The Death of a President

by William Manchester

  In SS 100 X the President waved again. The roar swelled, rising and rising, and Nellie Connally heard him saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” They can’t hear him, she mused. Why does he bother? She supposed it was habit. He had been brought up to be gracious.

  Clint was on the running board, back in the street, on again, off again. He had lost track of the number of times he had hit the pavement. He began to breathe heavily. Ready, after his one foray, clung to the running board. None of the other agents left the car.

  Lamar Street, Austin Street…

  12:28. Main and Market.

  The neighborhood began to deteriorate. They were entering a seamy section of bail-bond shops, bars, a public gym. It occurred to Yarborough that anyone could drop a pot of flowers on Kennedy from an upper story. It will be good to have the President out of this, he thought, and then he saw that they were nearly at the end. Two blocks ahead on the left lay the ugly Gothic sandstone courthouse, and, on the right, the dingy county Records Building. Beyond them the green of Dealey Plaza was visible. My, that open sky looks good, the Senator thought. He remembered that he had some friends among the county bailiffs and squirmed around, looking for them. Then he saw the lead car ahead was turning right at the Records Building. Mistakenly he believed they could reach Stemmons Freeway directly from Main. Unaware of the traffic island ahead, which made the detour to Elm Street necessary, Yarborough gaped. Why right? It was the wrong direction. What was over there?

  12:29. Main and Houston.

  The crowd around the corner was smaller. After the zig off Main and onto Houston, Clint hopped back on the running board and took a deep breath. Yet even here the people were clapping hard, and Nellie, surprised and delighted at Dallas’ showing, twisted in her jump seat. “You sure can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you, Mr. President,” she said jubilantly. Kennedy smiled and answered, “No, you can’t.”

  Chief Curry spun the wheel of the lead car left, entering Elm Street, the sharp zag after the zig. It was easy for him. He had done it a thousand times. But the turn was 120 degrees. Bill Greer, swinging the Lincoln around, nearly had to stop in front of Roy Truly. Sam Kinney in Halfback and Hurchel Jacks in the Vice Presidential car would have the same problem. “Hell,” Jacks said under his breath, sizing it up, “that’s going to be practically a U-turn.”

  12:30. Houston and Elm.

  The motorcade now resembled the figure Z. Curry, at the top, was approaching the overpass. Three drivers—Greer, Kinney, Jacks—trailed him on Elm. The Book Depository was situated at the point of the sharp angle. The second section of the procession was proceeding toward it on Houston. The third section—a station wagon, the VIP bus, and the Signals car—was still on Main.

  Sorrels was saying to Curry, “Five more minutes and we’ll have him there.” Noting that there was only a handful of spectators ahead, Lawson alerted the four-to-twelve shift. He radioed the Trade Mart that they would reach there in five minutes. Then he automatically scanned the overpass. There were railway workmen on top, a security breach. Through the windshield he motioned urgently to a policeman there in a yellow rain slicker, indicating that he wanted the area cleared. The officer was unresponsive. He didn’t understand.

  Greer, recovering from the difficult turn, started to relax. The strain was over. Then he, too, noticed the workmen. Puzzled, he studied the unfamiliar street to see whether he could veer at the last minute if necessary and take the President beneath a deserted part of the span. The Lincoln was now passing the live oak, which momentarily screened John Kennedy from the muzzle in the sixth-floor corner window. Abe Zapruder, hunched over his Zoomar lens, was photographing SS 100 X as it approached him. Nellie pointed to the underpass and said to Jackie, “We’re almost through. It’s just beyond that.” Jackie thought, How pleasant the cool tunnel will be. Everything seemed very quiet here. She turned to the left. Charles Brend held his son aloft: now was a good time to wave at the President.

  Kinney, hugging the bumper of SS 100 X, was still keeping his eyes on Kennedy’s head. Ken O’Donnell returned to his jump seat. “What’s the story on the time, Dave?” he asked Powers. “I’ve got 12:30,” Powers replied. “That’s not bad, considering the crowd. We’re only five minutes late.” In the front seat Emory Roberts radioed the Mart, “Halfback to Base. Five minutes to destination.” He then wrote in his shift report: “12:35 pm President Kennedy arrived at Trade Mart.”

