23 November Television

Moscow TASS International Service in English 1950 GMT 23 November 1963--L

    (Text) Moscow--Moscow television twice today featured a film of the visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Andrey Gromyko to the residence of U.S. Ambassador Foy Kohler. Millions of teleview[er]s saw Khrushchev and Gromyko sign a book under President Kennedy's portrait and pay a tribute of a minute's silence to the memory of the outstanding American.
    Twice this evening, Moscow television carried live broadcasts from Washington via the American Telestar satellite. The repeat was a video recording.. The television screen showed the last journey of the late president to the White House. Televiewers also saw one of the White house halls where the late John F. Kennedy lay in state with members of the family paying their last respects.
    Television broadcasts and statements by commentators emphasized that John Kennedy strove for peace and the expansion and consolidation of Soviet-American cooperation, attaching great importance to peaceful coexistence. In a special television news broadcast, millions of Muscovites and residents of other cities saw ratification by the American President of the Moscow nuclear test-ban treaty and heard him speak on the occasion.
    Another special television program dedicated to the memory of the U.S. President, televised with the permission of the U.S. Embassy, featured two documentaries--Kennedy's inaugural ceremony and his speech at Washington University (American University in Washington--ed.) on 10 June of this year.
    Latest dispatches from Washington were read during the evening television newscast. Addressing televiewers, Commentator Viktor Mayevskiy expressed the hope that the search for the solution of international problems to which President Kennedy had made an important contribution would continue for the sake of peace.

(Editor's Note: In a similar report on a Moscow television feature commemorating the late President, Moscow in English to Eastern North America 0125 GMT 24 November adds: "The death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, an outstanding American statesman," said the announcer, "is a heavy blow for all people who prize peace and welcome Soviet-U.S. cooperation in achieving peace on earth. The Soviet people and their government sympathize with the grief of the American people on the tragic death of their president.")

(The U.S. Embassy in Moscow kindly furnished two documentary motion pictures about Mr. Kennedy for the television program, said the announcer. Soviet viewers saw him live and energetic during one of his speeches. Mr. Kennedy regarded it as his duty to achieve peace and prosperity for the U.S. people. Parts of his speech at American University in Washington on the need for peace on earth are impressive. True peace must be the result of the activities of many countries and of many acts, he said. It must be dynamic, not static, changing in order to comply with the challenge of each generation, since peace is a definite process in the means of solving problems.)

(Soviet television viewers watched with emotion this evening as films showed the President signing the Moscow treaty for a partial nuclear test ban. Mr. Kennedy had faith in the treaty.)

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