u/Traditional_Emu_9915

I was looking in the JFK archives and stumbled across a very curious document that appears to be a hoax bulletin reporting on his assassination in Miami. See screenshot. It can be located here: https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkpof-130-016#?image_identifier=JFKPOF-130-016-p0075

The text reads: MIAMI (AP) PRESIDENT KENNEDY HAS JUST BEEN ASSINATED WHILE RIDING IN AN OP

BUST BUST THIS IS NO AT ALL TURE JUST KIDING HAHA HA HA HA HA HA

The "headline" part of the text is unfinished but the only thing that would make sense here is "...while riding in an open top car" or "open top motorcade".

The document appears to be from the White House Army Signal Agency (which is now known as the White House Communications Agency) judging by the them being identifed on page 73 and it seems to make sense that such an agency would be generating brief bulletins of breaking news around the world.

The document can be timed to be most likely from March 1962 based on the story about French-Algerian negotations in Switzerland.

It is in JFK's personal papers as maintained by his secretary Evelyn Lincoln. The date range of these papers extend a month beyond the assassination so there's a few possibilities:

• Kennendy and/or his secretary (and maybe others, like the Defense Secretary - see below) saw this hoax report at the time it was issued in March 1962 and kept it in the files, perhaps complaining to the White House Army Signal Agency about how inappropriate it was for that to have been sent. Interestingly, in August 1962, Secretary of Defense McNamara changed the name of the agency to the WHCA and reassigned WHCA from the Army to the Defense Communications Agency, now the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) with an explicit requirement that it "be directly responsive to Presidential requirements". I wonder if hoax bulletins like this had any role to play in the change?
• Neither saw it at the time (March 1962) and it was only identified after Kennedy was assassinated.

Either way, this is a fascinating document in light of what happened to Kennedy in November 1963.

https://preview.redd.it/a8xpt3vnftvg1.png?width=1373&format=png&auto=webp&s=07aed88937546ce3e7421c75c8ef6f9709fc0272