UPI Cameraman, Covered the JFK Assassination & Filmed Shooting of Lee Oswald

Later Was CBS Cameraman For On The Road With Charles Kuralt & Sunday Morning

Isadore "Izzy" Bleckman was a Chicago born and based Movietone News-UPI cameraman who covered the assassination of President Kennedy. According to a Chicago Tribune Magazine biographical piece on Bleckman, published Jul 31- Aug 8, 1994, Bleckman's entrée into his long photojournalism career began in 1958 at age 23, when he returned to his hometown of Chicago after serving for three years as an Army helicopter mechanic.

He started working for his brother, Morris - a legendary Chicago WBBM-TV-CBS cameraman, and owner of Chicago "Cinema Processors," a film and video processing lab for all of Chicago's TV stations, and he continued this job until 1963. In 1959. Morris's connections helped him land a job developing film for Movietone Newsreels. "I just thought it was a great way to make a living," Izzy said.

Four years later in 1963, not long before the Kennedy assassination, he was hired as a cameraman by the newly merged United Press International (UPI) & Movietone News. Then on November 22, 1963, UPI called upon him to cover the Assassinations of President Kennedy in Dallas (detailed below).

In 1965, following the closure of UPI's Chicago Bureau, he became a cameraman for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He crisscrossed the world, filming the October 1967 student riots at the University of Wisconsin-Madison through the teargas, while his producer and sound man fled; and covering the 1968 riot at the Chicago Democratic Convention. In 1969 he filmed the Cape Canaveral launch of the Apollo moon rocket; and in February 1972, he was a member of the exclusive press pool that toured with President Nixon on his historic China trip, where Bleckman personally shook the hand of Mao Tse Tung.

However, he is probably best remembered and beloved for his more than three decades (1966-2002), when he was the cameraman for the popular CBS series, On The Road With Charles Kuralt & Sunday Morning. Bleckman nostalgically recounted about his "On The Road" days: "When we were shooting the news we recorded [events]; now I'm capturing moments. I found that making a lot of money, being high on the social scale and having lots of things are no match for people we've done stories on."

The Assassinations of President Kennedy & Alleged Assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald

According to his FBI report, the afternoon of 11/22/63, "immediately

after news of President Kennedy's death was received" (so, around 2:00 pm CT) UPI flew Bleckman, a new hire, out of Chicago to Dallas. With him was his boss, Paul Carmen Sisco, Chicago UPI Sports Writer and by 1963, News Film Bureau Chief, and Chicago UPI soundman Oliver Oakes.

They arrived in Dallas around 7:30pm CT, and proceeded to the jam-packed, third floor hallway of the DPD, where Lee Harvey Oswald was being interrogated in Rm. 317 - the Homicide & Burglary office. That evening Bleckman filmed the so-called "Midnight Press Conference" in the Dallas Police Department line-up room, in which Lee Harvey Oswald was paraded out in front of newsmen who shouted questions at him.

Then on Sunday 11/24/ 63, he and Paul Sisco were in the DPD basement garage and he filmed the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Oakes was originally with them to help set up equipment, but was then reassigned by UPI to interview Governor Connolly and his wife at Parkland Hospital, and was not present during the shooting of Oswald.

Bleckman FBI Report on the shooting:

He has been employed as a photographer by UPI

for a little over a month. BLECKMAN stated that he was

sent to Dallas, Texas, Friday, November 22, 1963, immediately

after news of President KENNEDY's death was received.

On Sunday, November 24, 1963, he stated that he

went to the Dallas, Texas Police Department about 8 a.m.

His reason, be added, for being at the police department

was because of the department's announcement to the press

that LEE HARVEY OSWALD would be moved from the police

department to the county jail at 10 a.m., November 24, 1963.

Be said he entered the police department through the main

entrance doors and took an elevator to the third floor

of the building whore heretofore the press, photographers,

etc. had previously been accommodated. As he emerged from

the elevator BLECKMAN said he was asked by a uniformed

armed policeman to identify himself which he did by

exhibiting his press credentials before he was permitted to

enter the third floor. Be said he remained a little while

on the third floor before taking the elevator to the booking

room* in the basement where he remained until ten or fifteen

minutes prior to OSWALD being brought out of the elevator

by police.

[*The booking room was the Jail Office room into which

opened the elevator Oswald was to exit from. Bleckman was

later moved to the little room adjoining the booking room and

filmed through the barred window separating the two rooms, as

Oswald exited the elevator. He then ran immediately ran out

through the police cordon ahead of Fritz & Oswald, to take up a

filming position directly in front of the police cordon.]

About ten to fifteen minutes prior to OSWALD's

appearance he said he and other photographers and newsmen

were all asked to vacate the booking room, which they did.

