The Death of a President

by William Manchester

  The firm had been established in 1850 on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a block from the White House; in 1962 it had moved to this new emporium. Colonel Miller’s information about it was correct. Gawler’s belonged to the undertaking aristocracy. Its eminent clients had included President Taft, John Foster Dulles, and James Forrestal, and it handled the Washington arrangements for Franklin Roosevelt’s funeral. It was especially favored by officers of high rank and civilians of wealth; some tourists even included “the viewing hours at Gawler’s” on their capital itineraries. Joseph H. Gawler, the dignified director of the establishment, and Vernon B. Oneal, the hustling Texan, were as far apart as two men in the same business could be. But it was the same business, and in 1963, when the young President had been leading a vigorous crusade to erase color bars, it had remained the most segregated business in the country. “I guess they feel more comfortable among their own people,” a Forest Lawn salesman explained to Jessica Mitford, conceding why there were no Negroes in his cemetery. “Actually, the colored funeral directors would prefer not to have us bury them,” a Gawler’s executive told this writer. The blunt truth was that during the 113 years of its history the firm which was to act as President Kennedy’s mortician had never buried a Negro.

  As the Death Watch went through its solemn ballet on Wisconsin Avenue, Lieutenant Sam Bird was smoothly integrating the armed forces at Andrews Field. Debarking from his helicopter, the Lieutenant had discovered that the Air Force had already posted a ceremonial cordon. He put his own men inside it. Then the Air Force sent a detail of pallbearers. Bird estimated each man’s physical strength and set up two teams, half Air Force, half Army. Marine, Navy, and Coast Guard contingents arrived. Fortunately, all were enlisted men. Because he was the only officer present, the Lieutenant’s authority was unchallenged. He continued to form and reform his two teams until each had at least one soldier, sailor, Marine, airman, and Coast Guardsman. The men left over were hastily placed in ranks between the Presidential aircraft’s parking space, the Kennedy helicopter, and the helicopter Lyndon Johnson would board.

  Hurry up and wait: it was routine to the enlisted men. At the MATS terminal it applied equally to the Supreme Court, subcabinet, Congressional leadership, and diplomats. All were victims of the jet age. They had been raised in a more leisurely period, when men had been granted time to put their emotions in order. As children they had read of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the parallel was very much on their minds that evening. But Lincoln’s funeral train had moved across the countryside at a stately pace. Angel’s four mighty Pratt & Whitney engines were bringing John Kennedy home from Texas in 136 minutes. And no one could be sure that the estimated time of arrival was correct. As it turned out, they could have driven to Maryland with time to spare, but they weren’t taking any chances, and so, as the President’s children peered out eagerly from the second-floor windows, there had been an incessant scurrying around the helipad beside Caroline’s tree house. Choppers were faster than cars; everybody had wanted a seat on one.

  Most succeeded. Taz Shepard went with the Goldbergs, Ralph Dungan with Ted Reardon and Lee White, Sorensen with Jenkins and Reedy. Harriman, Fowler, and Celebrezze flew together; so did the Congressional leadership. Angie Duke was crowded out. He rode in a White House Mercury with Schlesinger. Two under secretaries slid over to give Galbraith a seat. Fred Holborn sat alone at the tail of the black motorcade; he had decided to go at the last minute. Four key men—Shriver, Goodwin, Markham, and Walton—remained behind with Colonel Miller, deep in the therapeutic work of planning the order of the parade. Later they were envied. No one was to cherish the memory of that night at Andrews. It was noisy with the incessant flap of the olive-drab rotors; the huge klieg lights glared; the moonlit cement apron had never seemed so white, or people so strange.

  None of them, of course, was normal. Natural behavior there would have been aberrant. Angie Duke stumbled up to the ambassadors, saw them waiting robot-like in a roped-off area, and shrank away without a word. Three of Dr. John Walsh’s woman patients passed him repeatedly. Each looked directly into his eyes without seeing him. Galbraith was under the impression that he had ridden here beside Under Secretary Roosevelt, one of his oldest friends. At the end of the half-hour drive he turned, started to say “Frank,” and saw that the man was Under Secretary Robert Roosa. Individuals stood alone, in trances: Chief Rowley of the Secret Service; the new Postmaster General, looking forsaken; Mac Bundy, intent, a dispatch case under his arm; Harriman, hollow-eyed and suddenly very old.

