Lars Eighner's US Bookstore Presents The Texas Institute of Letters Authors: Hugh Aynesworth

Hugh Aynesworth

Hugh Aynesworth was born (c. 1931) in Clarksville, West Virginia. He grew up in Nutter Fort and was graduated from Roosevelt-Wilson High School. He attended Salem College briefly before turning to journalism full time. He worked on papers in West Virginia, Colorado, and Kansas, and was managing editor of a paper in Arkansas before joining the staff of The Dallas Morning News in 1960. He was the science editor on November 22, 1963, when on a whim he decided to watch the presidential motorcade pass and thereby became the only reporter on the ground to witness the assassination of John Kennedy. He was the first to file an account of Oswald's get-away and obtained an early interview with Marina Oswald.

Although the assassination story played a part in his career for forty years, as Aynesworth, who believes the lone-gunman theory, covered the conspiracy theories of Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, and others, Aynesworth continued to cover the space program and has interviewed every president since Truman. As a bureau chief for Newsweek and now The Washington Times colleagues continue to refer stories that touch assassination or conspiracy to him.

In collaboration with TIL member Stephen Michaud, Aynesworth has written a number of books on some of the most notorious crimes and criminals of the Twentieth century including: The Only Living Witness, Wanted for Murder, Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, JFK: Breaking the News, The Vengeful Heart and Other Stories: A True Crime Casebook, If You Love Me, You Will Do My Will, and Murderers Among Us: Unsolved Homicides, Mysterious Deaths and Killers at Large.

Aynesworth resides in Dallas.