The Death of a President

by William Manchester

  Really nothing they did could matter now. Undoubtedly the destroyed photograph had been damaging. But policemen searching the Paine garage had found an almost identical picture from the same roll in a brown cardboard box among Oswald’s possessions. His tight-lipped arrogance in Fritz’s office was similarly pointless. Of course, much of the public remained, and would continue to remain, skeptical of the documentation. The case against him looked too pat. Within a few hours of his arrest Dallas had received telephone calls from all over the world—a half-dozen from Australia alone—suggesting that the prisoner was a scapegoat. He wasn’t. The chain of circumstantial evidence was binding him ever tighter. By early Saturday morning the witnesses had identified him, his flimsy curtain rod alibi had been demolished, the FBI was checking Bill Whaley’s taxi manifest, and Justice Department laboratories in Washington were confirming every suspicion about the killer’s fingerprints, palmprints, and the tuft of cotton shirt fibers he had left in the crevice between the metal butt plate of C2766 and the wooden stock. By daybreak the morning after the crime conviction was an absolute certainty. The possibility of a reasonable doubt simply did not exist. It was an embarrassment of riches; the assassin of the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, everyone felt, must have displayed some guile. It was as though a hydrogen bomb had been accidentally launched from its silo by a bumbling technician. The more one learned about the criminal, the more the mind balked. The relationship between cause and effect was preposterous. They couldn’t be balanced.

  Oswald’s stupidity wasn’t his captors’ fault, nor were they entirely to blame for his lack of counsel. Certainly the Civil Liberties attorneys ought to have been received more cordially Friday evening, but there could be no court-appointed lawyer until there was a court, and the case had not yet reached that stage. The unforgivable errors in the treatment of the prisoner continued to lie in his unparalleled exposure to the press. The Lee Oswald Show was continuing without letup. In spite of the chorus of warnings, not a single klieg light had been dimmed, not a single microphone had been waved away. In a live interview with NBC’s Tom Pettit, Fritz declared on Saturday, “This man killed the President—we have a cinch case against him,” and when the FBI informed Chief Curry that its handwriting experts had identified the calligraphy on Klein’s American Rifleman coupon as Oswald’s, Curry revealed the details at a televised press conference. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. The Director called Dallas and warned that there must be no further discussion of FBI evidence in public. Curry admired Hoover and proudly displayed a signed photograph of him on his office wall. Nevertheless the disclosures went on, carried along, it almost seemed, by some self-generating momentum. No morsel was too shocking, no participant immune. District Attorney Wade hinted broadly that Jacqueline Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson might be summoned to Dallas to testify, and David Brinkley, the most circumspect of commentators, was flatly announcing that the President had been killed by a “punk with a mail-order rifle.” By now virtually every distinguished member of the legal profession was frantic. Chief Justice Earl Warren, watching his own home screen, remembered a case in the previous term: a Southern sheriff had broadcast a confession over television, the lower court had found the man guilty, and the Supreme Court had been obliged to reverse the verdict.4 This outrage, Warren realized, was far worse than that.

  With the Attorney General out of action Nick Katzenbach was, in effect, Acting Attorney General, and he was proposing the investigative commission which the Chief Justice later headed. To his horror, Katzenbach learned that the new President had tentatively decided upon a Texas commission, with all non-Texans, including federal officials, excluded. Katzenbach went straight to Abe Fortas, the Washington attorney closest to Lyndon Johnson. He bluntly labeled Johnson’s idea a ghastly mistake. From Fortas he heard for the first time that the President intended to release the forthcoming FBI report on the assassination the moment it was ready. That, too, would be improper, Nick argued, and he insisted that the report be channeled through the Attorney General and himself.5

  It was not necessary to be Chief Justice or Deputy Attorney General to discern the ugly shape of events, or to be alarmed by possible consequences. In the Dallas Police Department itself there was concern about Oswald’s safety. One captain telephoned Fritz about threats against the prisoner; he was told that the problem was Curry’s. And Wade’s implication that the widowed First Lady might be asked to take the stand in a Texas courtroom was greeted with general dismay. A widespread Dallas attitude was that “with all the strife she had gone through… she shouldn’t be expected to come back and face trial of this heinous crime.” The words are Jack Ruby’s. Ruby, however, went one step farther. He was convinced that “someone owed it to our beloved President” to make certain that the trip was needless. Obviously the debt could only be paid by a volunteer. All his life Jack had regarded himself as an avenger—an anti-Semitic remark was enough to set him off—and his vengeance had always expressed itself through violence. He was a direct, simple, stunted man, with a childlike inability to foresee the consequences of strenuous physical protest.