  Rufe Youngblood, fingering the leather strap of his portable Secret Service radio, was also aware of the time. The Hertz sign told him, and he remembered that 12:30 was their estimated time of arrival at the luncheon. Behind Youngblood, Lady Bird had been gazing idly at the red brick of the Dal-Tex Building and then the rust-colored brick façade of the Book Depository. Lyndon was still listening to the car radio. Yarborough, now that they had changed direction, felt reassured.

  Varsity was making the 120-degree turn.

  The pool car was approaching it. Kilduff, misreading the sign on the front of the warehouse, said to Merriman Smith, “What the hell is a Book Repository?”

  Back on Main Street Evelyn Lincoln was saying, “Just think—we’ve come through all of Dallas and there hasn’t been a single demonstration.” One of Liz Carpenter’s local friends laughed. “That’s Dallas,” she said. “We’re not so bad.”

  The Lincoln moved ahead at 11.2 miles an hour. It passed the tree. Zapruder, slowly swinging his camera to the right, found himself photographing the back of a freeway sign. Momentarily the entire car was obscured. But it was no longer hidden from the sixth-floor corner window. It had passed the last branch.

  Brend’s five-year-old boy timidly raised his hand. The President smiled warmly. He raised his hand to wave back.

  There was a sudden, sharp, shattering sound.

  Various individuals heard it differently. Jacqueline Kennedy believed it was a motorcycle noise. Curry was under the impression that someone had fired a railroad torpedo. Ronald Fischer and Bob Edwards, assuming that it was a backfire, chuckled. Most of the hunters in the motorcade—Sorrels, Connally, Yarborough, Gonzalez, Albert Thomas—instinctively identified it as rifle fire.

  But the White House Detail was confused. Their experience in outdoor shooting was limited to two qualification courses a year on a range in Washington’s National Arboretum. There they heard only their own weapons, and they were unaccustomed to the bizarre effects that are created when small-arms fire echoes among unfamiliar structures—in this case, the buildings of Dealey Plaza.1 Emory Roberts recognized Oswald’s first shot as a shot. So did Youngblood, whose alert response may have saved Lyndon Johnson’s life. They were exceptions. The men in Halfback were bewildered. They glanced around uncertainly. Lawson, Kellerman, Greer, Ready, and Hill all thought that a firecracker had been exploded. The fact that this was a common reaction is no mitigation. It was the responsibility of James J. Rowley, Chief of the Secret Service, and Jerry Behn, Head of the White House Detail, to see that their agents were trained to cope with precisely this sort of emergency. They were supposed to be picked men, honed to a matchless edge. It was comprehensible that Roy Truly should dismiss the first shot as a cherry bomb. It was even fathomable that Patrolman James M. Chaney, mounted on a motorcycle six feet from the Lincoln, should think that another machine had backfired. Chaney was an ordinary policeman, not a Presidential bodyguard. The protection of the Chief Executive, on the other hand, was the profession of Secret Service agents. They existed for no other reason. Apart from Clint Hill—and perhaps Jack Ready, who started to step off the right running board and was ordered back by Roberts—the behavior of the men in the follow-up car was unresponsive. Even more tragic was the perplexity of Roy Kellerman, the ranking agent in Dallas, and Bill Greer, who was under Kellerman’s supervision. Kellerman and Greer were in a position to take swift evasive action, and for five terrible seconds they were immobilized.

  However, three shots may well have been fired. Indeed, three could have been fired within the crucial time spa
n. Afterward it was argued that this was impossible, since fewer than six seconds elapsed between the first shot and the third, and tests demonstrated that at least 2.3 seconds were required to operate the bolt on Oswald’s rifle. The arithmetic went: 2.3 + 2.3 + 2.3 = 6.9. It was a trick. A correct calculation would run as follows: the first shot is fired, 2.3 seconds pass; the second shot is fired, 2.3 seconds pass; the third shot is fired. Total elapsed time: 4.6 seconds.

  Hill, though mistaken about the noise, saw Kennedy lurch forward and grab his neck. That was enough for Clint. With his extraordinary reflexes he leaped out into Elm Street and charged forward.

  Powers, in Halfback’s right-hand jump seat, shouted at O’Donnell, “I think the President’s been hit!”

