GLA Meets JFK in the White House

"Gary Anderson meets President Kennedy in the White House"

Four months prior to the World Shooting Championship in Cairo, Egypt, in October 1962, the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP, the predecessor to today’s Civilian Marksmanship Program) proposed the creation of the U. S. Distinguished International Shooter Badge, obtained Pentagon approvals, finalized the medal design and established the criteria for earning the new badge.

To earn the Distinguished International Shooter Badge, a U. S. shooter had to win a gold, silver or bronze medal in the Olympic games, World Shooting Championships or Pan American Games.    The creation of this badge expanded a tradition of U. S. Government awards for marksmanship that began with the first Distinguished Marksman Badge in 1884.  The new International Distinguished Badge immediately became one of the most highly coveted shooting awards in the U. S.

Shortly after the Cairo World Championship, the NBPRP selected Gary to receive the first Distinguished International Shooter Badge (Serial #1) because he dominated the individual rifle events in Cairo (four gold medals and three world records, see “1157”).   The formal presentation of the badge in April 1963 involved visits to the Pentagon and to the White House where President John F. Kennedy offered his personal congratulations for this unique honor in a White House Oval Office presentation.   Frank Orth, Executive Vice President of the NRA and later President of the U. S. Olympic Committee, accompanied Gary to the President’s office.

After being cleared into the White House and waiting for a few minutes in an adjoining room, Gary and Mr. Orth were ushered into the Oval Office.  The President was standing near his desk to greet them.  Gary remembers being impressed with how much the President knew about why Gary was there.  The President had been well briefed and obviously paid attention to his briefing.  They discussed how USA shooters had come much closer to USSR shooters in the World Championship and how Gary had outshot them in the individual rifle events.  The President was fascinated with how anyone could shoot a rifle and hit a four-inch bulls-eye (the size of the 300m ten ring) that was nearly three and one-half football fields away.  In the official photo that the White House photographer took of the occasion, the President is holding his hands together while forming a circle with his thumbs and index fingers to envision the size of the 300m ten ring.

One of the most remarkable aspects of their conversation was President Kennedy’s discussion about his personal interest in shooting.  He told Gary how he and his brothers enjoyed target shooting with a .22 cal. rifle that they kept at their home in Palm Beach, FL.  While it did not come up during their White House meeting, Gary later learned (after he became the DCM) that President Kennedy had purchased an M1 rifle from the Army’s Director of Civilian Marksmanship while he was a U. S. Senator (1953-1960).  President Kennedy’s apparent personal interest in guns and shooting juxtaposes rather dramatically with U. S. gun rights politics that began to take shape in the late 1960s.

Since the President knew Gary was from Nebraska, he concluded their 15-minute visit by taking him to the office of his personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, because she was also from Nebraska.  Ms. Lincoln originally came from Polk, another small farm town only 80 miles from Gary’s hometown of Axtell, Nebraska.

After the visit, the White House presented a picture of the President, Mr. Orth and Gary on a piece of firm cardboard with the President’s hand written message, “To Gary Anderson, with warm regards, J F Kennedy.”    Years later the photo was showing acid damage from the paper, so thanks to good advice from Lynetta Martin (a friend who worked in a genealogy bookstore), the photo was de-acidified so no further harm would come to it. 

Some years later when Gary was working for the NRA in Washington, one of his staff members had a fellow church member who had written a book on Kennedy signatures.   He examined the photo with the signature and declared it to be authentic.  Regardless, the framed photo of Gary with President Kennedy and Mr. Orth in the White House Oval Office occupies an honored place in the Anderson home.  Especially after having met President Kennedy in person, he has always remembered November 22, 1963 as one of the darkest days in history.