  Though there were literally miles of room, Earl Warren, John McCormack, and Hale Boggs were bunched together protectively, in a kind of wedge; farther down the apron Senators Humphrey, Mansfield, Dirksen, and Kuchel had formed another such group, and from time to time Dirksen cast a wary eye about, his ruined face clay-white. Spectral figures appeared from nowhere, spoke a few words, and vanished. Taz Shepard was separately approached by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Each muttered furtively that he must brief the new President on the satchel; he nodded, and they disappeared. Ted Sorensen stared out across the field. He appeared to be straining to glimpse something in the void beyond the lights, though there was nothing there to see.

  Between the wire fence and 26000’s parking area there were approximately fifty dignitaries. The most conspicuous object in front of them was an ugly, bright yellow piece of machinery. Ted Clifton had specified a “fork lift” for lowering the coffin here. That would have been small and practical. Instead, Andrews had wheeled out a monstrous truck lift, a roofed device mounted on greased hydraulic columns. The platform had been hoisted about twelve feet above the concrete, resting on double braces which formed a double X. Everything about the lift was wrong. The platform couldn’t be lowered to the ground—the closest it could come was five feet—and there were no adequate steps. MATS called such trucks “catering buses.” Ordinarily they were used to place hot meals aboard transport planes, and that was exactly what this one looked like. In the intermittent winking of the gray Pontiac ambulance’s red emergency light those on the left could even read its number: “61 C 305.” Lieutenant Bird had stationed himself and his first team on the platform; his second team was ranged around the braces. They didn’t help. The thing remained atrocious.

  Behind the fence, unnoticed, three thousand people stood in the moist, chilly night. On any other flight they would have caught John Kennedy’s eye, and even now, before his splendid plane appeared, the more august greeters would have been aware of them; they would have been murmuring excitedly among themselves, and agile youths would have been leaping high for a first glimpse of the Presidential seal. Tonight they were utterly quiet. Here a shoe shuffled, there an eyeglass glinted; a cigarette glowed, shrinking to its doom. That was all. Unentitled to helicopter seats or limousines, they had driven out Suitland Parkway in their own cars, and afterward they were to leave as silently as they had come. Yet their inconspicuous presence was far more significant than the conspicuously hideous yellow truck. They were the vanguard of the greatest throng ever to pay tribute to a martyred President, and they invested the ghastly scene with gentleness, dignity, and meaning, for they were what a President’s life is all about.

  During their ride here Schlesinger had said to Angie Duke, “You know, the Radical Right has never been taken seriously in this country,” and Sorensen had told Jenkins and Reedy on their helicopter ride, “I feel sorry for your position. I’ll help as best I can. But I hope you don’t mind if I don’t think too much of the State of Texas.” Reedy said softly that he felt the same way. The conduct of the two Johnson aides was above reproach. They had been hit as hard as the Kennedy aides and showed it; Schlesinger reflected that if Lyndon Johnson could command the loyalty of men like Reedy and Jenkins, there must be more to him than he had thought. Bundy went farther. He was inclined to exculpate Dallas on the ground that “one madman doesn’t make a madhouse.”11

  Front Royal, Manassas, Falls
Church…

  Over Dulles International Airport Jim Swindal knifed down through a thin overcast, and for the first time since leaving East Texas he saw land. The lights of metropolitan Washington loomed ahead; beyond lay Upper Marlboro and the dark reaches of the Chesapeake Bay. Crossing the Potomac, he lost altitude rapidly. The Tidal Basin became visible from the cockpit, then the massive square dome of the National Archives and, beneath the No. 1 engine pod, Capitol Hill. Swindal eased out his flaps and dive brakes and lowered his landing gear. The pilot’s head was still throbbing, but he knew this would be the last time he would take the President down. He wanted it to be right.

  Bolling, St. Elizabeths Hospital. They were gliding in over rural Maryland: Oxon Run, Silver Hill, Suitland, Morningside…

  Lyndon Johnson was in the Presidential bedroom, shaving, combing his hair, and changing his shirt again. In the staff cabin corridor Clint Hill approached Roy Kellerman and said, “She wants to see you.” Back in the tail compartment Dave Powers told Roy, “Mrs. Kennedy wants you agents who were with the President to carry him off, and she wants Greer to drive.” Knowing how the chauffeur was suffering, Kellerman was struck by the thoughtfulness of the gesture. Mrs. Kennedy herself was speaking to Evelyn Lincoln, Mary Gallagher, Muggsy O’Leary, and George Thomas, who had also been summoned. “I want you near the coffin,” she said to each, and to Godfrey McHugh she said, “I want his friends to carry him down.” Ted Clifton came back to tell Ken O’Donnell, “The Army is prepared to take the coffin off.” O’Donnell replied shortly, “We’ll take it off.”

