Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation

by Bill O'Reilly

  The diameter of the entry wound from the second impact is just slightly wider than that of a number two pencil. The bullet barely slows as it slices through the tender gray brain matter before exploding out of the front of his head. This bullet ends John F. Kennedy’s life in an instant.

  Secret Service special agent Clint Hill hears the shots and leaps into action. Shoving himself away from the running board on Halfback, the vehicle directly behind the president’s limousine, Hill sprints forward in an effort to jump on the small step that sticks out from the back of the president’s car.

  Meanwhile, JFK is leaning to his left, but still upright. Jackie wraps her hands lovingly around her husband’s face.

  Jackie’s arms are still wrapped around her husband when the front of his head explodes. Brains, blood, and bone fragments shower the first lady’s face and clothes. The matter sprays as far forward as the limousine’s windshield visors.

  The man who swam miles to save the men of PT-109, who has shaken the hands of kings and queens and prime ministers, who inspired the entire world with his bold speeches and deeply held belief in the power of democracy and freedom, who caressed the cheeks of his children, who endured the loss of loved ones, and who stood toe-to-toe with men who might otherwise have destroyed the world, is brain dead.

  Jackie leans toward JFK. This photograph was taken by a witness, Mary Moorman, a fraction of a second after the first shot. [© Corbis]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas 12:31 P.M.

  INSIDE THE PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE, there is chaos.

  “Oh, no, no, no. Oh, my God. They have shot my husband. I love you, Jack,” Jackie Kennedy cries.

  Up front, driver Bill Greer and Special Agent Roy Kellerman are radioing that the president has been hit. Bill Greer speeds toward nearby Parkland Hospital with the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  The presidential limousine with its trunk open parked at the emergency entrance at Parkland Hospital. [Tom Dillard/Dallas Morning News/Corbis]

  The president’s body falls over and onto Jackie’s lap. She holds his head in her white-gloved hands, cradling him as if he has simply fallen asleep. “Jack, Jack. What have they done to you?”

  * * *

  The radio call of “Code 3” means an emergency of the highest importance to Dallas-area hospitals. The term is almost never used. So when Parkland dispatcher Anne Ferguson requests more details, she is simply told, “The president has been shot.”

  The time is 12:33 P.M.

  Three minutes later, the presidential limousine roars into Parkland, blowing past the sign reading EMERGENCY CASES ONLY. Bill Greer parks in the middle of the three ambulance bays.

  But there is no stretcher waiting, no emergency team waiting to help the president. Incredibly, there has been a breakdown in communications. The trauma team has just been notified.

  Jackie Kennedy refuses to let go of her husband. The first lady curls her body forward around the president’s blood-soaked face.

  “Mrs. Kennedy,” Special Agent Clint Hill says, “please let us help the president.”

  Jackie doesn’t respond.

  A crowd gathers at Parkland Hospital, anxiously waiting for news of the president’s condition. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  Hill realizes something. It’s bad enough that she is seeing the man she loves with his head blown apart, but she doesn’t want anyone else seeing him like that. There is no way in the world Jackie will allow John Fitzgerald Kennedy to be photographed in this state.

  Knowing in an instant that it is the right thing to do, Special Agent Hill removes his suit coat and sets it gently atop the president’s body. Jackie Kennedy wraps her husband’s head and shoulders in Clint Hill’s coat.

  The president is placed on a gurney and hustled into the hospital and down the corridor to Trauma Room One.

  An overhead fluorescent lamp lights the small army of medical professionals at work. A tube is inserted into John Kennedy’s throat to open his airway, and to replace fluids, saline solution is pumped into his body through a vein in his thigh.

  The room slowly fills with surgeons, until there are 14 doctors standing over the president. Outside the trauma room, Jackie rises from her chair, determined to enter. She has heard the talk about fluids and resuscitation and is beginning to hope that her husband just might live. A nurse blocks her path, but the gracious first lady can display an iron will when she wants to. “I’m going to get into that room,” she repeats.

  The first lady stands in a corner, out of the way, just wanting to be near her husband. Finally, Dr. William Kemp Clark, Parkland’s chief neurosurgeon, knows they can do no more. A sheet is drawn over JFK’s face. Dr. Clark turns to Jackie Kennedy. “Your husband has sustained a fatal wound,” the veteran surgeon tells the first lady.

  “I know,” she replies.

  “The president is dead.”

  Jackie leans up and presses her cheek to that of Dr. Clark. It is an expression of thanks. Dr. Clark, a hard man who served in the Pacific in World War II, can’t help himself. He breaks down and sobs.

  People burst into tears when hearing of Kennedy's death. [© Associated Press]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas 1 P.M.

  VICE PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON is under constant watch from the instant his motorcade limousine arrives at Parkland Hospital. He is hustled into a small white cubicle in Parkland’s Minor Medicine section with his wife, Lady Bird. A Secret Service detail guards his life. A patient and a nurse are kicked out to make room for them. The Secret Service wants LBJ flown immediately back to Washington and out of harm’s way. Failing that, it would like him relocated to the safest possible security zone in Dallas: Air Force One.

