got to times office and found out kennedy was shot. Of course, immediately mrs. , conley had told the president just before he got shot, see how much dallas loves you. But they had been very scared to go to dallas anyways. General walker had a lot of veryg support, ultraconservative support in dallas, and a lot of people thought that could be he could have been involved in the shooting of the president. There was also one of the things that happened, and that was when somebody shot a whole in the window at general walkers home on turner creek, which turned out to be lee harvey oswald. But you never know exactly what you are doing until you get to the point where if the picture is there, you make it. But i just thought it was pretty interesting that that picture of mine was the first picture that most people saw of the kennedys in dallas. It was just a situation that they were just driving by and i just was in the right place at the right time. I did not get a chance to do anything else but that. I made like two frames. But i photographed something hard to believe but i started my photography of president s of the United States when i was 13 years old and a sophomore in high school, when general eisenhower, who had been elected and inaugurated in october of 1953, he landed at shulman air force the students knew it was coming and they made a banner ike. Aid welcome working for the yearbook for two weeks and i had learned basically how to use the camera in what to do with it. You looked in the hood and it it was a reflex camera. Not have a lot of opportunities because you had to get the film advanced so you could make a picture. It also had two shutters that had a focal point shutters. You had to make sure the shutters were open when he made the picture. I got one picture of him waving. It is the only picture that i made. Of course it was used later on in the High School Paper and the yearbook but it was used in a lot of places later on. I did not realize when i photographed eisenhower in 1953 then i would then photographed the rest of the president s through brock obama and also photographed very truman. At what point when you were younger did you know that is what you wanted to do . Mr. Heikes right after i did the eisenhower picture, it worked for me and i might as well stay with it and see what i can do. It became a little bit interesting about how i finally got there. Of course i went to kansas state, i had a degree in technical journalism. Kansas state has produced a great number of very good photographers. Kansas state does not offer a course of any kind in photography. The way you learned to be photographer at kansas state was working for the newspaper and the yearbook. The way you learn to make pictures is to make pictures. That is what i did. But i was stringing for the upa, the api. Campusng people on and i would transmit them to upi. The bus andthem on once i knew they were on the way i would transmit the pictures to upi. I was making all kinds of prints and doing this stuff. Paid fivee, we got dollars a picture. It was not like you were getting rich at five dollars a picture. That is what we got paid in those days. It was fine, i really loved it, i love shooting football games, the basketball games, and shooting features around kansas state in order to send pictures away. That is what it was about. I went from dallas to madison, wisconsin, because felix mcknight, who was a publisher of the Dallas Times Herald. If i have made a picture of jack ruby shooting lee harvey alls well, or that he works for upi that iharvey oswald or worked for upi it and made it, they could not call it the Dallas Times Herald. They had a meeting with the upi people. We went out to upi and they fired us all. Two days before that, the chief photographer at the Dallas Times Herald called me into his office and says, if you are not working for upi, would you work for me . Of course i had no idea at all why i would not be working for upi. And i said, sure john, i would be glad to. So it turns out, i got fired by upi, went back and told john i was fired and he said i had a job. The next morning i was working for the Dallas Times Herald, which i did for about eight months until upi said we have an opening in madison, wisconsin. That is when i went to madison. That was about 1954 . Mr. Heikes yes i went there in 1964. You mentioned photography of a couple of the president s. Let me ask you, we have another one of your photos in the exhibit of president jimmy carter. It was at camp david. What was that experience like . Mr. Heikes on the day that i happen, my wifes birthday is the 12th of september. Im pretty sure this was the 17th of september. The thing was, john was a upi photo editor and photographer who worked the weekends. This was a saturday or a sunday. I think it was a sunday. He called me, he said, they are coming down from the mountain and they are going to have a present conference in the east room. We can only have one photographer in the eastern so go. So i grabbed my gear and my stuff and headed to the white house. Finally they took us into the east room. What we got there, and here we were. One person for the organization. Ap hadber two number ap had 2, Time Magazine had 2, the israelis were the egyptians, they all had 2 or three. I was literally the only person for upi. So when