  Ken passed the word in the staff area that Mrs. Kennedy wished to have those who had been closest to her husband accompany him upon debarkation. But there was a second President aboard, and it does seem clear that everyone had priority over the new Chief Executive, including stewards. Fifteen people were wedged into the tiny corridor. Kilduff saw that the President was left standing there in the stateroom.

  The acting press secretary was humiliated. Later in the evening his embarrassment increased. At the EOB he discovered that Johnson continued to be annoyed and that he held Kilduff responsible. The new President was still brooding over the incident the following afternoon. After presiding over the Cabinet for the first time he confided to one of its members that he had “real problems with the family.” According to this Secretary’s notes, set down later that same day,

  He said that when the plane came in… [they] paid no attention to him whatsoever, that they took the body off the plane, put it in the car, took Mrs. Kennedy along and departed, and only then did he leave the plane without any attention directed or any courtesy toward him, then the President of the United States. But he said he just turned the other cheek… he said, what can I do, I do not want to get into a fight with the family and the aura of Kennedy is important to all of us.

  “Let’s remember the happy things, not the sad things,” Jacqueline Kennedy said to Clint Hill as they taxied toward the MATS terminal. Colonel Swindal’s landing had been a triumph. None of his passengers had known when they touched the ground. The crowd waiting by the chain fence had realized that arrival was imminent because they heard the whining jets. They couldn’t see its silhouette, however; the klieg lights blinded them. At 6:03 P.M. these were abruptly cut off. The reason was commonplace. The pilot had to see his way. The effect was nevertheless dramatic: under the dim fragment of November moon the plane looked like a great gray phantom slowly creeping upon them from a quarter-mile away. They couldn’t even hear it anymore, because the Colonel had switched off three of his pods, and the fourth was drowned out by the warm-ups of two of the wasplike helicopters. Closer and closer the huge ghost crawled until Swindal, looking down, could identify two of the waiting men. Robert McNamara was facing him, looking peculiarly tall. Robert Kennedy had just left the sanctuary of his truck and was posed in a tense half-crouch, ready to spring aboard.

  Swindal paused momentarily for the croucher. The eyes of the crowd were on the rear hatch, the President’s. A ramp had been readied for the front entrance, and the Attorney General vaulted on it, unseen; he was pumping up the steps while it was still being rolled into place. Leaping in, he darted through the communications shack, the staff cabin, and the stateroom. Liz Carpenter, recognizing his gaunt features, reached out to pat his shoulder. He didn’t notice her or the Johnsons—next day the President observed to one of his advisers that Kennedy hadn’t spoken to him—because he was intent on reaching one person. “I want to see Jackie,” Liz heard him mumble. In the tail compartment he slid behind and then beside Mrs. Kennedy. “Hi, Jackie,” he said quietly, putting an arm around her. “I’m here.” Those around them started: his voice was exactly like his brother’s. “Oh, Bobby,” she breathed, and she thought how like Bobby this was; he was always there when you needed him.

  The aircraft glided forward once again and parked. Outside the floodlights went up. Swindal and Hanson scooted down the ramp, stationed themselves under the port wing, and faced the rear door, saluting stiffly. The ponderous yellow lift was wheeled up. The door swung open, Larry O’Brien’s round face peered out. The officials below saw the haggard profile of the Attorney General and were astonished; they hadn’t known he had been in Dallas. He was holding the widow’s fingers; her purse was dangling from her other hand. Presently they saw the stains on her. And then in the next moment Kellerman, Greer, O’Leary, Hill, and Landis manhandled the casket into place in front of the two Kennedys. The light fell full upon it, it glinted uglily. Theodore H. White yearned for “a cry, a sob, a wail, any human sound.” Earl Warren saw “that brave girl, with her husband’s blood on her, and there was nothing I could do, nothing, nothing.” Taz Shepard saw the skirt; he looked up into her haunted eyes and felt a stone in his chest. Ted Reardon prayed to himself, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I wish I hadn’t come. Yet all these were unspoken monologues. There wasn’t a single voice. Speechless, they were incapable of taking their eyes off the dark red-bronze coffin. All afternoon they had been thinking about it; now it was here. And that made it irrevocable. Now they knew, now it was true.

