James William "Ike" Altgens (; April 28, 1919December 12, 1995) was an American photojournalist, photo editor, and field reporter for the Associated Press (AP) based in Dallas, Texas, who became known for his photographic work during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy (JFK). Altgens was 19 when he began his AP career, which was interrupted by military service during World War II. When his service time ended, Altgens returned to Dallas and got married. He soon went back to work for the local AP bureau and eventually earned a position as a senior editor.
Altgens was on assignment for the AP when he captured two historic images on November 22, 1963. The second, showing First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy toward the rear of the presidential limousine and Secret Service agent Clint Hill on its bumper, was reproduced on the front pages of newspapers around the world. Within days, Altgens' preceding photograph became controversial after people began to question whether accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was visible in the main doorway of the Texas School Book Depository as the gunshots were fired at JFK.Official investigations concluded he was not; see § The man resembling Lee Harvey Oswald.
Altgens appeared briefly as a film actor and model during his 40-year career with the AP, which ended in 1979. He spent his later years working in display advertising, and answering letters and other requests made by assassination researchers. Altgens and his wife Clara died in 1995 at about the same time in their Dallas home. Both had suffered from long illnesses, and police said poisoning by a malfunctioning furnace also may have contributed to their deaths.
Early life and career Ike Altgens was born James William Altgens on April 28, 1919, in Dallas, Texas, to Willie May Altgens ( Pitchford), a housewife, and J. H. Altgens, a machinist.Texas State Board of Health – Bureau of Vital Statistics. Standard Certificate of Birth. No. 15971. Filed May 2, 1919.Registration Card. Serial No. 3262. Order No. 4506. September 12, 1918. Child and father were each listed as "Altgen". His World War I draft registration card identified him as John Henry Altgen. He had a younger sister, Mary.Texas State Board of Health – Bureau of Vital Statistics. Standard Certificate of Birth. No. 39640. Filed July 25, 1921. Altgens was orphaned as a child and raised by a widowed aunt.Texas State Board of Health – Bureau of Vital Statistics. Standard Certificate of Death. No. 16279. Filed April 4, 1932. Altgens' mother, then Willie May Gilbert, died in Dallas at age 30 of pulmonary tuberculosis when her son was 12. Death data for his father could not be located as of October 20, 2016. He was hired by the Associated Press (AP) in 1938 when he was 19, shortly after his graduation from North Dallas High School. Altgens began his career handling various assignments and writing some sports articles. He showed a talent for photography and was assigned in 1940 to work in the wirephoto office.
Altgens' career was interrupted by service in the United States Coast Guard during World War II; he moonlighted as a radio broadcaster during this time. Following his return to Dallas from military service, he married Clara Halliburton in July 1944. Altgens went back to work for the AP in 1945 and was assigned to its news bureau. He also attended night classes at Southern Methodist University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech with a minor in journalism.
Starting in 1959, Altgens made occasional appearances as an actor and model in motion pictures, television and print advertising. Credited as James Altgens, he played Secretary Lloyd Patterson in the low-budget science fiction film Beyond the Time Barrier (1960); his role included the film's final line of dialogue. Altgens' acting career also included a role as a witness in Free, White and 21 (1963), and as a witness (not as himself) in The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964).
Altgens photographed President Kennedy for the AP in 1961 at Perrin Air Force Base. Kennedy and his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower were traveling to Bonham, Texas, in November to attend the funeral of Sam Rayburn, three-time Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Earlier that day, Altgens was the only photojournalist to climb to the 29th floor of the Mercantile National Bank Building in Dallas to cover the rescue of a young girl from an elevator fire.
Assassination of President Kennedy
In Dealey Plaza On November 22, 1963, Altgens was scheduled to work in the AP offices in Dallas as the wirephoto editor. He instead asked to go to the "triple overpass" (the railroad bridge under which Elm, Main and Commerce Streets converge at the west end of Dealey Plaza) to photograph the motorcade that was to take President Kennedy from Love Field to his scheduled appearance at the Dallas Trade Mart. Altgens was not assigned to work in the field that day, so he took his personal single-lens reflex camera as opposed to the motor-driven equipment normally used for news events.
Altgens tried to find a good camera angle on the bridge, but uniformed police said it was private property and turned him away, and he moved to a location within the plaza. He began photographing the motorcade on Main Street as the vehicles approached Houston Street, and got a close-up of the presidential limousine as it turned right onto Houston. He then picked up his equipment bag and ran on the grass toward the south curb along Elm Street, stopping across from the Plaza's north colonnade. Altgens heard a loud noise at about the same time as his first photograph from that spot (simultaneous to Zapruder film frame 255), but he did not recall having any reaction since he thought the noise came from a firecracker.