i was standing on looking out what was going to happen, decided that i did not want to stand straight in the middle, because when they signed the accord to end got together, they would be way too far apart. So i did what i usually did, and i moved way down at the end of lookress riser so i could back. When they signed it, they were kind of compressed a little bit. Yes then when the embrace came, and jimmy carter was smiling, saddam was standing in front of they werei flag and standing in front of the egyptian flag and jimmy carter beside it butight they were very tight. Some of the people later on had been in the middle and got a threeway handshake which got some play, but right away my picture but the most. It won a news photographer contest and picture of the year contest for general year. A lot of people made it, but i was the only one that had the angle that put it together and made it work. Which is always what i tried to do. Which all the photographers that worked at the white house in washington will all tell you figuringbig thing was out where you had to be at the right time with the right lens in your hand to do it you had to do, which is what we all did. One of the things that strikes me about this story is, i am sure some of the folks who were in that room, we have the collections here too. You are all called legs. How competitive was your relationship with other journalists . Mr. Heikes competition is what it is all about. We have people here that i competed with that did not work for the wire service as i did get at the time. But i worked for upi. The ap photographers were very competitive but so were the photographers for the magazines and newspapers. My whole goal was to get my picture on the front page of the washington post, it did not matter if they had 100 . Photographers there. I wanted to get my picture of all of these things. That was exactly what it was all about. You were there to try to outshoot everybody there. If you happen to be on a job and they outshot you in the picture and their picture was in the paper the next day and euros was not, you had to congratulate them and say you did a great job yesterday and it was a really nice picture, but you better bring your lunch today because it will be a long day or co that is what it was all about. Let step forward a little bit and talk about you putting your archive here at the briscoe center. How did that come to be . Mr. Heikes it came to be because they donated their archives. Was a photographer for upi, the works later for and made azine behindthescenes kennedy pictures and john john under the desk, and all of these things. Stanley had been with upi for quite a while then he went to look magazine. While he was at work magazine he worked with kitty kelly who had written a lot of books and what have you. They were also a couple. I dont know what kind of a couple, but they were a couple. The thing about it is, i was at the u. S. News and report, which is who i was working for at the time and kitty kelly came in and met with lenny jeanne hopkins, who was the secretary of the publisher of u. S. News and world report. She asked me to come up and kitty kelley said, what should i do with her . We have all of the family images, what should i do with them . I said you ought to do a book or whatever you can do and then donate them to somebody that can archive them, handle them for you that is not some photo agency out there trying to sell everything. That is what this is about, donate something here or they can archive it to the point where it will be preserved. If you have a flood, if you have a tornado, the odds are that the images will be fine here. When i was at kansas state for a hundredth anniversary for the jschool there and i wanted to know why i would not donated to them and it was because they did not have the archival facilities do it. You do not have the space. As far as i was concerned, they just did not have the facility to do any and of course they got gordon parks archive from its family. He had great movies and show pictures and then they had a flood and the pipes burst. A lot of film, movies and images were ruined in the flood because they have those real old, Old Buildings that are there that were built 150 years ago. Their infrastructure does not work too well and it was one of those things that i personally cannot see giving it to kstate because i did not know what they would really do with it. I knew what they would do with it here. I made, as i told my wife, who is very active in what i am trying to do and getting this done, i said, i do not want to die and leave the stuff for you in 60 boxes and you will have the foggiest idea of what to do with it. One of the other things that i think is important is that we do have all of these contemporaries, all of your colleagues. And the like. So, what is the value of having all of these materials in one place . Mr. Heikes that is exactly what it is all about. Somebody wants it and they can compare it, they can look at it and they could see what people can user what they want to use. It is strictly what the center has gotten. So many images. They can decide which ones they want and you know, which ones they do not. And the yet i think they do a good job of archiving this stuff. I mean, my wife, allison hadnt spent five hours going to boxes