At the executive mansion the drama had been heightened by the sudden appearance of an immaculately dressed little girl who really wasn’t old enough to be downtown by herself. She walked slowly up the Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk from the direction of Fifteenth Street, reached through the old black iron fence, and carefully placed a single flower on the White House lawn. The guards at the Northwest Gate looked from the blossom to the flag and retreated into their sentry box like walking wounded. In New York Chuck Spalding, Harvard ’40, had been trapped in the office of a real estate consultant since the first word that his old friend was gravely wounded in Texas. To his mounting horror, the consultant became involved in a crass conversation with his broker. The broker had just explained that at the New York Stock Exchange, where the Stars and Stripes had also been lowered, the Dow Jones industrial average was plunging with it; the average was down over twenty points, and the two men were matter-of-factly discussing whether or not this was a “good time to buy.”5 Desolate, Spalding walked to the window, and as he pressed his gaunt face against the pane the flag atop Grand Central Station dropped—to him it seemed that it was falling on its own—to half-staff.
“Good-bye, Johnny,” Spalding said quietly to himself.
How many banners had been reefed in to mid-point when Kilduff made the official announcement of the President’s death is unknown, but certainly there were a great many. A Parkland doctor at the Trade Mart heard the news by phone at 1:18 P.M., and the American and Texas flags on the two poles which had been erected that morning dipped at 1:19. In most of the country Father Huber, not the acting press secretary, reached the great hovering audience first. Following rumors of a bullet wound in the head—which had evoked the image of Lincoln lying unconscious in the house at 453 Tenth Street—and reports that last rites had been administered—which was enough to dash all remaining hope—the priest was instantly believed. The public has less faith in official pronouncements than either officials or reporters; to the waiting nation, Kilduff was merely confirming an accepted fact. On the strength of the priest’s statement the Harvard Crimson had gone to press with an extra, and thousands of flags, including the one that Lady Bird glimpsed, had already plummeted when Kilduff faced his flock of correspondents in classroom 101–102 and struggled for the hardest words he would ever speak, unaware that a gentle, dumpy little man in a black habit, perched on the front seat of a church Galaxie with an oval “BUILT IN TEXAS BY TEXANS” sign, had already said, “He’s dead, all right.”
Kilduff’s press conference ended the most tempestuous hour in the history of American journalism. It was only the first hour in what was to become the greatest simultaneous experience this nation or any other had ever shared, but once the people knew that the President had been murdered a tenuous semblance of form began to emerge. Over the weekend it was to grow and grow until the President’s widow, by her gallant devotion, restored the country’s sense of pride and majesty at Monday’s state funeral. Early Friday afternoon there was no trace of either. Coherence had vanished in a gibbering of teletype keys, a spatter of broadcasts, a chorus of calls from breathless friends and passing strangers; and since everything that was to follow stemmed from those first deranged minutes, a chronology is useful:
Dallas Time Developments Reports Washington Time
12:30 P.M. Oswald shoots the President, wounds Connally. 1:30 P.M.
12:34 P.M. UPI flash: three shots have been fired at the Presidential motorcade in Dallas. 1:34 P.M.
12:36 P.M. Kennedy reaches Parkland Hospital. ABC breaks into local program with the first network announcement. 1:36 P.M.
12:37 P.M. Caroline Kennedy leaves the White House. 1:37 P.M.
12:39 P.M. UPI says Kennedy has been wounded, “perhaps fatally.” 1:39 P.M.
12:40 P.M. Kellerman phones the White House from the nurse’s station; Agent Ready calls for a priest. AP reports: “President Kennedy was shot today.…” Walter Cronkite appears on screens with the first CBS flash. 1:40 P.M.
12:41 P.M. AP describes blood on Kennedy’s head. 1:41 P.M.
12:45 P.M. NBC interrupts programs to say Kennedy and Connally have been wounded in Texas. 1:45 P.M.
12:55 P.M. UPI reports Jacqueline Kennedy and Nellie Connally are safe and Kennedy is still alive. 1:55 P.M.
12:57 P.M. Father Huber arrives at the hospital. AP quotes Congressman Albert Thomas: the President is in “very critical” condition. 1:57 P.M.
1:00 P.M. Kemp Clark pronounces the President dead. By now 75 million American adults know of the shooting. 2:00 P.M.