  Unable to follow Dr. Burkley, Sergeant Ayres had been stranded in the corridor outside the bedroom midway between the Kennedy group and the Johnson group. Out of habit he stepped into the room for a final check. Crumpled in a corner lay the issue of the Dallas News which the President had reread that morning on the hop between Carswell and Love. During the wait for Sarah Hughes his widow had apparently touched it, for it was smeared with his blood. Ayres snatched it up and bunched it in his fists. Squeezing crablike past President Johnson, he bounded down the ramp and threw it away.

  Seven

  LACE

  Atop the moving lift Lieutenant Sam Bird, approaching the coffin, raised his white-gloved hand in a salute. For the Lieutenant, Air Force One’s arrival was followed by a chain of small surprises. The truck, with his second team marching alongside, had begun to roll the instant the lights went up, and from the corner of his eye he had glimpsed the quiet crowd beyond the fence. He was amazed; he hadn’t known anyone was there. Then he had seen the Attorney General and had joined the general perplexity: why, he wondered, hadn’t the accounts from Dallas reported that the President’s brother had been with him when he died? At the sight of the casket Sam Bird’s throat became congested. It disturbed him for a special reason: its cover was bare. Accustomed to the pageantry of Arlington, he missed the national colors. A fallen chieftain should be shielded by a flag, he thought, and he wished he had brought one with him. Then the lift halted by the hatch and he looked up into the face of Godfrey McHugh. The Lieutenant hadn’t seen many generals, but he recognized McHugh from his newspaper photographs. He saluted again. To his dismay Godfrey ordered, “Clear the area. We’ll take care of the coffin.” Sam Bird and his body bearers scrambled unceremoniously down a yellow metal ladder.

  Looking over McHugh’s shoulder, Roy Kellerman spotted Agent Floyd Boring on the ground. “Floyd! Can’t they raise this thing any higher?” he called
down. “It isn’t flush.” Boring inquired and called back, “It’s as high as it can go.” The lift was a total failure; it couldn’t even reach the Presidential door. Kellerman on one end, Greer on the other, the five agents and Godfrey McHugh twisted Oneal’s Britannia onto the truck bed. Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy stepped after it; the others followed, the swollen faces of Evelyn, Mary, Burkley, and O’Donnell forming a stolid rank behind the widow. As the lift began its descent Mac Kilduff precipitantly decided that he couldn’t be left behind; he lunged forward, was nearly caught between the frame and the bed, and was pulled back to safety by a steward.

  Bob Kennedy explained the transportation choices to his sister-in-law. “There’s a helicopter here to take you to the White House. Don’t you want to do that?”

  “No, no, I just want to go to Bethesda.” She saw the gray ambulance, assumed it was the one she had requested, and said, “We’ll go in that.”

  With five feet to go the lift reached its limit and stopped. The men could jump, the women couldn’t. Pam, feeling faint, fell forward and was caught. Mrs. Kennedy was helped down by Taz Shepard and Ted Clifton—like Kilduff, Clifton couldn’t bear to be excluded, and had made his way here from the front ramp. The last man off was Burkley; the President’s physician hovered near the coffin as it was being removed from the platform. The transfer was awkward. Lieutenant Bird’s second team swung in and was waved away by McHugh. But they were needed; there was no one else to receive the casket. Struggling and writhing, a union of Presidential aides, agents, and enlisted men from the five armed forces shouldered the chipped bronze box and eased it down. For a moment it wobbled wildly. “Grotesque,” wrote a reporter in the press pen.

  Kellerman brushed past Boring and explained to Chief Rowley that SS 100 X would be arriving from Dallas in two hours; it, too, must be met and taken to the White House garage for a detailed Secret Service–FBI examination. Major General Philip C. Wehle, Commanding Officer of the Military District of Washington, was making a final check with the MDW helicopter pilot who had been assigned to President Kennedy. The pilot told him he had just heard of a change of plans—the body was going by car. General Wehle’s first thought was of security. In this he was typical; never having been assigned to an assassinated President before, agents and soldiers were thinking of Presidential protection. Wehle set off to inform McNamara.