  Driving back to the mansion after an hour’s cat nap at Timberlawn, the estate he leased in Maryland, Sargent Shriver reviewed Saturday’s “Repose Schedule,” as Colonel Miller had christened the East Room timetable:

  1000–1100 Family

  1100–1400 Executive Branch; Presidential Appointees; White House Staff

  1400–1430 Supreme Court

  1430–1700 Senate; House; Governors

  1700–1900 Chiefs of Diplomatic Missions at Washington

  It was not flawless. No one had included President Johnson, and, as Shriver and Dungan had tactfully explained to Miller, the Kennedy team disregarded all rule books; responding to drill now would be uncharacteristic of them and, in a way, disrespectful of the man for whom they sorrowed. Undeterred, the Colonel had plowed ahead. Some of his details were fantastic. “At 230930 Nov 63” a joint service cordon was to be “positioned on north portico drive… to guide visiting government and diplomatic officials through the Repose Room (East Room)”; the detail would be “dismissed at 231900 Nov 63.” A Merchandise Mart executive responsible for such turgid prose would have found himself in the novelty department. Still, Shriver conceded that the thing was workable: “The family would have Jack first, then the government, and finally there would be the homage of the people on Capitol Hill Sunday and during Monday’s funeral.”

  The chief familial occasion on Saturday was the Mass being held at what Miller called 1000 hours. The final telegrams of invitation had been dispatched at 8 A.M. (ironically, Bill Walton, the Repose Room’s decorator, had been the last recipient), and they had been followed by a few last-minute telephoned requests to come; Bob Kennedy called Ted Sorensen during Ted’s farewell staff meeting. The religious ceremony was conspicuously unofficial. Only relatives and close acquaintances had been asked. Several eminent men were coming, but only because a nation’s First Magistrate forms personal ties among the great; the Ormsby-Gores were included as David and Cissy, not as the British Ambassador and his lady. She happened to be a Roman Catholic. It was not a condition. Mrs. Kennedy’s mother, after all, was an Episcopalian. So were the Dillons, who, despite his Jewish background, were about as close to the core of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment as you could get, and Republicans to boot; nevertheless they were at the top of the list.

  It was impossible for a Cabinet member to divorce himself completely from his duties—twenty minutes before the service the Secretary of the Treasury was in his office, demanding a full explanation from the Secret Service—but through the long weekend, whenever men like Ormsby-Gore and Dillon were asked which hat they preferred to wear, the invariable reply was: “I’m a friend.” Having known John Kennedy well was the highest possible accolade. David stressed his prized relationship with Kennedy even when other members of the diplomatic corps were present, and while the Secretary of the Treasury was having it out with the Secret Serv
ice, Phyllis Dillon was sending a little gold basket of flowers up to Jacqueline Kennedy, a private token of a private affection beyond pomp.

  Assistant Secretary Jim Reed followed the Dillons through the White House East Gate—Reed entered the very door he had used Wednesday, when he had brought President Kennedy the Squaw Island lease for next July—at 9:50.6 Passing the sentry box he noticed that Lafayette Park was gray with fog. The downpour was steady, and increasing in intensity. Obviously it was going to be a day of high precipitation. The first man Reed saw in the mansion was Walton, his cheeks streaming, and on the floor above, America’s first Catholic First Lady had temporarily lost her spartan control in the presence of a priest. Father John Cavanaugh, an old friend, had come to her room to hear her confession. He was about to celebrate the Mass downstairs. Confession was a familiar ritual. Under these circumstances it seemed inappropriate, however, and Jacqueline Kennedy told him so. Father Cavanaugh was at a loss. Had the 263 Popes since Peter been in that bedroom, they would have been equally tongue-tied, and presently the widow realized that there was nothing the priest could say. Feeling sorry for the man, she regained her poise. They stumbled through the rite—it was really not an orderly doctrinal confession—and then she walked into the hall in her weeds, took Caroline in one hand and John in the other, and headed downstairs staring straight ahead.