  In the Vice Presidential car Yarborough thought he smelled gunpowder. “My God!” he yelled. “They’ve shot the President!”

  Lady Bird gasped, “Oh, no, that can’t be!”

  Above the car radio Lyndon Johnson had heard what he knew to be an explosion. Before he could define it further he saw Youngblood coming over the front seat toward him.

  Youngblood was less positive than he seemed. In the back of his mind he was thinking that if he was wrong this was going to be very embarrassing. But his voice was firm. He snapped at Johnson, “Get down!”

  Kilduff, in the pool car directly under the gun, asked, “What was that?”

  Bob Baskin, in the seat behind Kilduff, knew what it was; he was an infantry veteran of the 85th Division, and he looked around wildly for cover.

  Captain Stoughton automatically reached for his telescopic lens.

  “Is that a motorcycle backfire?” asked Congressman Young. Henry Gonzalez, who had been hunting only last Sunday, cried, “No, it’s gunfire!” The policeman driving their car immediately said, “You’re right,” and Gonzalez, remembering that day in Congress when Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the gallery, thought, Can this be another Puerto Rico?

  On Main Street Ted Clifton said, “That’s crazy, firing a salute here.” Godfrey McHugh said, “It is silly.”

  In the VIP bus Dr. Burkley was staring out absently at store windows. The President’s physician had heard nothing. He was too far back.

  The President was wounded, but not fatally. A 6.5 millimeter bullet had entered the back of his neck, bruised his right lung, ripped his windpipe, and exited at his throat, nicking the knot of his tie.2 Continuing its flight, it had passed through Governor Connally’s back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh, although the Governor, suffering a delayed reaction, was not yet aware of it. At the moment, in fact, Connally was glancing over his right shoulder in the direction of what he had recognized as a rifle shot.

  As the Lincoln emerged from behind the freeway sign, it reappeared in Abe Zapruder’s line of vision. Abe saw the stifled look on the President’s face and was stunned. Continuing to train his camera on the car, he wondered whether Kennedy could be pretending. It was as though he were saying, “Oh, they got me.” Abe thought, The President is to joke?

  Nellie Connally twisted in her seat and looked sharply at Kennedy. His hands were at his throat, but he wasn’t grimacing. He had slumped a little.

  Roy Kellerman thought he had heard the President call in his inimitable accent, “My God, I’m hit!” Roy looked over his left shoulder—Greer, beside him, was looking over his right shoulder; the car, wobbling from side to side, slowly veered out of line—and they saw that Kennedy was hit.

  At this instant the impact of John Connally’s wound hit him. It was as though someone had jabbed him in the back with a gigantic fist. He pitched forward, saw that his lap was covered with blood, and toppled to the left, toward his wife. Both John and Nellie were aware that the Lincoln was slowing down. Huddled together, they glanced up and saw the astounded faces of Kellerman and Greer, inches from their own.

  Suddenly the Governor felt doomed. He panicked.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” he shrieked. “They’re going to kill us both!”

  Jacqueline Kennedy heard him. In a daze she wondered, Why is he screaming?

  Already she had started to turn anxiously to her husband.

  Greer turned back to the wheel. Kellerman, hesitant, glanced over his shoulder again. Neither had yet reacted to the crisis.

  And now it was too late. Howard Brennan, open-mouthed, saw Oswald take deliberate aim for his final shot. There was an unexpected, last-moment distraction overhead. The first shot had alarmed the birds. As the sound ricocheted in the amphitheater below, the band-tailed pigeons had begun to depart, first in twos and threes, then in swarms, until now there were a thousand wings flapping overhead, rising higher and higher until they had formed a great ragged fluttering fan overhead, a deep blue V blending into the gentler blue of the overarching sky.

