THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED!I am pleased to announce I will be speaking at
A WA BOOK CLUB MEET THE AUTHOR EVENTWEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 2022
AUSTIN COUNTRY CLUB
4408 Long Champ Drive, Austin, TX 78746
About With the Bark Off
What if you got a call from Lyndon Johnson to be in Washington DC tomorrow to take a trip around the world? If you are twenty-five-year-old broadcast journalist Neal Spelce, you buckle up. A two-week diplomatic dream trip turned into a lifelong rollercoaster ride.
Spelce began his career as a part-time journalist in the LBJ family-owned Austin TV station in 1956, which vaulted him into a lifetime of memorable experiences with Johnson and many icons of the twentieth century. From his live reporting during the University of Texas Tower shooting tragedy to his lifelong association with LBJ, Spelce found himself behind the scenes in many of the twentieth century’s crucial moments.
The Austin-based journalist shares candid moments with LBJ and five other US presidents, including a rare interview with father and son presidents George Bush while the three were fishing and talking in a small bass boat on a Texas lake.
During his lengthy media career, Spelce saw Austin grow from a college town to a thriving city. Along the way he interacted with Texas legends such as Darrell Royal, Willie Nelson, Walter Cronkite, and more, all part of entertaining stories that he tells, as LBJ liked to say, “with the bark off.”
An excerpt from With the Bark Off has been published in The University of Texas College of Liberal Arts magazine, Life and Letters. (It was the College of Arts and Sciences back in the good ole days!)
Here is an excerpt of the article:
The following is an excerpt of With the Bark Off: A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media by Neal Spelce and Thomas Zigal. Both authors are graduates of the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, which was still the College of Arts and Sciences when Spelce received his bachelor’s degrees in 1958. Spelce enrolled in the Plan II Honors Program in 1952 as a 16-year-old freshman. The program grounded him for his additional degrees – also received in 1958 – in Journalism and Radio and Television. The book was published in September 2021 by The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin.
Both sides Journalism
When Barry Goldwater was running against LBJ in 1964, the Republican presidential nominee booked a campaign stop in Austin, in the heart of LBJ country. Goldwater was a pilot, and he flew his own plane, a fairly large DC-3. We reporters headed out to the old Mueller airport in East Austin, and when Goldwater rolled to a stop on the landing strip, we were out there with our cameras. His supporters were there, too. He pushed open the pilot window and stuck his head out and waved to the crowd. “I’m glad to be here,” he said. “When I took off from Phoenix, they asked me if I’d ever been to Austin and if I knew where it was. I said, ‘No, I’ve never been to Austin, but I’m gonna fly east and when I get to a fairly good-sized city with only one TV tower, I’m going to land.’”
It was 58 years ago on November 24, 1963 that millions watched live on TV as nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. It happened in the basement of the Dallas Municipal Building as police were transferring Oswald to the County Jail.
Ruby fired a single 38-caliber round from his Colt Cobra revolver as police, news reporters, and a live nationwide TV audience watched in stunned horror. Robert H. Jackson, a photographer with the Dallas Times Herald, won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his dramatic photo.
A young Dallas TV cameraman George Phenix also filmed the event, but didn’t get the notoriety Jackson received for his tremendous photo. But Phenix continued in journalism, moving to Austin, publishing a weekly newspaper with his family. At one point, he dabbled in politics working for such Texas political legends as US Senator Lloyd Bentsen and US Congressman Jake Pickle.
But, back to Ruby for a minute. Born Jacob Leon Rubenstein, he was known in police circles for running a strip club and was said to have provided prostitutes out of the club, sometimes as the story goes, to police officers themselves. This may be why he was able to, while carrying a gun in his pocket, move in the midst of police and reporters to get within point-blank range of the handcuffed Oswald to fire a lethal shot into Oswald’s abdomen at 11:21 am.
Ruby was wrestled to the ground as Oswald was rushed to Parkland Hospital (the same hospital where President Kennedy was declared dead). Oswald died at 1:07 pm. Ruby was later convicted of Oswald’s murder and sentenced to death. Ruby died in prison of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer in 1967, awaiting a new trial.
How does all this relate to George Phenix? Years later, I ran into my friend George at the Austin downtown post office. He was writing a book with three others who were working in Dallas at the time of Kennedy’s assassination, Wes Wise, Bob Huffaker and Bill Mercer, titled,When the News Went Live: Dallas, 1963.
“Hey, George, haven’t seen you in a while. How’s the book coming?” He stopped, looked at me and said, “You’re not gonna believe this. For the first time since I shot that film of Ruby killing Oswald decades ago, I went back and looked at it. Damn, that was not the way I remember it.”
Think about that. Here was a guy with a laser-like focus, looking through a camera lens, recording a stunning moment. And as he told, and re-told, that story over the years, the details changed in his re-telling. Memory has a way of morphing with the passage of time.
Believe me, I kept George’s words uppermost as I checked, and double-checked, what I wrote in my newly-released memoir, With the Bark Off, A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media.