The JFK Quest of Gayle Nix Jackson
Her grandfather’s original Dealey Plaza film may yet be found
I first met Gayle Nix Jackson about 10 years ago at the University of Virginia, where she and I both spoke at a conference organized by presidential scholar Larry Sabato on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
An effervescent Texan, Gayle filled me in on a story I barely knew. Her grandfather Orville Nix was filming in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, when President Kennedy’s motorcade was laced with gunfire. Like the more famous home movie of Abraham Zapruder, Orville Nix’s ten-second snippet of 8 millimeter film captured JFK’s assassination.
A good citizen, Nix delivered the film to the FBI office in Dallas on Dec. 1, 1963. A copy—not the original—was returned to him three days later. The United Press International (UPI) wire service then paid Nix $5,000 – worth about $50,000 today – for a 25-year license to use the film. Nix died in 1972. When UPI returned the copyright and all of its copies to the Nix fam…
