Bob Clark Dies: ABC Newsman Who Covered Both Kennedy Assassinations Was 93

Erik Pedersen
Updated

Bob Clark, who covered the assassinations of President Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy for ABC News, has died. He was 93. The network confirmed his death but did not provide details.

ABC NEWS - ELECTION COVERAGE 1968 - "1968 Democratic National Convention" - Airdate August 29, 1968. BOB CLARK, JOHN SCALI (American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.)
ABC NEWS - ELECTION COVERAGE 1968 - "1968 Democratic National Convention" - Airdate August 29, 1968. BOB CLARK, JOHN SCALI (American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.)

Clark is believed to be the only journalist present at both Kennedys’ assassinations. He was riding in a press car in President Kennedy’s Dallas motorcade in 1963 and witnessed RFK’s 1968 murder at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He had been covering the senator’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president.

After President Kennedy was shot, Clark folllowed his car to Parkland Memorial Hospital. “The president was lying in the back seat of the limousine, his head cradled in the first lady’s lap,” Clark reported in his first phone dispatch to ABC News. “At this stage there was no official word as to whether Mr. Kennedy was still alive. But he lay motionless on the back seat of the car for some two minutes while a stretcher was wheeled out from the hospital.” His colleague Bill Lord said in a 2013 interview with the Portland Press Herald: “Bob looked at the carnage in the back seat of the limousine and realized no one could survive that type of wound. It was horrific.”

FRANK REYNOLDS, TOM JARRIEL, BOB CLARK
FRANK REYNOLDS, TOM JARRIEL, BOB CLARK

Clark was a Washington and White House correspondent for ABC News during the 1960s and into the ’70s, covering campaigns, conventions and elections along with daily news. He spent six years as host of ABC’s Sunday morning public-affairs program Issues And Answers and was associated with it for nearly its entire 21-year run. It was rebranded and reformatted in 1981 as This Week With David Brinkley.

After retiring from ABC, Clark was a guest host and commentator on C-SPAN, appearing on the channel several times during the 1980s and ’90s.

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