  A portable altar had been erected in the family dining room, directly across the hall from the State Dining Room. It was not an auspicious setting. The place was jammed with collapsible chairs. The East Room would have been far more appropriate, but everyone responsible agreed that expecting Mrs. Kennedy to attend Mass beside the coffin would be too much. Consequently they were all wedged in here, the President’s sisters, the Auchinclosses, and the Fitzgerald cousins in front; Shriver and Ethel and Joan Kennedy in the second row; and the others ranged behind. Robert Kennedy was dodging about, attending to last-minute details, and so, to the amazement and faint beguilement of the mafia, was Frank Morrissey. Morrissey had brevetted himself house acolyte. Holding a gold ciborium in both hands like a snuffbox, he was strutting importantly from aisle to aisle, lugubriously inquiring who would be taking Communion. Ben Bradlee was furious. He wasn’t a Catholic; he knew that Frank knew that, and when he was asked he glared malevolently. Ben observed that Frank was shaking the sacred vessel nervously. He felt certain that wasn’t done, and he was right; Ken O’Donnell whispered wryly to O’Brien, “I didn’t know Morrissey was ordained.” Larry smiled fleetingly. He whispered back, “We’ll just have to assume that the wafers are in an unblessed state.” Then, to the secret delight of both men, they saw that Frank was miscounting the number of communicants. He was taking charge and confusing everything. O’Brien thought how John Kennedy would have thrown back his head and laughed lustily at the spectacle.

  Jacqueline Kennedy entered in a daze. The only person she recognized was her uncle, Wilmarth “Lefty” Lewis, and she wondered what he was doing here. She knew he lived in Farmington and was working on the Walpole papers for Yale; vaguely it struck her that this had been a long trip for an important man. This was a manifestation of the eye-in-the-storm syndrome: the principal mourners, preoccupied with their own grief, were scarcely aware that hundreds of millions of others were grieving with them, or even that a relative might leave his study and drive three hundred miles to pay his respects to the President.

  Lewis’ presence, because unexpected, was somewhat startling. Conducting the Mass in this room was another matter. The executive mansion had been Mrs. Kennedy’s home for nearly three years. She had definite feelings about every hall and closet, and sweeping her eyes over the crouched, pallid mob in the family dining room she knew that there had been a mistake. It was unseemly, it was uncomfortable, it would not do. She asked, “Why is this here?” Muffled voices asked back, “Do you want it in the East Room?” She nodded, and Robert Kennedy directed Father Cavanaugh to move the portable altar.

  In the muted din—wooden chairs cannot be folded quietly—there were various murmurs, gestures, unspoken tokens of compassion. Angie Duke pressed the widowed First Lady’s hand and assured her that he was on the job. She touched Ted Sorensen’s fingers and looked directly at him, her eyes telling him that she understood his own misery. Cissy Ormsby-Gore spoke to Maude Shaw as one compatriot to another. That was perceptive of her. Kennedy friends tended to take Miss Shaw for granted. She seemed so sturdy and self-reliant, so capable of looking after herself. But today she deserved a little special attention, for her burdens were special. Crossing the threshold of the East Room, young John stepped boldly forward from the nurse’s side—so boldly that, until Mrs. Kennedy restrained him, Lieutenant Sawtelle of the Death Watch was afraid the boy would upset one of the standing candles and set fire to the catafalque’s black velvet pall. Caroline momentarily hung back. Dressed in her simplest white frock, she stood beside Miss Shaw, who was maintaining a nannie’s respectful distance. The girl studied the flag-shrouded coffin and looked puzzled. “Daddy’s too big for that,” she said. “How is he lying? Are his knees under his chin?” The nurse whispered that it was bigger than it looked. Then Caroline inquired, “Why can’t I see him?” “Only grownups can see him,” Miss Shaw whispered.