The World Shooting Championships, Cairo, Egypt 1962

World Shooting Championships, Cairo, Egypt 1962



"1157"

Gary turned his sport shooting ambitions into reality at the World Shooting Championships in Cairo, Egypt in October 1962.     700 shooters from 45 countries participated.    The Shooting Federation of the host country (UAR) was supported and subsidized by the government and this was the first World Championship ever on the African continent.  Egypt at the time was a Soviet Union client state so the Egyptian organizers did everything they could to glorify the Soviet team that had dominated the previous 1958 World Championships.  In this environment, Gary stunned the sport-shooting world by winning four individual World Championships, setting three World Records, beating the Russians on every range and also beating a record set by his “hero,” Anatoli Bogdanov of the Soviet Union.  (See “An Article from the Archives.”)

The identity card for the 38th World Shooting Championships in Cairo, Egypt 1962

Gary's preparations for the Cairo World Championship were serendipitously connected with his first new car that he purchased shortly before the World Championship.  While Gary was still on active duty at Ft. Benning, his sister Karen shared some money with him that she received through a bequest from a great aunt who did not want to include Gary in her will because she objected to his joining the Army.   It was enough for him to buy a new 1961 white Chevrolet Corvair.  Shortly after that and before the World Championship in Cairo, Gary left active duty in the Army and returned to Nebraska to go back to college.  When he went to his County Treasurer's office to re-license his car from Georgia to Nebraska, he wanted to find a license plate number that corresponded with his goals for the upcoming World Championship.  He wanted the number 1160 to use as a score goal for the 50m 3-position match.  However, the closest number available was 1157.  At the time the World Record was 1149 so there was a great amount of audacity in saying he was going to increase the World Record by 8 points in a World Championship.  He chose the license plate with 1157 and nine months later that became his World Record score.

Gary was 23 years old at the time and had been shooting only six years.  The first World Championship competition was the 50m prone rifle event.  His 591 in that event was just one point out of the medals.  He remembers listening to the German national anthem during the award ceremony for the gold medal winner Karl Wenk and saying to himself, "tomorrow they will be listening to the Star Spangled Banner."  The next day was for individual 50m position events.  In the standing position event, the World Record was 374 and Gary reached the last series needing a 93 to break the record.  During his last shots, he recorded in his diary "I could hardly contain my heart in my chest having never felt pressure more."  He finished with a 94 to set his first World Record with a 376 score.

Gary in Cairo, shooting prone
Notice the leather glove mentioned in "Meeting Bogdanov Face to Face"

Gary with Karl Wenk of Germany

His biggest goal, to win the 50m 3-position World Championship came on the next day.  He began with what then was an excellent 388 kneeling and followed that with a 375 standing that nearly duplicated his world record 376 of the previous day.  He finished with a 394 prone and a new world record total of 1157, the same score he predicted with his license plate selection.  Second place went to his friend Marat Niasov from the USSR who finished 10 points behind at 1147. 

During the 1960s, pension bonuses in the USSR were awarded for World Championship and Olympic medal finishes.  Gold medals were worth 100 Rubles per month or more.  Gary has often wondered how many Rubles in pension payments Russian shooters lost because they finished second to him in World Championship or Olympic competitions.  It happened at least six times.

The 300m matches followed the smallbore matches by a couple of days.  They were fired in very windy conditions.   He won the 300m prone event with a 395 where all his nines were due to wind.  Kneeling almost became his undoing.  He began with a disastrous 91-95.  He could not win with scores like that.  He took a break and spoke with teammate Jim Hill (USMC).  Gary complained that the light 39 grain loads the Army provided were not performing well in the wind.  Hill offered Gary some faster 41 grain loads that the Marines provided for him.  He finished with a 96-100.  The Marine ammo performed much better and those scores saved the match for him.  He finished with a total of 1138 out of a possible 1200.  That tied him with the USSR's Yevdokimov, but the tiebreaker then was prone so he also won the 300m 3-position World Championship.

Gary's scorecard from the 300m kneeling match.    Notice the last string  - score 100!