  But Vice President Johnson refuses to leave the hospital. He remains, waiting for word of President Kennedy’s fate. The Secret Service pressures him again and again to depart, but LBJ will not go.

  Shortly after 1:00 P.M., Kenny O’Donnell marches into the cubicle and stands before Lyndon Johnson. O’Donnell is openly distraught. He is not the sort of man who weeps at calamity, but the devastated look on his face is clear for all to see.

  Even before O’Donnell opens his mouth, LBJ knows that it is official: Lyndon Baines Johnson is now the 36th president of the United States.

  * * *

  Bobby Kennedy gets the bad news from J. Edgar Hoover.

  LBJ leaving Parkland Hospital after President Kennedy’s death. His Secret Service agent, Rufus Youngblood, is in front of him and Representative Homer Thornberry from Texas follows. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  As the head of America’s top law enforcement agency, Hoover is informed of the shooting almost immediately. The FBI director is a reserved man, but never more so than right now. He sits at his desk on the fifth floor of the Justice Department Building and picks up the phone to call Bobby Kennedy. It has been 15 minutes since Lee Harvey Oswald first pulled the trigger. The surgical trauma team at Parkland is fighting to keep the president alive.

  Bobby is just about to eat a tuna fish sandwich on the patio of his Virginia home when his wife, Ethel, tells him he has a call.

  “It’s J. Edgar Hoover,” she tells Bobby.

  The attorney general knows this must be important. Hoover knows better than to call Bobby at home. He sets down his sandwich and goes to the phone. It’s a special direct government line known as Extension 163.

  “I have news for you,” Hoover says. “The president has been shot.”

  Bobby hangs up. His first reaction is one of great distress, and his body seems to go slack. He answers phone call after phone call from friends and family. He holds back tears, but Ethel knows that her husband is breaking down and hands him a pair of dark glasses to hide his red-rimmed eyes.

  * * *

  Most people in the United States get the bad news from CBS newsman Walter Cronkite. He is called “the most trusted man in America” because of his
simple, straightforward way of explaining world events.

  Cronkite first breaks into the soap opera As the World Turns just eight minutes after the shooting, saying that an assassin has fired three shots at the president. Despite the fact that most Americans are at work or school, and not home watching daytime television, more than 75 million people are aware of the shooting by 2:00 P.M.

  CBS newsman Walter Cronkite relays the news of Kennedy’s death to the nation: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash—apparently official—President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.” [© CBS Photo Archive/Getty]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas 12:33 P.M. to 1:50 P.M.

  A LOT HAPPENS TO LEE HARVEY OSWALD between 12:30 P.M. and 1:00 P.M., but not what he expects. Nobody seems remotely interested in him.

  Once out the door of the Texas School Book Depository, he walks east up Elm Street to catch a bus. The panic and chaos in Dealey Plaza recede behind him.

  His escape plan is coming together slowly. For now, the assassin is on his way to his rooming house to pick up his pistol—just in case.

  After his bus stalls in heavy post-assassination traffic, he gets off and walks a bit before finding a cab, which takes him closer to his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley. Upon arriving there, he races to his room, grabs his .38-caliber pistol, and sticks it in his waistband. Then he quickly leaves.

  Little does Oswald know, but eyewitnesses at the scene have given the police his description. Now the police are on the lookout for a “white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds.”

  At 1:15 P.M., Officer J. D. Tippit of the Dallas Police Department is driving east on Tenth Street. Just after the intersection of Tenth and Patton, he sees a man matching the suspect’s description wearing a light-colored jacket, walking alone.

  Officer J. D. Tippit heard a description of the suspected assassin on the radio. Soon after, he saw Oswald and stopped him. This is a portrait painted from a photograph. [LOC, USZ62-132903]

  Tippit pulls his car alongside Lee Harvey Oswald. He knows to be cautious; he has been with the Dallas Police Department for 11 years. But he also knows to be thorough in his questioning.

  Oswald leans down and speaks to Tippit through the right front window vent. He is hostile. Tippit opens the door and steps out of his police cruiser. He walks to the front of the car, intending to ask Oswald a few more questions. Based on the answers, Tippit will then make a decision whether to place Oswald in handcuffs. But the policeman doesn’t get farther than the front wheel. Lee Harvey Oswald pulls out his .38 and fires four bullets in rapid succession. Tippit is killed instantly.

  Oswald, the man who nervously missed General Walker months ago, has now killed the president of the United States and a Dallas police officer in cold blood just 45 minutes apart.

  But Oswald is running out of options. He has no money and very little ammunition, and the Dallas police know what he looks like. He will have to be very clever in these next few minutes if he is to make his escape.

  The killer quickly reloads and continues his journey, turning down Patton Avenue. But this time he doesn’t walk; he jogs. There is no doubt about it: Oswald is being hunted. The police are closing in. He needs to move quickly now. The time is 1:16 P.M.

