Mr. Kantor.

ever news there was without waiting to go where Kilduff was going, and another man with him was--I am sorry, I have forgotten his name

Mr. Griffin.

I think it is actually in one of your earlier interviews. We will get to that later.

Mr. Kantor.

All right. At any rate, I was directly behind Kilduff, who was moving rapidly. And we went on to the grass and up a little hill and around the corner of the hospital, moving from west to south.

Mr. Griffin.

Back up towards Harry Hines Boulevard?

Mr. Kantor.

Yes; that is right. We went in an entranceway. I am not sure whether it was the main entrance of the hospital or whether there is a door near the main entrance of the hospital.

Mr. Griffin.

Yes; would you mark on the diagram there where the main entrance is?

Mr. Kantor.

Yes--No. 2?

Mr. Griffin.

Just write "Main Entrance." We will use the numbers for your position.

Mr. Kantor.

All right. I followed Mr. Kilduff up a flight of stairs to the second floor, and down one or two hallways, until we came to the room where he made the announcement that the President had died.

Mr. Griffin.

About how long did .the announcement take?

Mr. Kantor.

The announcement was very brief. I don't know actually where all the other reporters came from. There were quite a number of reporters in the room already. And as best as I understand it, there were a vast number of reporters who never got into the hospital in the emergency area, and had moved into this second floor room for the announcement.
At any rate, everybody seemed ready for an announcement at the time that Mr. Kilduff got there. And so the announcement itself took a minute.

Mr. Griffin.

Now, at the time the announcement was made, had you talked with other reporters or other people in the area so that you were able to tell whether there was any prevailing attitude or rumors circulating around as to the condition of the President?

Mr. Kantor.

No; I had no opportunity. The only people I talked to were the two Texas Congressmen, as I got off the phone, and that was the only word I had with anyone until the announcement came from Malcolm.

Mr. Griffin.

So that you didn't. yourself, even have any firm expectation as to what the announcement of Kilduff would be?

Mr. Kantor.

No; I knew it was a rather grim situation, but I didn't know how grim.

Mr. Griffin.

Was a prepared statement handed out?

Mr. Kantor.

No; it was not. He made the statement under trying circumstances. His voice was quivering. He was leaning on a table which is used by a teacher in the classroom, which was being used as an emergency press headquarters. With great difficulty he made the announcement that the President had died at about I o'clock, which would have been a half hour before he was making the announcement.

Mr. Griffin.

How do you fix the time of the announcement at 1:30?

Mr. Kantor.

I was following my watch very closely because it was a matter of newspaper deadlines, especially for our Texas papers. The reason I had called Washington was because I felt that I could not begin calling our three papers in Texas individually, and I felt that from Washington the story could be related to all 18 of our papers. And so I was watching the time closely.

Mr. Griffin.

And did you report to your Washington office that the time of the announcement had been 1:30?

Mr. Kantor.

I believe I did.- And if I didn't, the wire services were doing that at the same time. But Mr. Kilduff said that he would have further announcements to make in--I think he established the time as 10 minutes. And told us to make our phone calls or do what we had to do, and return to this room.

Mr. Griffin.

Did you make a phone call?

Mr. Kantor.

Yes; I went down the hall. There were no phones set up for us, of course. We were going into whatever offices we could find with available phones. I went into an office, a large office, which had three nurses in it, and