She was lost. In fact, the bulk of his party had disintegrated between the pad and the mansion. His aides were bewildered by the enormous house. George Reedy entered the Diplomatic Reception Room, took several wrong turns, and finally asked a White House policeman for directions. Jack Valenti and Cliff Carter were avoiding guards. Neither had a White House pass, and they raced frantically up and down the red-carpeted basement corridor until they blundered outside and sighted the Executive Office Building. But Marie had the worst time; like them she was painfully aware that “I had no clearance, no identification, no way of proving who I was. I had worked in Lyndon’s Capitol office, so I didn’t even have EOB clearance. The only time I’d been in 274 was during the Cuban crisis.” Utterly lost, she explored the White House carpenter shop, florist shop, swimming pool, and theater before she, too, found the way out to West Executive. When Marie returned to her Washington apartment late that night, her roommates told her that during her period as a missing person the President had phoned there twice, trying to locate her.
The new First Lady didn’t pause at her new home. Anxious about her younger daughter, she asked to be driven straight to the more familiar house at 4040 Fifty-second Street, NW. Lucy Baines was waiting for her on the front steps. “Oh, Mother, I go to the most wonderful school!” she cried. “We all said prayers in the gym when it happened, and then they took me aside and told me the President was dead.” Inside, the Elms was crowded with people. Lady Bird was surprised and touched; she had forgotten that they had so many friends. She had also forgotten that the house had this many television sets. Screens seemed to be in every corner of every room, blaring away. Excusing herself, she went upstairs with Liz Carpenter, telephoned her older daughter in Austin, and changed her clothes. Hugging a dressing gown to her, she looked speculatively at Liz. “How do you feel?” “Chilly,” Liz answered. “I’m freezing,” Lady Bird said. She switched on the bedroom television—it was really the only way to find out what was going on—and lay down, heaping coverlets and blankets on herself. They didn’t help. Her teeth were chattering. She couldn’t remember a November this cold.
McNamara and Ball had dropped out of Johnson’s wake in the West Wing. He told them he had invited the Congressional leadership to join him here when they returned from the airport, so they swerved right, into the Cabinet Room, and sat talking for twenty minutes. It was the first time they had discussed the Kennedy Presidency together, and they found that they had been thinking along the same lines since the inaugural. Both felt that his narrow mandate in 1960 had been a cloud, that the driving force in his first administration had been a desire to unite the country. Each had cherished great hopes for the autumn of 1964. They had believed that Kennedy would win by a large margin, and that if the opposition nominated Goldwater the landslide would be unprecedented. Then, they had believed, the President’s vision would guarantee four of the most exhilarating, innovative years America had ever known.
They parted as the last of Johnson’s staff members were assembling on the second floor of the EOB. Awaiting them, the President told Jenkins and Ted Reardon, the Kennedy aide responsible for the Cabinet liaison, to set up a Cabinet meeting for tomorrow. Kilduff was told of Presidential displeasure with the Andrews debarkation; Lem Johns was instructed to fetch soup from the White House staff mess. Johnson, Reedy noticed, hardly mentioned Dallas. At one point he did murmur, “Rufe did a very heroic thing today. He threw me on the floor of that car and threw himself on top of me.” But that was an aside. He was concentrating on the future. “There must be no gap,” he said emphatically, and “The government must go forward,” and “We’ve had a tremendous shock, and we have to keep going.”
Marie entered, breathless; the phoning started, with Moyers placing the calls. At 7:05 the President talked to Harry Truman. At 7:10 he spoke to Eisenhower in New York, offering to send a plane for him. Eisenhower explained that he had his own plane and could fly down immediately. But that, they agreed, would be unnecessary; they could meet in the mansion tomorrow morning. At 7:20 Johnson expressed his sorrow to Sargent Shriver, who was still toiling by Ralph Dungan’s desk. Hanging up, the President wrote the first of two notes on White House stationery, and at 7:25 he telephoned J. Edgar Hoover. The Director was home. Unaware that regular programs had been suspended, he had waited until seven o’clock before turning his television on, thinking to catch NBC’s nightly newscast on Channel 4. He was watching a rerun of Kennedy’s October 22, 1962, missile speech and wondering whether this was the best Huntley and Brinkley could do when the phone rang. His old neighbor said he wanted a complete FBI report on the assassination. Depressing the receiver, Hoover called his office, ordering a special assistant and thirty agents to Dallas.