1:13 P.M. In Booth 13 Emory Roberts tells Johnson Kennedy is dead. Caroline returns to the White House. 2:13 P.M.
1:15 P.M. O’Donnell talks to Johnson. 2:15 P.M.
1:02–1:17 P.M. Intermittent broadcasts describe the priests’ arrival at Parkland. 2:02-2:17 P.M.
1:18 P.M. AP puts out an unconfirmed report that Johnson has been “wounded slightly.” 2:18 P.M.
1:23 P.M. UPI reports that the last sacraments have been administered. 2:23 P.M.
1:25 P.M. UPI says Johnson is uninjured. 2:25 P.M.
1:26 P.M. Johnson leaves Parkland. 2:26 P.M.
1:27 P.M. Hugh Sidey talks to Father Huber. 2:27 P.M.
1:32 P.M. UPI quotes Father Huber: “He’s dead.…” 2:32 P.M.
1:33 P.M. Johnson arrives at Love Field. Kilduff faces the press in the classroom. 2:33 P.M.
1:35 P.M. UPI flash: “President Kennedy Dead”; AP 12-bell flash follows. 2:35 P.M.
1:36 P.M. NBC says Johnson has been taken to a “secluded place.” 2:36 P.M.
The first real report of the President’s death to the world outside Parkland cannot be pinpointed, because there is no record of conversations over the key nurse’s station line to Washington. Logging exact times was far from anyone’s mind; the participants were preoccupied with keeping their connection unbroken. It was a few minutes after 1 P.M. on the trauma room’s IBM clock when Dr. Burkley stepped into the passage and told Kellerman, who ordered Clint Hill to inform Jerry Behn. Hill suggested that the Attorney General be told at the same time, before he heard from the press; Kellerman nodded and Clint went ahead, asking first for Behn. It is the recollection of Sergeant Philip Tarbell, who was the key Signalman at the White House switchboard, that he monitored this call “at approximately 2:05 P.M.”—1:05 in the hospital. Anyone the eavesdropping operators chose to tell knew within the next few minutes. Because the Signal Corps naturally gave first priority to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Secretary McNamara was among the first to hear, though he, still under the impression that his Dallas source was the CIA (whose nearest base of any consequence was in Miami), never understood how he had learned so quickly. By the same means the Cabinet plane, five time zones away from the capital, was informed before aides watching Cronkite in Nancy Tuckerman’s East Wing office on the floor directly above Behn. Pierre Salinger had remained at his post in the communications shack, listening with one ear to the subdued Cabinet debate over whether or not to obey Stranger’s order to fly nonstop to Andrews, by-passing Love Field, and, with the other ear, awaiting fresh word from Stranger, who had been droning his broken-record “Stand by… Stand by… Stand by” every fifteen seconds. Then the blow fell. Abruptly the monotonous pitch changed. It rose: “Situation to Wayside. The President is dead. Repeat, the President is dead.”
“The President is dead,” Pierre told the Cabinet, not really believing a word of it. Who in his right mind could accept such a fantastic statement from an unknown voice, received in an aircraft a thousand miles from nowhere after a guarded verbal exchange between two men who had been addressing one another by aliases? Perhaps Wayside could. But he didn’t exist. Salinger, who did, was incredulous.
“He’s dead,” Wayside repeated in a low tone.
Dean Rusk moved toward the PA system of Aircraft 86972. It was slow going. His head was down, and he had to walk the length of the fuselage. Reaching the tail compartment, he wet his lips and told the microphone, “Ladies
and gentlemen, it is official. We have had official word—the President has died. God save our nation.”
That was the proper way to do it. But November 22 was not a proper day. Looking down the main corridor, Rusk realized that his solemn announcement had startled no one. Indeed, it had been something of an intrusion; he hadn’t told the passengers anything they hadn’t known already. Baffled, he tried to imagine how they had found out. The truth—that the other members of the Cabinet who had been with him in the stateroom had ignored his seniority, creeping along in his wake and passing the word sotto voce to their wives—did not occur to him.
The whispering had begun as a faint rustle. It grew louder, turned into an erratic buzz, became a whine, and was precipitated by weeping.
Alvin Josephy, who had written down Rusk’s words as they were spoken, wrote on:
Pierre Salinger, in the aisle, grabs his wife, they cling in a terribly tragic embrace—Hodges, now seated across from us, buries his head in his hands & sobs, tears come down his cheeks—others crying—Udall sits next to Lee, stares tough-jawed past her, out the cabin window as he takes her hand—Manning sits opposite us—tears start in his eyes—Myer Feldman crying—Wirtz mad—not a sound or movement in the cabin for 5 minutes.