BLECKMAN said he then took up a position In front of a window

in the booking room so he could photograph OSWALD as OSWALD

emerged from the elevator. As OSWALD emerged he said he

got his photographs [sic-film] and then raced to the far side of the

ramp so he could continue to photograph OSWALD as he emerged

from the booking room and presumably would be led from there

to the waiting armored car which would be used to transport

him to the county jail. BLECKMAN stated that he was in this

position as OSWALD was led out of the booking room and that

he had his camera going from that time on.

Bleckman's FBI Report, says he was crouched down right in front of the police cordon, through which Oswald was escorted. You can see in his film that as soon as the shot rings out he quickly takes cover behind, and shoots over, the fender of the adjacent, waiting police car that had just backed into place, which was to have transported Oswald to the Dallas County Jail.

Identification of Bleckman in Film Shot at the Dallas Police Department

Using the photos and information I found on Bleckman and his Bolex Camera that was auctioned, prodigious, Dallas-area, JFK assassination photo & film researcher, Alex Harris, just spotted and identified Bleckman in footage shot in the DPD. He found him in another cameraman's film, while he was filming the Homicide Rm 317 doorway.

Two days later, he's seen filming in the DPD basement. A few years ago I identified him coming out of the little room adjoining the Jail Office Booking Room (where he had been filming through the barred window at Oswald exiting the elevator) and coming out through the police cordon ahead of Fritz and Oswald. However, at that time I hadn't researched him in depth and knew nothing else about him. Photo & film expert, Alex Harris also recently found him in footage in the basement filming from his stated crouched position, right in front of Oswald as he is led down the police cordon, just before Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby. In both the DPD hallway/Homicide doorway frames found by Harris, and in the DPD basement frames found by him, Bleckman has his Bolex camera to his eye. Harris informs me it is a "Bolex H-16," to be exact.

I have since recently identified him and Sisco in a B&W photo by Ira Beers in the chaotic aftermath of the shooting of Oswald. He's seen in profile, holding his Bolex camera, next to Sisco, also in profile, who's holding a large white clipboard or notepad. Sisco is wearing a white or light tan trench coat, and Bleckman is wearing an ill-fitting black trenchcoat (see my collage). In another photo by Beers taken around the same time, Sisco is captured by himself with his back to the camera but can be recognized via his white/light trench coat, curly black hair and build - he's one of the only ones there, beside's Tom Pettit and Ike Papas wearing a light colored trench coat, and he's definitely not them.

Harris had already uploaded a clip of Bleckman's film footage from the Oswald shooting, to his "The JFK Theorist" youtube channel, about a month ago. Search his Youtube channel, or on Google, for "Isadore Bleckman's footage of Oswald's shooting" - or "reassemble its url: youtube DOT com/watch?v=EuH20bCFB1Y

We are still searching for them in photos and film shot at the Midnight Press Conference.

His Retirement to Upstate NY - Underground Railroad Documentarian

He retired in upstate NY in the quaint, historic village of Lewiston, near Buffalo, on the Niagara River, which was one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad. There in 2009, he and his 2nd wife, Mary Roseberry, filmed and produced the short documentary, "Risking Everything: A Story of Niagara's Freedom Seekers" about runaway slaves, who crossed over the Niagara River there into Canada, via the underground railroad. It was edited by Mary and Izzy's daughter, editor Sheera Bleckman. Soon after its airing the "Freedom Crossing Monument" was created and placed on the bank of the Niagara River in Lewiston to honor the courage of fugitive slaves who sought freedom in Canada, and to the local volunteers who protected and helped them on their journey across the Niagara River, especially Josiah Tyron (1798–1886), a local tailor and deacon at the Presbyterian Church, and Lewiston's volunteer "station master" for the Underground Railroad. He was a man of simple means, quiet, humble and religious, who with a band of volunteers, under the cover of darkness. secretly escorted escaping slaves in his rowboat across the river to freedom in Canada. The monument was dedicated on October 14, 2009. For more information on this project see his site - "reassemble" the following url: bleckmanweb DOT com/riskingeverything/

Izzy married twice. His 2nd wife, Mary G. Roseberry, predeceased him just the year before in 2020.

Sale of His Historic Bolex Camera That Filmed the Assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald

On March 10, 2018, the 16mm Bolex camera he used to take the famous footage in 1963 brought $16,000 at Schultz Auctioneers' sale in Clarence, New York, in spirited bidding on the floor and phone. That vintage camera would ordinarily sell for $500 or less – without the provenance of its famous past. Bleckman was at the auction hall to sign a letter to provide that provenance.

Rest in Peace...

~Linda (48291572)