When the Cairo World Championship was finished, he won four gold medals (two more than anyone else) and set three World Records; his 1157 50m 3-position score erased the mark previously held by marksmen from three nations by eight points.  His 376 in 50m standing was two points over the old record that was held by a Russian, but it was nine points ahead of the silver medal score.  And his 395 prone broke a record held by his hero Bogdanov whose previous record was a 394. 

Gary on the victory stand (with a Pyramid in the background) for the  small bore standing awards ceremony.

The Gold Medals with "artistically valuable chains."

A close up of the World Championship Gold Medal

President Eisenhower had signed an order in 1956 to form the Army Marksmanship Unit and one of its missions was to challenge the USSR's domination of world shooting.  That effort began to bear fruit in Cairo.  Despite Gary's individual victories, the USA team finished second to the USSR in most of the team matches, but the full turn-around was to come in the 1966 World Championship.

In these competitions, the shooters used rifles of .22 and .308 caliber, shot at 50m and 300m without the aid of telescopic sights at bull’s-eyes smaller than a dime at 50 meters, the size of a teacup at 300.   The normal course of fire lasted from five to six hours and consisted of 40 shots each in prone, kneeling and standing.  During a 3x40 rifle match a shooter would lift about three tons of weight just to get the rifle to his shoulder.     And, a shooter would suspend his breathing for a total period of 50 to 75 minutes. 

The pressure on the shooters was terrific.  Each shot was posted on a scoreboard immediately behind the shooter for all to see as the match moved forward.  Crowds of spectators followed the progress of the best shooters and the psychological effect on the individual shooter was very intense.

There were some special challenges for the American shooters in Cairo – bad food, bad water, and wind from the Sahara desert near the Pyramids.   The Russians?   They brought their own food.  Most American team members were sick with dysentery.    Gary lost 10 pounds during the Championships.      He remembers having dysentery during the 300m match that caused him to leave the range every 15 or 20 shots.   Ten sighters per position were allowed and they could only be taken at the beginning of each 10 shot series so each trip to the bathroom added new risk to the next record shot.

Gary’s 300m rifle was build around a Remington action by Army Marksmanship Unit gunsmiths.    Gary used that same gun in the Tokyo Olympics, but after the Olympics the Army shop tore the gun apart and Gary ended up with the stock which he still has today.   There were no left-handed actions then, and being left handed, Gary had to remove the rifle from his shoulder to reload, a distinct disadvantage. 

Dieter Anschütz had given Gary a new smallbore rifle before the Cairo matches, which he used to win two of his World Championships.  All of the 50m rifle men's events in Cairo were won with Anschütz rifles; this was the start of Anschütz market dominance in smallbore rifles.  Gary shot the 50m matches with RWS ammunition--this started the rise of another company in the international shooting market.  Interestingly, it was the Anschütz of America Corporation that met the team when they returned to Idlewild airport after their stunning victories against European shooters who were solidly backed by their governments and compatriots.   No clubs or organizations, no one from any shooting magazine or press, nor the National Rifle Association met the team.

Gary in Cairo with the 50m rifle provided by Dieter Anschütz

Gary received news before he left Cairo that he had been promoted from Corporal to Sergeant in the Army Reserves.    Upon his return to his hometown of Axtell, Nebraska (population 450) the Axtell Chamber of Commerce hosted a “Gary Anderson Night” where Gary showed his rifle, slides, and medals. He returned to Hastings College, Nebraska as a second semester sophomore majoring in history and joined the Nebraska National Guard shortly after that.    Gary financed college with his National Guard earnings, the GI Bill, working as a dorm counselor, Army active duty pay during the summers and honoraria from speaking engagements.

Gary enjoys some free time after the competitions in Cairo!