Juanita Roberts reported that the Senators and Congressmen were waiting in the anteroom. The President murmured that they would have to wait a little longer. He had to finish that second note. In each of them the bold, angular Johnsonian scrawl was missing. His handwriting was cramped and diminished—some words were so small they seemed microfilmed.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
November 22, 1963
7:20 Friday Night
Dear John—
It will be many years before you understand fully what a great man your father was. His loss is a deep personal tragedy for all of us, but I wanted you particularly to know that I share your grief—You can always be proud of him—
Affectionately
Lyndon B. Johnson
The second was a little longer. Himself the father of two girls, he had been particularly fond of the President’s daughter.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Friday Night 7:30
November 22, 1963
Dearest Caroline—
Your father’s death has been a great tragedy for the Nation, as well as for you, and I wanted you to know how much my thoughts are of you at this time.
He was a wise and devoted man. You can always be proud of what he did for his country—
Affectionately
Lyndon B. Johnson
He would never be a simple man. He was capable of tactlessness and tenderness, cunning and passion. Wordlessly he handed the letters to his secretary, heaved himself up and strode into the anteroom to greet the leadership.
The meeting was brief and accomplished little. They discussed no legislation. Turning deliberately from face to face, the President said that he was speaking to them “as one friend to another.” He asked for their cooperation, counsel, and assistance; and it was warmly pledged. To Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen he expressed the hope that a new, stronger bipartisan leadership group could be forged. “Then,” in Mansfield’s words, “we broke up.” But one Senator remained. As Hubert Humphrey observed in his memorandum to himself the following morning, he
stayed back for just a moment and had a private word with President Johnson. I think of him as Lyndon, as a dear friend. I assured him of my wholehearted cooperation, of my desire to be of all possible assistance, and asked him to feel free to call upon me. He put his arm around me and said that he needed me desperately. A little later, Bill Moyers, who is close to Lyndon Johnson, told me that the President would need me very, very much. He thought even more so than President Kennedy had ever needed me, if that was the case. I told Bill Moyers, who is close to President Johnson, that I stood ready to serve in any capacity, however he wanted me.
Jean Kennedy Smith had been looking out a window of the tower suite at Bethesda, watching the darkness press hard against the cold panes, when a muted voice said, “She’s here.” She turned, and Mrs. Kennedy was standing in the center of the drawing room. “There,” in Ben Bradlee’s words, “was this totally doomed child, with that God-awful skirt, not saying anything, looking burned alive.” She crumpled into Ben’s arms with a moan, half-sob; he had never heard a sound like it before. Under his breath he said, “Cry. Cry. Don’t be too brave,” and transferred her to Toni, who didn’t really
believe it was happening. But despite the unreality Toni was capable of coherent thought, and she felt that Janet Auchincloss was being ignored. “Here’s your mother,” she murmured. Jackie turned to Mrs. Auchincloss with a wan smile and kissed her. Her mother said, “Oh, Jackie, if this had to happen, thank God he wasn’t maimed.”
The widow embraced Nancy Tuckerman. “Poor Tucky,” she said quietly. “You came all the way down from New York to take this job, and now it’s all over. It’s so sad. You will stay with me for a little while, won’t you?”
Nancy was stricken: Jackie was thinking of her. In the little hall between the bedroom and kitchen, where the others had hung back, Canada whispered to Burkley, “Does she always speak in that soft voice?” “Always,” Burkley whispered.
Behind her stood Robert Kennedy. He stepped to the telephone, made a brief call, and quickly returned. To Bradlee he was “the strongest thing you have ever seen. He was subdued, holding Jackie together, keeping everyone’s morale up when his own couldn’t have been worse. He was just sensational.”
