‘I can still hear shot that killed JFK 50 years later’

It was the gunshot heard around the world, and historian Henry Frendo can still hear it. “I remember it vividly. It was very dramatic, made all the more so by the fact that we could watch it on TV,” said Prof. Frendo, 65, as he cast his mind back to that fateful day 50 years ago. “We had just bought a black and white set. Neighbours went to each other’s houses to watch the news as few people had a TV in those days,” Prof. Frendo recalled. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, while travelling in a motorcade on a political trip to Texas. He was 46. The fresh-faced JFK was the first ever Catholic president of the US, something that made him very popular with the Maltese at that time. “The whole island was shocked and upset at the news,” said Frank Attard, 85, who worked as a photographer for Times of Malta. “The fact that he was very charismatic as well as Catholic was a source of fascination to the Maltese.” Mr Attard took the iconic photograph reproduced on the front page of today’s newspaper. It shows his daughter Miriam, then aged eight, browsing reports of JFK’s death while standing in Castille Place. The veteran photographer recalled flags being...