Phyllis Dillon comforted her husband, who was wondering where Vice President Johnson was. The Wirtzes made a valiant effort to look at each other and failed. Orville Freeman slumped in his seat beside Janie Freeman. “Poor Jackie,” she said after a while. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m so glad you weren’t made VP in L.A. I’m selfish.”
He nodded. Then his mind raced back forty months, to the convention in Los Angeles. His name had been mentioned then as a possible Vice Presidential candidate. Had events taken a different turn, he reflected, the new occupant of the White House might well be named President Orville Freeman. He mused absently, Isn’t that something? On a pad he scribbled Janie’s remark and added beneath it: “Thought then in my mind too—What if, what would I do?”
In Salinger’s White House office a UPI ticker emitted a sprinkle of chimes and pecked out the 2:35 EST flash, which was instantly ripped from the machine. The ripper was Bill Pozen. His presence there was sheer chance. He wasn’t looking for Pierre; he was trying to find his daughter. Despairing of the telephones at the Department of the Interior and untouched by a teacup of whiskey which a fellow official had given him to steady his nerves, Pozen had walked the three blocks from his office to the mansion’s Southwest Gate, hoping Agatha and Caroline might be here. Caroline was, but Agatha wasn’t, and wandering distractedly from room to room he saw, on the teletype, what television viewers in the nearby Fish Room heard seconds later from Walter Cronkite. They watched Cronkite remove, replace, and again remove his horn-rimmed spectacles; a muscle in his jaw trembled violently; he confirmed that the President was gone. One of Kennedy’s minor aides said, “What a shame—just as he was getting so many things going.” Dean Markham, trying to concentrate on larger problems, could only marvel at the incongruity of this scene. The executive mansion, he thought, should have been told before the rest of the country. But for all its guards and gates it had become just another house, watching daytime TV.
The confirmation was the second great blow of that hour. The first, the report of the shooting, had reached a scattered nation preoccupied with business lunches and weekday tasks. In less than sixty minutes the United States had been transformed; a majority of the huge audience was now within earshot of newscasters. William O. Douglas excepted, the Supreme Court had dispersed to television sets in the chambers of Justices Brennan and Stewart; Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach and the Assistant Attorneys General were ranged in a semicircle before the set in Robert Kennedy’s office; Dave Hackett, having decided that bars were inappropriate, was listening to a taxi radio on Constitution Avenue. Mary McGrory, her prescription for high blood pressure in her pocket, was standing in the middle of the Washington Star city room. Her national editor was thrusting wads of money into her cupped hands and telling her to go to Dallas. “If he dies…” she kept saying, her voice trailing off flaccidly. The editor appeared to have unlimited assets, and he couldn’t seem to stop giving them away; she was holding a fortune in cash. “If he dies…” Mary said for the last time, and then a voice from one of the men keeping vigil over the Star machines verified his death.
Another voice, muffled and off-camera somewhere in the back of a television studio, had susurrated a few minutes before, “Clint Hill says he’s dead,” and Bill Walton, Pat Moynihan, and Charlie Horsky, knowing who Clint was, had abandoned hope and left Georgetown for the White House. Angie Duke had also learned prematurely, and mysteriously; dashing back to the State Department from lunch, Angie found that the Japanese chargé d’affaires, who certainly couldn’t have been on any list of the Signal Corps or the DIA, or even of the CIA, had already called and left a formal expression of condolences on behalf of his government.
For Walton, Moynihan, Horsky, and Duke, mourning thus began early; for John W. McCormack the confirmation was a private anticlimax. The Speaker had still been in the House restaurant when two reporters came to his table and said that Kennedy had been shot. Other reporters and Congressmen then began to dart up with bits and pieces of information. The appearance of priests convinced McCormack that the President had succumbed. Then, in the next minute, he was told that the Vice President had been shot and, in the minute after that, that Secret Service agents were on their way to the Hill to protect him. Although the first report was inaccurate, the second was true; under the succession act of July 18, 1947, inspired by Harry Truman’s affection for Sam Rayburn, the Speaker (rather than the Secretary of State, as in the past) was second in line of succession, and if both Kennedy and Johnson had been murdered, Rayburn’s aged successor was now President of the United States. At 2:18 P.M. in Washington the possibility seemed very real. It struck McCormack, he later recalled, with “a terrific impact.” He rose unsteadily from his chair and immediately suffered a severe attack of vertigo. Linen, waiters, tableware swam before his eyes; he thought he was going to lose consciousness and tumble to the floor. Passing a palsied hand over his eyes, he sank back to his seat, and he was still there, trembling, when a Congressman called over that Johnson was unharmed.