Aim Low and Right

1961 CISM Matches in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

In 1961 Gary was a member of a 10-member U. S. Armed Forces International Shooting Team that went to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for the CISM Shooting Championship in July.      CISM (International Military Sports Council) organizes international military sports competitions in the Olympic tradition for teams representing the Armed Forces of CISM member countries for a wide variety of military sports.  The ultimate goal of CISM is “to contribute to world peace by uniting armed forces through sports.”   Their motto is Friendship through Sport.  In 1961, it worked out for Gary to compete for a spot on the U. S. CISM team because there were no other important international championships that year.  The CISM shooting competitions were traditionally a high priority for the Army Marksmanship Unit, but if you made a U. S. Pan Am Games, Olympic or World Championship team, also shooting in the CISM championship was not possible.

Opening Ceremony, CISM matches 1961

Nine nations competed in 1961 Rio de Janeiro CISM Championship:   Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Holland, Peru, Korea, Uruguay and the USA.    The CISM rifle events were a 300m 60 shot 3-position precision event and a 60 shot 3-position rapid-fire event.  The ten member U. S. Military Team was selected in team trials at Fort Benning where Gary easily won the rifle trial. 

In Rio, all of the teams were housed at the Brazilian Air Force Academy.  At the time, Gary’s rank was Corporal.  The other team members were Sergeants or Officers.   The Brazilians regarded Corporals as enlisted so for a couple of days, Gary’s barracks was “rather Spartan” and the food in the Brazilian enlisted men’s mess consisted of three daily servings of “gruel.”  He never saw a piece of meat in that mess.   Rifle Team Captain Tom Atwood fought for Gary to be allowed to eat in the NCO mess with his teammates and that greatly improved his surroundings and diet.  LTC Tom Atwood later became a high school JROTC Instructor in northern Illinois; he was someone Gary always remembered as one of the finest leaders under whom he served.

There was a reception for the U. S. team in the office of the Academy Commander.  There was a sealed glass jar on a shelf behind the Commander’s desk that appeared to contain a large piece of flesh.  The Commander eventually explained that the glass jar contained a human heart, indeed, the preserved heart of the founding commander of the Academy.

In the 1960s, CISM for “Army Rifle Matches” called for all competitors to use the manually operated rifle of the host country.  The 1961 CISM 300m Army Rifle Matches were fired with 7mm Brazilian Mauser Model 1935 bolt-action rifles. According to CISM rules, each team was supposed to “draw a crate” of rifles that were, in Gary’s words, “just junk.”    He doesn’t want to say that the team draw was rigged, but he bitterly remembers how shooters on a couple of teams had prone scores that the U. S. Army shooters could not come close to shooting with their rifles.  Fortunately, U. S. team members were so much better in kneeling, standing and rapid-fire that they could overcome their prone slow-fire deficits.  Gary remembers the rifle they drew as being “really crude.”  The actions were so stiff they were difficult to cycle in rapid-fire.  Team members took their rifles apart at night in the barracks in attempts to clean up the bedding. 

Gary shooting prone at the CISM Matches 1961 

The sights were especially primitive.  These rifles had inverted V front sights and open U-notch rear sights.  Real sight adjustments were not possible.  Gary never was able sight in his rifle if he used a proper sight picture, but he discovered that if he pointed the sights at a large mark on the lower right corner of the target, that his shots generally hit the middle of the target.  His aiming point for the both the 300m Army Rifle Precision and Rapid-Fire events was that mark in the lower right corner.  So by aiming, not at his target, but “low and right,” he won the gold medal in the 300m Precision event.    His scores were 169 prone, 156 kneeling and 161 standing for a total of 486 out of a possible 600.  That is an unbelievably low score, but it was the best that could be done with the rifles and ammunition that were issued.

Gary's diary entry for the CISM Championships

The trip to Brazil for the 1961 CISM Shooting Championship was an overall success.  A special award is given at the end of each CISM competition for the team that has the best overall score.  The U. S. Armed Forces combined rifle and pistol team won the CISM overall championship in 1961.

Certificate for winning the gold medal

CISM Medal - Reverse view

The CISM medal - First with the addition of a ribbon - Obverse view