Unlike his trip to Dallas, the admired first lady Jacqueline stayed in Washington to care for other business. Riding in the limo with the president was U.S. Representative Sam Gibbons (far left), who was in his first term serving Tampa in the nation’s capital and U.S. Senator George Smathers, of Florida. Both were to his left in the back seat. Kennedy alternated between standing and sitting during the motorcade. Two secret service agents rode on a small stand on the back of the limo. Two secret service spotters and a driver were in the front seat and two of them gave me dirty looks as they passed directly in front of me.
It was the very same presidential limousine Kennedy was riding in four days later in Dallas when he was killed. Kennedy often stood in the limousine by gripping a handle built into the bubble-top roof support. The rest of the time, Kennedy was sitting in exactly the same place where he would be struck by the assassin's bullets. Those facts have always spooked me. And I wondered just how different things would have been, for better or worse, had he been standing in the limo rather than sitting when he was traveling through Dealey Plaza at the end of that week.
Despite my brush with the motorcycle, I was able to take one more picture. I always thought about that. Somebody with a gun would have had to be the very best shot on the planet to fire two perfect shots at such a fast-moving limo.
I ran two blocks to my awaiting buddy, who quickly whisked me to Ft. Homer Hesterly Armory where Kennedy had already arrived and was waiting to talk to the annual meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I remember there were police and military armed with rifles walking back and forth with piercing glances at the crowd in the high levels of the armory. Security was tight but people’s movement was not impaired in any way. No searches, no metal detectors.
The presidential visit was the first time two competing Tampa television stations cooperated to share equipment and simulcast a major local event for public benefit. Equipment at that time was limited to the large and bulky mobile remote units the stations had, mostly to cover events like parades, Sunday church services and to do on-location commercials at business sites. They were almost never used for any kind of news events.