in my house in five days, it had been crazy and i kept sending her more and more stuff. But i did not want to die in and suddenly leave my wife and kids who would not have a foggy idea of what to do with it. That is something that has to be done. That is something that allows photographers in our business, now they dont know what they will do with the stuff. I was just talking to swansons jermainei have known for 30 years or more and she says the same thing, we have all these boxes and we have to pick what we are going to do in order to get them how. The archive is here also, but the point was, it had to be done, but you cannot just leave it for your kids. They really have no idea. They kind of know what you did with your life, but they dont know what to do with the stuff that they have. Your career is an amazing example of the presidency. You photographed all of these historic events. You are there to capture the evidence. Talk a little bit about why the photographs are such important historic evidence, if you would. Mr. Heikes because they capture history. It is just like photo photography, or here we have talked about. We always say we are a part of history because you were there when all these events happen. That is really what it is. You are capturing history so that other people can have a chance to see history also. That is the reason that that is important because you have to give people the opportunity to see what happened. It is really funny because people do not realize that a lot of pictures are made just because we happen to be in the right place at the right time. And, it is very good to see the reaction. I mean, i have pictures that with all of my first place photos and no white house with either whoever was president at the time looking at my pictures or what have you that were pricewinners. It is funny because the first year that i won a first prize in the 1969 white house president ial contest. It was for a sports picture of rowers in the olympics at mexico city on a real foggy day. The swallows were firing around. Flying around. The foggy canoe and birds, to their go birds, toggy canoe and oo. At the same time, i had made the day before the worlds record leap of bob niemann in the long term. I had him kissing the ground and i had all the series of pictures. Pictured in anything but the white house contest. Birds, tooanoe and won the white house contest in the sports competition. Nixon and i were there and he was looking at it and he said, where was this made . I said it was made in mexico. He said, you know, there is no such thing as bad mexican food, just better mexican food. Nixon got along with the photographers. Everybody who covered nixon will say the same thing. He did not have any problem with photographers because he did not think the photographers could hurt. He hated the correspondence and the columnists, but so did most of them. Because they do not like what was happening, but we had a pretty great rapport with most president s. Jimmy carter, who i made all kinds of photographs of had wonderful pictures of the middle east southern diplomacy and the things that he did. He did not like photographers. He was afraid somebody would make a picture of him sticking his finger up his nose, or something that would be very unflattering, which if photographers had landed. People are you wishes sold self conscience and he did not want to do anything that would make him look bad. Later on he became a good subject after being president. I think that is a situation that most president s are very relaxed around us. George h. W. Bush was extremely relaxed. He had a really Good Relationship with david. David kennerly. We used to always joke and say, jerry, we need to to stand on your head, what are you doing . He would just not have a problem of doing anything that we needed. He would get it done. That is the thing about dealing with the president , you have to expect that you can get what you need out of them. If somebody does not like it, or reagan told mike he said, still photographers always scare me because in a blink of an eye, there it is in the pictures are there forever, where as the videos last and they are there, goes by and nobody pays attention. He was always worried that any individual incident that might happen could make him look bad. But he did not look bad. I made some very good photographs of Ronald Reagan and so did everybody else. He was probably comfortable with his own image. What would you say was if you could pick one image that you would like to be remembered for, and you think was your most significant, what do you think that would be . Mr. Heikes youre talking about events you are covering. I mean, the kennedys and the johnsons and the carters were great because it was something it happened and it was over. The camp david signing was something and it was there, that was over also. But also, i do not remember anything i was involved, just like i did the body can be Bobby Kennedy funeral, i was there when jfk got shot. I did Martin Luther kings funeral. I covered literally all of the funerals and the assassinations one way or another that had happened in my career. By, the only thing that the kennedys and the carters was and later on photographing oswald, and i was not in a place where he was shot by jack ruby. And, i was not at the