  In many ways the Mass resembled the blessing of five hours earlier. Not all the chairs were brought in. There was a large group of standees at the southern end of the hall, most of them non-Catholics wondering what to do. Cissy Ormsby-Gore mechanically knelt and crossed herself at the proper times, but there was much fidgeting on either side of her. Evelyn Lincoln kept glancing around. Every other woman there, she saw, was wearing black, and she bitterly regretted her choice of color and lack of a hat. Bill Walton, the urbane sophisticate, looked like a Merriwell hero; barrel-chested and jut-jawed, he clasped his arms around Pam Turnure. Pam was making choking sounds; so, despite his liturgical incantations, was Ormsby-Gore; so was Ben Bradlee. Ben finally fled. Although the service was meaningless to him, the crepe-bordered setting was intolerable. His racking sobs were coming in spasms, and rather than disgrace himself he fled into the Green Room—leaving Toni hurt that he should desert her at this of all times. Then, halfway through the Mass, the weepers controlled themselves. An unnatural stillness fell over that end of the huge room, and the standees drew closer to one another, many holding hands. One man commented under his breath: “We have to accept it; it’s God’s way.” In a flash a guttural voice replied, “I can’t accept it.” The quiet returned. Jim Reed, beside Red Fay, became conscious of the room’s darkness. It was midmorning, but the only illumination came from the four candles around the bier, and the sinking barometer was producing a dramatic effect. To Reed everything appeared to be tinged with a sinister hue. He could hear the drumming of the rain outside. The eight-hour downpour was continuing with a hammering frenzy of raindrops. The voice of the priest became inaudible. No one minded; Pam rested her head against Walton’s shoulder and thought, as Taz Shepard had, how right this was, and how wrong sunshine would have been.

  These were the spectators. The participants—the family—were to have a quite different memory. En famille recollections of the Mass are dominated by the priest. This was especially true of the women. Robert Kennedy and Sargent Shriver felt the celebrant was able and gifted. They did not think him exceptional. For Jacqueline Kennedy, however, his intonation was eloquent. She was deeply moved by his expression—she thought he looked “so destroyed”—and his every phrase had profound meaning for Joan Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, and Candy McMurrey.

  During Holy Communion there was another episode which President Kennedy would have relished. Jamie Auchincloss, Jackie’s half-brother, had idolized the President. Like many bright sons of Republican businessmen, he had become an ardent Democrat. During his childhood he and his father had argued heatedly about Franklin Roosevelt’s place in history, and to him his half-sister’s husband had become a second FDR. Jamie had just turned sixteen and had been confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Nevertheless, wh
en the moment of the Eucharist arrived, the boy participated, forever endearing him to both the President’s family and his own. It was the one bright moment in what was otherwise a ceremony of utter solemnity. Caroline was affected by the air of gravity, and with what Maude Shaw called the Bouvier intuition she moved to her mother’s support. Early in the Mass the little girl had glanced around at Evelyn Lincoln, her brow arched high in perplexity. Toward the end, however, she seemed to grasp her mother’s need for solace. Shriver was immediately behind them. He saw “Jackie and Caroline kneeling side by side, and when they had finished prayer Jackie rose and turned, her face was a mask of agony. Caroline took Jackie’s left hand in her right hand and squeezed it and then reached over with her other hand and patted her mother’s hand and looked up with an expression of intelligence and compassion and love, trying to comfort her mother.”

  Abruptly it was over, and Mrs. Kennedy found herself at the head of an impromptu receiving line, standing in the main doorway debouching from the East Room into the marble hall, thanking the parting guests. It was the first of several similar scenes during those days; an individual would slip into a remote mansion alcove or anteroom and discover that he was formally shaking hands with a respectful, dolorous parade—often a parade of total strangers, like a grotesque scene in a Duerrenmatt play. Since the service had been set up in the family dining room, the denouement of Saturday’s Mass had not been anticipated. The standees could have left just as easily through the Green and Red rooms, but this was the customary exit, and consequently there was a series of what could have been awkward confrontations. They were not awkward here because Jacqueline Kennedy was appreciative of the loyalty of her husband’s friends. For each she had a personal, affectionate phrase. Not everyone was strong enough to take them—rather than face her, Red Fay darted to a corner and buried his face in folds of drapery—and toward the end her own strength lagged. David and Cissy were among the last in the line. When their turn came she was near collapse. Her whisper was so low, of so fine a silk, that it was difficult to understand her. She told them something that neither the President nor she had divulged before: that they had planned to ask Cissy to be Patrick’s godmother. Then she turned to J. Bernard West, the final guest (Fay had succeeded in enveloping his legs in yards of drapes), and gave him the wannest of smiles. “Poor Mr. West,” she whispered. He attempted a reply. It was impossible. “Will you take a walk with me?” she asked. He nodded once, like a dull-witted beast. She asked, “Will you walk with me over to his office?” He nodded once again, and together they set off, Clint Hill gliding in their wake.