  Lee Harvey Oswald hears sirens and knows they’re coming for him. He races toward the nearest hiding place he can find, a movie house called the Texas Theatre. Oswald has traveled eight blocks in the 25 minutes since killing Officer Tippit. He shed his jacket shortly after shooting Tippit, hoping to confuse his pursuers. He runs past the Bethel Temple, where a sign advises “Prepare to Meet Thy God.”

  The Texas Theatre as it appeared in 2009. [Courtesy of Andreas Praefcke/Wikicommons]

  But Lee Harvey Oswald is not showing fear. Foolishly, he runs right past the ticket booth. In the dark of the theater, he finds a seat, trying to make himself invisible.

  After seeing the man run inside without paying, and at the same time hearing sirens as police cars race to the scene of Officer Tippit’s murder, ticket taker Julia Postal puts two and two together. Realizing that the man she just saw is “running from them for some reason,” she picks up the phone and dials the police.

  Squad cars are on the scene almost immediately. Police close off the theater’s exits. The house lights are turned on. Patrolman M. N. McDonald approaches Oswald, who suddenly stands and punches the policeman in the face while reaching for the pistol in his waistband. McDonald is not hurt and immediately fights back. Other policemen join in. Finally, Lee Harvey Oswald is dragged out of the theater and taken to jail.

  Police remove a rifle from the Texas School Depository on November 22, 1963. [© Corbis]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Air Force One 1:26 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.

  AT 1:26 P.M. THE SECRET SERVICE WHISKS Lyndon Johnson to Air Force One, where he immediately climbs the steps up to the back door and waits for Jackie Kennedy to return to the plane. She has remained behind at Parkland, refusing to leave until the body of her husband comes with her.

  The casket holding the president’s body is loaded onto Air Force One. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  They load the body onto Air Force One through the same rear door John Kennedy stepped out of three hours earlier. Jackie Kennedy waits until her husband’s body is aboard before climbing up the steps. The inside of Air Force One is like an oven; the air-conditioning has been off for hours. The blinds are down, and the cabin is dark, out of fear that more assassins are on the loose and will shoot through the plane’s windows. Yet Lyndon Johnson insists on being sworn in before Air Force One leaves the ground. Federal judge Sarah Hughes, who was personally appointed to the bench by LBJ, has been hastily summoned to the presidential jet. She administers the oath of office of the president of the United States.

  Jackie Kennedy follows the casket on board. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  “You, Lyndon Baines Johnson, do solemnly swear…”

  “I, Lyndon Baines Johnson, do solemnly swear…”

  LBJ stands tall in Air Force One. To his left, still wearing the bloodstained pink suit, is Jacqueline Kennedy. The former first lady has not changed clothes. She is adamant that the world have a visual reminder of what happened to her husband here. Standing before Johnson is the judge.

  Several feet behind them, in the rear of the plane, lies the body of John F. Kennedy. After the swearing-in ceremony, Jackie sits down in a seat next to the casket as the long ride home begins.

  Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as the 36th president of the United States, with his wife, Lady Bird, on one side of him and Jackie Kennedy on the other. He placed his hand on a missal found in Kennedy’s bedroom on the plane. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  At 6:00 P.M. people are glued to their televisions with depressed fascination. It seems as if everyone finds out what is happening at the same time. People watch news anchors answer phones and read notes handed to them as events unfold.

  President Johnson addresses the nation live from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed.” [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The plane carrying John Kennedy’s body touches down at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. Television cameras capture the transfer of the casket from the plane to an ambulance, and television announcers are silent as Jackie walks down the stairs.

  Bobby Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy watch as the president’s coffin is moved from Air Force One to an ambulance at Andrews Air Force Base. [Wally McNamee/Corbis]

  Lyndon Johnson stands at news microphones to say his first public words as president: “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and
her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.”

  The networks show the now heartbreaking footage of a smiling, vigorous Kennedy arriving at Love Field just that morning and plunging into the crowd to shake hands. Groups gather in front of U.S. embassies in foreign countries. Former U.S. presidents and leaders from around the world make statements.

  Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody after his arrest. He was cut over his eye during the scuffle at the movie theater. [© Bettmann/Corbis/AP]

  And the world gets its first look at Lee Harvey Oswald as he is led to his cell.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  NOVEMBER 23, 1963

  White House

  IN THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE, John Kennedy’s flag-draped casket lies on a curtained podium with honor guards always in attendance. Cameras capture members of the family as they walk into the building for a private mass. All day long, people pay their respects: former president Eisenhower, chief justice Earl Warren, the new president, family friends, senators, congressmen, and White House staff.

  Robert Kennedy is assembling a list for the funeral on Monday. He sends a telegram to Martin Luther King Jr. inviting him to attend the funeral.

  The Honor Guard places President Kennedy’s casket in the East Room of the White House. Mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy are among the people near the door. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  These two men cannot know that in five and a half years both will be dead at the hand of assassins.

  Members of the Honor Guard remain with the casket at all times. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]