shooting when Ronald Reagan was shot. I was on the hill that needs Senate Dining room shooting 12om thurmond daughters birthday party. And then i went straight to the gw hospital and id made all kinds of images of nancy going in and end out of the hospital, which were used a lot. But the thing about it was i was not exactly there when the shooting happened. But we have photographers here who were in we have photographs here from photographers that were there. You just sort of never know, it is just like the fact i was telling the guys downstairs when they were talking to me about the picture that bob jackson made of jack ruby shooting lee harvey oswald. The Dallas Morning News photographer had photographed the same scene, he was above Frank Johnson who was there. And also bob jackson was standing next to him. The division where he shot the picture just before jack ruby fired the gun. And when need Dallas Morning News came out, there was jacks there was the picture of jack holding the. Net and oswaldg him there. The times herald came out and the picture of jackson and the reaction when oswald was actually shot. Ack the photographer was broken man after that. Not too long after that, and his family totally hates jackson and his family. It was ridiculous. He made a picture that was not as good as the other guy pause picture, but he was there and he made something. You sort of say, well we had a lot of photographers who were famous and they wouldve done this or that. And but you were not there you did not make it. You cannot say, i would have done this or that the gazette is not ever going to happen. That is pretty funny. Don for upi was there when Ronald Reagan was shot. He made pictures that one pulitzers and all kinds of things. Ripca was disheartened because it he had good pictures but not with hartman had. Two or three days later. He called upi headquarters in new york and talk to the executive editor and said, can you ship me the reagan film back, i want to look at it. Larry was from brooklyn and he is italian and he has his own attitude and he says a wide, you he says, why . Do you want to shoot it again . It is one of those things were if it did not happen and it is not there, then it did not happen and it is not there. Thats what it is all about, thats way somebody did not have it. That is kind of what we do along those lines. I mean, you just go in and you try to make the best picture you can. Especially at the white house, you have to have the optimum hand and the octomom amount of film whenever anything happens. Because somebody could come in a split second and you could get it and the person standing next to does or does not have it. Is there anything else you want to share . Mr. Heikes no. It is fun to just have a place and it feels good to have your film and a place where you know it is appreciated and can be taking care of. That is all that i ever wanted when i donated these stuff that all of my other colleagues, so many of them now have done the same thing. It is just wordofmouth and i have talked to many people who have told initiatives of where ive had to go, and that is exactly what it was. A lot of people had to make a decision of where things were going to be. Now, we have photographer friends who have their stuff other places where one who is teaching at ku and all of his archives at the university of kansas depends on the kind of tie and what have you. By, my tie to kansas state is wonderful. A heck of a lot about being in the News Business and about journalism, they just do not have many facilities. This is where this facility is. We are grateful that you are part of that facility. Mr. Heikes all of us who have our stuff here, we were talking downstairs a few minutes ago about how great it is to know that you have that confidence and feeling in the back of your mind that it is there. When i am gone, because i have had so many of my friends that i have worked with who have now passed away, you know that it is taking care of when you are going to be gone. It is still going to be there that people can see it. You know that it is not going to be destroyed by whether or what have you. And, that makes it great. Watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. Newt gingrich is interviewed by former congressman tom davis. This is an era before cable television. This was before cnn, msnbc. It was just Little Pockets of cable here and now. Mostly reruns of i love lucy. Big media. And cspan. And, he quickly realized the potency of giving respectful of others every afternoon, giving a five minute speech. 100 thousand into homes across the country. Former congressman deck army used to live him about it and Newt Gingrich would say, would you give a speech to 100,000 people . Of course you would. That is what you are doing with cspan. Cspan became, i mean, he quickly becomes a cult political leader and he is getting, you know, 700 letters a week from peoples around the country. A Junior Member of georgia who is a member of the college. Announcer 50 years ago on october 18 about 150 years 18, the United States flag was raised in sitka, alaska. Next on real america, the alaska centennial. Alaska. A u. S. Army film produced to mark the centennial of the transfer ceremony. The maintenance called it the greata u. S. Army land. Where, unforgiving land mountains