  Crooking his arm, Oswald drew a fresh bead with his Italian rifle. Ready on the left, ready on the right, all ready on the firing line, his Marine Corps instructors had shouted on the San Diego range, signaling the appearance of rapid-fire targets. He was ready now. They had also told him to hold his front sight at six o’clock on an imaginary clock dial. It was there, and steady. His target, startlingly clear in the cross hairs of his telescopic sight, was eighty-eight yards away.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The First Lady, in her last act as First Lady, leaned solicitously toward the President. His face was quizzical. She had seen that expression so often, when he was puzzling over a difficult press conference question. Now, in a gesture of infinite grace, he raised his right hand, as though to brush back his tousled chestnut hair. But the motion faltered. The hand fell back limply. He had been reaching for the top of his head. But it wasn’t there anymore

  Three

  MARKET

  Lee Oswald, watched by the stupefied Brennan, steps back into the shadows in the deliberate lock step of a Marine marksman retiring from the range.

  Below him he leaves madness.

  The plaza resembles nothing so much as a field which has just been swept by a mighty wind. Charles Brend has thrown his son to the ground and is shielding him with his body. From his station behind the right fender of SS 100 X Officer Clyde Haygood rams the north curb with his motorcycle, overturns, leaves the wheels spinning, and scrambles up the grassy side of the overpass embankment, pistol in hand. A man, thinking to save a woman, tackles her from behind. Bob Jackson, a photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, has just seen the rifle barrel being withdrawn. He gapes, unbelieving, at the open window. Motorcyclist Marrion Baker, riding right beside the Lincoln, is staring up at the pigeons. A policeman near Roy Truly mutters hoarsely, “Goddamn.” Abe Zapruder screeches over and over, “They killed him! They killed him! They killed him! They killed him!”

  From the rear of the follow-up car Agent Hickey raises the barrel of the AR-15 and points it about aimlessly. In the jump seats Ken O’Donnell and Dave Powers have heard the sickening impact of the fatal bullet, and Dave has seen it. O’Donnell crosses himself. Powers whispers, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…” Sam Kinney, seeing the back of the President’s head erupt, stamps on his siren button with his left foot to alert Kellerman and Greer; Halfback’s fender siren opens up with an ear-shattering wail. Simultaneously, Sam swerves to the right to avoid Clint Hill. Clint is in the street between Halfback’s front bumper and the rear bumper of SS 100 X. His head is low, he is about to leave his feet.

  The Lincoln continues to slow down. Its interior is a place of horror. The last bullet has torn through John Kennedy’s cerebellum, the lower part of his brain. Leaning toward her husband Jacqueline Kennedy has seen a serrated piece of his skull—flesh-colored, not white—detach itself. At first there is no blood. And then, in the very next instant, there is nothing but blood spattering her, the Connallys, Kellerman, Greer, the upholstery, Clint running up behind, the curb alongside. Gobs of blood as thick as a man’s hand are soaking the floor of the back seat, the President’s clothes are steeped in it, the roses are drenched, Kennedy’s body is lurching soundlessly
toward his wife, and Motorcycle Police Officer Hargis, two feet from her, is doused in the face by a red sheet. To Kellerman it appears that the air is full of moist sawdust; Nellie wonders if she is being sprayed by spent buckshot; but John Connally knows, John suddenly recalls his boyhood in the Model T, in a flash he remembers his father and Carlos Estrada, and as he slides bleeding into Nellie’s lap he fills his lungs and screams again and screams again and screams again in agony; in terror she begins to scream, too; and they are overwhelmed by matter, saturated in Kennedy’s bright blood; and one fragment, larger than the rest, rises over the President’s falling shoulders and seems to hang there and then drift toward the rear, and Jackie springs up on her stained knees, facing toward the sidewalk, crying out, “My God, what are they doing? My God, they’ve killed Jack, they’ve killed my husband, Jack, Jack!” she cries and sprawls on the sloping back of the car, defeated, tumbling down toward the street and Halfback’s approaching wheels and Kinney knows he cannot stop.

  Incredibly, the tawdry Hertz clock overhead still reads 12:30. The motorcade has retained its fishhook formation. All the birds have departed. The sky is again the same faultless blue. Everything beyond the immediate scene looks as it did. Dallas, the country, and the world have not had time to respond. But they are not the same, they can never be; the thirty-fifth President of the United States has been assassinated; John Kennedy is gone, and all he could do for his country is history.

  By now there had been a reaction in the front seat of SS 100 X. “Move it out,” Kellerman told Greer. To the microphone he said, “Lawson, this is Kellerman. We are hit. Get us to a hospital.”1