As Altgens set up for a second photograph along Elm Street, he heard a sound that he recognized as gunfire, and saw that the President had been struck in the head. Altgens later wrote that his camera was focused and ready, "but when JFK's head exploded, sending substance in my direction, I virtually became paralyzed. ... Yet, many news people say I should have taken the picture anyway ... I should have made the picture that I was set up to make. And I didn't do it." Altgens then followed the police who had headed up in the direction of the grassy knoll in an attempt to photograph a shooter.
Altgens recovered, and his next photograph showed the First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy with her hand on the vehicle's trunk lid and Secret Service agent Clint Hill standing on the bumper behind her as the driver, William Greer, had begun to accelerate. This photograph was quickly reproduced on the front pages of newspapers around the world. Mrs. Kennedy testified the following June that she was aware of the image, but had no memory of her actions. Hill later wrote that this picture would forever identify him as the Secret Service agent on the back of the limousine.
After the gunshots ended, Altgens saw several armed men running up the grassy slope between Elm Street and the railroad tracks; he crossed the street toward the activity to see if he could get a picture of anyone being arrested. When they came back without a suspect, Altgens hurried back to the AP wirephoto office in the Dallas Morning News building on Houston Street to file his report and have the film developed. He telephoned the news office, leading to one of the first news bulletins of the shooting:
Altgens was later called to testify before the Warren Commission. He testified that after Kennedy was shot in the head particles of flesh flew towards him, which "indicated to me that the shot came out of the left side of his head".Warren Commission, Volume VII, p. 518.
After the assassination Additional assignments Once his pictures had been distributed via the wirephoto network, Altgens was sent to Parkland Memorial Hospital along with a second photographer. Both stayed at Parkland until Kennedy's body was taken to Air Force One, still at Love Field.
Altgens returned to Dealey Plaza to photograph the assassination site for diagramming purposes, then was sent to Dallas City Hall to retrieve the work of another AP photographer who had pictures of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in custody. This was the only time he saw the suspect, and Altgens thought Oswald showed signs of having been thoroughly interrogated.
The man resembling Lee Harvey Oswald
Ten days after Kennedy was assassinated, the Associated Press in Dallas reported that the first photograph Altgens made along Elm Street had captured the attention of people who noticed that one of the men standing in the main doorway to the book depository appeared to resemble accused killer Lee Harvey Oswald. Those observers raised the question of whether Oswald could have killed Kennedy, saying he would not have been able to get to the doorway from the sixth floor of the building."If the man in the picture actually had been Oswald it would seem to prove that he was not the Kennedy assassin because he would not have had time to reach the street entrance." The report quoted depository superintendent Roy Truly, who said the man in the image was not Oswald but a different employee, Billy Nolan Lovelady."At first glance it does look like Oswald," Truly is quoted, "but after looking it over I knew it wasn't. They don't even look alike." The report also says Truly showed the photograph to Lovelady, who identified himself. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) told the AP they had already investigated the photograph and also identified Lovelady.
On May 24, 1964, six months after the shooting, the New York Herald Tribune reported that Altgens—the man responsible for "probably the most controversial photograph of the decade", and one of the few people standing near the presidential limousine when Kennedy was shot—had not been questioned either by the FBI or by the Warren Commission. A newspaper column printed in Chicago's American the following day made the same observation. FBI investigators interviewed Altgens eight days later, on June 2, 1964; he testified before the Warren Commission on July 22. By this time, Altgens was aware of the individual who resembled Oswald; Lovelady had been interviewed for the Herald Tribune article, and Altgens testified that he too had been contacted. He said there was nothing to share because he had not taken part in any assignments involving depository employees.
Commission representatives interviewed several depository workers in an effort to determine the identity of the man in Altgens' photograph; hearings included testimony from five people who said Lovelady was there, and from three others (including Lovelady) who directly identified him in the picture. Ultimately, the commission decided Oswald was not in the doorway.
In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations studied several still and motion images, including an enhanced version of the Altgens photograph, in the scope of its investigation. The committee also concluded that Lovelady was the man pictured in the depository doorway.
The official conclusions were still being debated by academics and conspiracy theorists more than 50 years after the assassination. One such theorist, Texas author Jim Marrs, wrote that most researchers were ready to accept Lovelady as the man in Altgens' photograph. He later wrote that others were resisting any such acceptance.
Witness to history Altgens was featured in two AP dispatches issued on November 22, 1963. He initially reported hearing two shots, but thought someone had been setting off fireworks. For a November 25 story, Altgens wrote that he did not know the origin of the gunshots until later, but he believed they came from the other side of Elm Street, opposite the presidential limousine from where he was standing.