Beckoning Jackie aside, Bob told her, “They think they’ve found the man who did it. He says he’s a Communist.”
She stared. Oh, my God, she thought, but that’s absurd. Later she would think about hatred and the highly charged atmosphere of Dallas; at the moment, however, she just felt sickened. It was like existentialism, entirely purposeless, and she thought, It even robs his death of any meaning. She returned to her mother. “He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights,” she said. “It’s—it had to be some silly little Communist.”
Janet Auchincloss invited her daughter to stay with her in Georgetown. There was no response. Then Mrs. Auchincloss said casually, “You know that the children are at O Street.”
Puzzled, Mrs. Kennedy asked, “Why are they there?”
“Why, because of your message from the plane.”
“I sent no message. They should be in their own beds. Mummy, my God, those poor children; their lives shouldn’t be disrupted, now of all times! Tell Miss Shaw to bring them back and put them to bed.”
Mrs. Auchincloss called Maude Shaw, but the nurse already knew. The softest whisper traveled fast in that suite; Clint Hill had overheard the exchange and phoned Agent Wells from the nurse’s desk outside.
“I thought she wanted them away from Crown,” Wells said.
“So did I,” said Clint. “I’ll explain later.”
Agatha Pozen had already left. At 6:15 Foster had put her in a black White House Chrysler with a policeman. Now the Auchinclosses’ Italian butler, who had been clearing the dinner table, whisked the unused crib back to the attic while the kiddie detail loaded Caroline, John, Miss Shaw, and the cased shotgun into another car. At 7:43 they left Hamlet, and at 7:56 they were back inside the mansion grounds. Foster and Wells escorted the nurse and children to the second floor; they rode down to F-5, where a White House policeman handed Foster a heavy brown paper bag. “Joe Giordano gave me this,” the policeman said. “He told me to turn it over to you and to nobody else.” Foster stepped into Franklin Roosevelt’s old map room and opened it. He needed only one glance. Inside was a pink pillbox hat spattered with blood. Rapidly folding over the bag’s top, he examined the side. Printed there, in large capital letters, was “HILL.” Foster called the guard. In bitter fury he asked, “What do you think my name is?” “Clint Hill,” the man said positively. He saw Foster’s expression and became less positive. “Why, I always thought you were Hill—aren’t you Hill?” “No.” Furious, Foster gave him his own and added another for the guard.
Upstairs Maude Shaw faced a far more difficult trial. At Bethesda Mrs. Auchincloss had confronted her daughter with the fact that the news must be broken to Caroline and John.
“Jackie, are you going to tell the children or do you want me to, or do you want Miss Shaw?”
Mrs. Kennedy asked for an opinion.
“Well… John can wait. But Caroline should be told before she learns from her friends.”
“Oh, yes, Mummy. What will she think if she suddenly…” She thought a moment and then said something which her mother thought wise. “I want to tell them, but if they find it out before I get back, ask Miss Shaw to use her discretion.”
Janet Auchincloss didn’t quite do that; she used her own discretion. Jacqueline Kennedy’s mother was determined to remove one last—perhaps crushing—duty from her daughter’s shoulders today. Phoning the nurse again, she began, “How are the children doing?”
They were fine, Miss Shaw replied. A trifle confused, perhaps, but at their age they were resilient; they had been fed and were drowsy. She herself was not at all fine. Self-control had become an iron struggle. Sometimes she lost it and would have to turn her back until she had regained composure.
“Mrs. Kennedy wants you to tell Caroline.”
Miss Shaw was speechless. She couldn’t cry aloud—the children were in the next room—but she wanted to. Instead, she said in a low, desperate voice, “Please, no. Let this cup pass from me.”
“You must. There’s no one else.”
“I can’t take a child’s last happiness from her. I don’t have the heart—I can’t destroy her little happy day.”
“I know, but you have to.”
