Allan Jackson (December 4, 1915 – April 26, 1976) was an American radio broadcaster. He was the head anchor at

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

News in New York City. Jackson, born in

Hot Springs, Arkansas Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs for which the city is n ...

and an alumnus of the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

, began his 33-year career during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, reading the 6:00 PM national evening news (then the network's main news program) and anchoring coverage of many of the major news headlines of the day. He anchored CBS News's coverage of the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

invasion on June 6, 1944, of the joining of US and Soviet forces in April 1945, and of

V-E Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easter ...

in May of that year, then the

Berlin Airlift The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road ...

in 1948. Jackson was one of the first national radio newscasters to announce the

assassination of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle wit ...

on November 22, 1963. According to former CBS News Correspondent

Dan Rather Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. (; born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. Rather began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurr ...

in his book ''The Camera Never Blinks'' and in the 2003 book ''President Kennedy Has Been Shot'', Rather had advised CBS News headquarters in New York from Dallas that there were unconfirmed reports that the President was dead. Jackson was handed a slip of paper reading "JFK DEAD" and immediately went on air with the announcement, reporting Kennedy's death as a fact (which had not yet been confirmed, although it was true that Kennedy was already dead), and playing the U.S. national anthem, ''

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...

.'' In 1974, Great Oaks Broadcasting, a company part-owned by Jackson, purchased radio station

WAKC WAKC (102.3 FM) is an American licensed radio station in Concord, New Hampshire. The station is owned by the Educational Media Foundation and is part of its K-Love network of contemporary Christian music outlets. History The station began op ...

Normal, Illinois Normal is a town in McLean County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town's population was 52,736. Normal is the smaller of two principal municipalities of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area, and Illinois' seventh most ...

. A year later, Jackson retired from CBS to devote himself to the station. After two weeks in a hospital, Jackson died April 26, 1976, of complications following gall bladder surgery.

References

Sources

Earth Station 1 coverage of the Kennedy assassination
including clips of Allan Jackson's announcement
Real Audio file of the announcement
from Earth Station 1

of CBS Radio's coverage of the assassinations of President Kennedy and of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, as heard on WCCO Radio in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. Jackson is heard anchoring coverage of both tragedies. *Dan Rather, ''The Camera Never Blinks'', Ballantine Books, New York, 1978 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Allan 1915 births 1976 deaths American male journalists American radio personalities American radio reporters and correspondents