Hugh Aynesworth

Hugh Grant Aynesworth (August 2, 1931 – December 23, 2023) was an American journalist, investigative reporter, author, and teacher.

Aynesworth was reported to have witnessed the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, the capture and arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre, and the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters.

Aynesworth started as a newspaperman in 1948.

He first worked in his home state as a freelancer for the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram.

Aynesworth's next two positions were with Donald W. Reynolds-owned newspapers in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

From 1950 to 1954, he was a sports editor for the Fort Smith Times Record making $32/week.

At the age of 23, he was then hired as managing editor of the Southwest American.

According to Aynesworth, at that time he may have been the youngest managing editor of a daily newspaper in the United States.

He also conducted his first interview with a murderer while working at the American.

Returning to the Dallas Times Herald where he first began working in the 1950s, Aynesworth was an investigative chief in 1975.

At ABC News, Aynesworth was an investigator for 20/20.

In 1957, Aynesworth left the American after a dispute with Reynolds regarding compensation.

Aynesworth was a business writer for the Dallas Times Herald at 26, then was hired to work for United Press International in their Denver, Colorado news bureau in 1959.

While in Denver, he was stabbed in the throat by an unknown man who broke down his apartment door one night.

Those who speculated on the motivation for the attack believed Aynesworth may have been targeted in a case of mistaken identity or by a jealous husband.

Aynesworth himself reported he thought that the Teamsters may have been involved due to a story on which the UPI was working at the time.

While still bandaged from the attack, he interviewed and was hired by the Dallas Morning News in 1960.

Aynesworth covered the United States space program for the Dallas Morning News as a space and aviation reporter, a position he held at the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963.

According to Aynesworth, he was scheduled to interview a scientist at Southern Methodist University on November 22, 1963.

He said that he saw Jack Ruby around 11:30 that morning in the employee's cafeteria of the Dallas Morning News before Ruby went upstairs to place an advertisement for his nightclub.

Aynesworth said he decided to take a long lunch hour and walk over to watch Kennedy's motorcade from in front of the Dallas County Records Building.

With the crowds two to three people deep on Main Street, he positioned himself in the middle of Elm Street on the corner of Elm and North Houston Street to obtain a clearer view.

Aynesworth described hearing a first shot as possibly backfire from a motorcycle, and recognizing a second and a third shot as coming from a rifle.

He described the scene immediately afterwards as "total chaos".

Aynesworth reported that activity converged upon the Texas School Book Depository, and that he did not enter the building possibly for fear of running into a gunman.

He said he started interviewing people and, as he was without paper, began taking notes on a "bunch of envelopes" he had in his pocket.

According to Aynesworth, he interviewed people in the area and received information that turned out to be false or contradicted the statements of other witnesses.

Aynesworth positioned himself near a three-wheeled police motorcycle in front of the Texas School Book Depository to listen to the voice traffic and find out what was happening.

He stated that police radio transmissions, as well as the number of police entering the building, gave him the impression that a gunman was on the building's roof.

Aynesworth described listening to the police radio and hearing what turned out to be the first report of the shooting of J. D. Tippit in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas by a citizen using the radio in Tippit's police car.

Aynesworth said he instructed another reporter to stay at the Texas School Book Depository and followed the police to the scene of the shooting in a WFAA mobile unit.

In 1967, he started for Newsweek in their Houston bureau, where he eventually succeeded Philip Carter as head of that bureau.

In a 1976 Texas Monthly article, William Broyles Jr.. described Aynesworth as "one of the most respected authorities on the assassination of John F. Kennedy".

Aynesworth was a native of Clarksburg, West Virginia.

Having grown up poor, his mother helped provide for the family by taking in laundry and his aunt cleaned houses, including one owned by a man who would later provide him with $100 so he could purchase books in college.

Aynesworth graduated from Roosevelt-Wilson High School in Nutter Fort, West Virginia, then attended Salem College in Salem, West Virginia before dropping out after one semester to work in journalism full-time.

In the mid-1990s, he was the Dallas/Southwest bureau chief of The Washington Times.

In 2007, Aynesworth was elected President of the 300-member Press Club of Dallas, an organization of which he had been a member since the early 1960s.

He served on the board of directors for The Texas Observer's MOLLY National Journalism Prize.

Aynesworth was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize six times, and was a finalist four times.