Until today the nurse had thought that last August was the low tide in her life. In the first hours of Patrick’s life Caroline had been ecstatic at the thought of having another baby brother. Then the blow had fallen. Mrs. Kennedy had been in the hospital, the President had been too griefstricken to speak to his daughter, and so it had been left to the nurse to look into those wide eyes—“the Bouvier eyes,” as she always called them—and say that Patrick had gone to heaven. She had been convinced then that nothing could be harder. This, however, was on another plane entirely. They hadn’t known Patrick. Neither Miss Shaw nor Caroline had ever seen him. But the President had been the most important figure in their lives. He and his daughter had been particularly close; remembering how proudly he would introduce “My daughter, Caroline” to visitors, the nurse begged Mrs. Auchincloss, “Please, please, can’t someone else do it?”
“No, Mrs. Kennedy is too upset.” There was no more to say; they hung up.
Miss Shaw was probably the best choice. There was no real substitute for Caroline’s mother, of course. Next to her was Robert Kennedy. With his discipline, his feeling for children (he was far warmer among them than with adults), and his resemblance to his older brother he would have been admirable. Miss Shaw, however, was there. Moreover she had been with Caroline since the President’s daughter was eleven days old.
She put John to bed. Now it was the girl’s turn. In Caroline’s bedroom Miss Shaw said slowly, “Your father has been shot. They took him to a hospital, but the doctors couldn’t make him better.”
There was a pause.
“So,” she continued, “your father has gone to look after Patrick. Patrick was so lonely in heaven. He didn’t know anybody there. Now he has the best friend anyone could have.”
She paused again.
“God gives each of us a thing to do,” she said. “God is making your father a guardian angel over you and your mother, and his light will shine down on you always. His light is shining now, and he’s watching you, and he’s loving you, and he always will.”
The little girl buried her face in the pillow, crying. Miss Shaw stood by the bed, her rough hands fighting one another, until the child slept. Then she tucked her in, crossed to John’s room, tucked him into his crib, and sat alone in her room between them. She tried to knit. It was no good. Her fingers wouldn’t work properly. She laced them together and sat rocking in the dark, alert for the slightest movement from the yellow bedroom, throughout the night.
On the second floor of Parkland Hospital John Connally slept soundly under the orange tile walls, watched by Dr. Jenkins, Nellie, and twenty members of the Connally family, and guarded by a troop of armed Texas Rangers. The Governor’s operation had been successful
. It had been a surgical feat, however, and the possibility of a downturn was very real. To assure recuperation Jenkins had placed him next to his office. The Rangers approved. None of the windows faced out; a second gunman could not penetrate here.
This concern over other assassins later seemed like the belated shutting of a barn door, but it was impossible to be certain that Friday evening, and everything with hinges was being closed. In his White House office Arthur Schlesinger was writing: “No one knows yet who the killer is—whether a crazed Birchite or a crazed Castroite. I only know that the killer has done an incalculable disservice to this country and to all mankind. It will be a long time before this nation is as nobly led as it has been in these last three years.” Oswald had then been under interrogation for over five hours. That he alone could be responsible for his act appeared highly unlikely, and in the context of the time Schlesinger’s uncertainty and the vigilance of the Rangers made excellent sense.
The sleep of children and patients, like the floodlit high school football games, was abnormal. America’s nerves had never been tauter; the networks’ national audience did not diminish, even though the commentators had little to report. A man wearing a swastika was arrested in the state capital at Madison, Wisconsin, after he had announced that he was “celebrating Kennedy’s death.” It was A-wire news on every ticker. Almost anything became the occasion for a chime of teletype bells. The family’s desire that floral tributes be omitted and the money be contributed to charity, and the announcements that a special Mass was being held at Georgetown University, that Washington’s Episcopal Cathedral would remain open all night, and that Cardinal Cushing would celebrate the funeral Mass in Washington Monday were treated as flashes. When the Cardinal’s decision was broadcast at 8:30 P.M., the bulletins about Oswald had already begun to be stale. Nearly everything of significance had been learned so quickly. What was left was an intolerable vacuum.
The Death of a President Page 60