Before that dizzy interval in which he believed that he might be moving from his sixth-floor suite in the Hotel Washington to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, on the other side of the Treasury Building, McCormack had said, “My God, what are we coming to?” Maude Shaw, forgetting her need for White House cars (but remembering that the news must be kept from Caroline, who was in her room shrieking, inconsolable over her separation from Agatha), whispered to Agent Tom Wells, “Oh, God, what kind of people are these?” Across Lafayette Park Eunice Shriver had phoned her brother Bob from her husband’s office. All he could tell her then was “It doesn’t look good.” Later one of Shriver’s assistants brought in the UPI flash. Shriver put his arms around his wife and suggested a prayer for the President’s soul, and with Dr. Joseph English, Chief Psychiatrist of the Peace Corps, they knelt around the desk, repeating “Hail Mary, full of grace…” and “Holy Mary, Mother of God…” in unison.
The pious invoked the name of God or went to their knees or meditated. Told by Ann Gargan and Rita Dallas, Rose Kennedy faced the nurse bravely and said, “We’ll be all right.” But she really didn’t want to be with them. She didn’t want to see anyone just then. Her room was too small for the pacing she must now do, and rubbing her elbows she said to Ann, “I’ll be outside.” Leaving them weeping, the President’s mother, the most religious of the Kennedys, went down to the lawn by the sea, to stride back and forth throughout the remainder of the afternoon, a solitary, graceful figure walking over mile after mile of autumnal grass while her invalid husband slept.
The erratic continued to be erratic, and there were still a lot of them. Joe Gawler phoned his funeral home to ask whether there had been “a contact” from the Kennedy family. Dean
Gorham finished his daredevil ride to the Austin auditorium, looked up at the “WELCOME PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY” sign over the finish line, and forgot about his bundles of souvenir programs; the next time he saw them someone had dumped them in the auditorium trash. Wesley Frazier, who had driven Lee Oswald and his rifle into downtown Dallas five hours earlier, calmly polished off his lunch in the Book Depository and then, realizing that there could be no further work in the growing turmoil, drove back to Irving to take the afternoon off. Ruth Paine cried, but Marina, dry-eyed, continued to hang clothes. The federal judge whose jurors included Jack Krueger of the Dallas News told the courtroom what had happened. To the horror of the managing editor, who was in the middle of the most stupendous story in the history of Dallas and felt that he should be allowed to leave for his city room immediately, the judge intoned, “The President is dead, but the business of the United States must go on. Mr. Prosecutor, you may proceed.” But the most eccentric performance was probably that of Sergeant Keith Clark. Clark heard of the tragedy when his children arrived home from school and shouted it up the stairs. Suspecting that the President might be buried in Arlington, in which case he would play taps, Clark decided that he should look his best. He hurried to the nearest barber for a haircut.
The efficient became extremely businesslike. Jack McNally was bustling around his office, organizing it as a command post, showing Colonel McNally’s men where to put in new lines. Those with talents turned to them. The Boston Symphony Orchestra stopped the Handel concerto and started the slow movement of Beethoven’s “Eroica,” which is often used as a funeral march for fallen heroes. The fluent found words for the occasion—Dean Rusk had spoken well, and at the United Nations Adlai Stevenson said with simple eloquence, “We’ll bear the grief of his death until the day of ours.” Those with a conspicuous lack of eloquence become speechless—when Dick Goodwin called Ken O’Donnell’s secretary for a trivial fact, she choked, stammered, and at last said apologetically, “Maybe you don’t know it, Mr. Goodwin, but the President has been assassinated”; Mrs. Auchincloss called her young son Jamie at the Brooks School with the intention of gently breaking the news that his idol had been injured, and Jamie, knowing more than she did, parried her questions awkwardly and finally sobbed, “Mummy, I think he’s dead!”
The Death of a President Page 37