Sid Davis − the last surviving journalist who witnessed the swearing-in of President Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One amid the tumult of his predecessor John F. Kennedy's assassination − has died.
He passed away at his home in Bethesda, Maryland on Oct. 13, according to his son, Larry Davis. He was 97 years old.
Davis was a 34-year-old reporter for Westinghouse Radio when he was among the small group of reporters assigned to fly on Air Force One as President Kennedy traveled to Texas on Nov. 20, 1963. The next day, when JFK was shot as his motorcade passed Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Davis was riding in the press bus a half-dozen vehicles back from the president's open limousine.
"We heard a loud noise and I wasn't sure whether it was a motorcycle backfiring, but Bob Pierpoint [of CBS] said, 'That's gunfire!" Davis recalled in a 2012 interview with The Hill. "Then we heard more shots and saw people running for cover on the grassy knoll and then everything turned into chaos."
He was among the reporters at Parkland Memorial Hospital who heard a Catholic priest, Father Oscar Huber, say he had just given Kennedy last rites.
