The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  In public, the Kennedys were a happy, gracious family. In private, there was room for disagreement and asperity. This is not to say that it was not a happy marriage, but rather, like others, there were times when the wife disagreed with her husband. Mrs. Kennedy, for example, had once worked as an inquiring photographer for a Washington newspaper, but she felt little empathy for the press and often used her Secret Service guards to prevent newspaper photographers from taking her picture. The President, on the other hand, had once been an International News Service reporter, and cultivated a public aura of patience with his editorial detractors. In private, he was not above writing furious notes to editors and publishers about the “inaccuracies” of certain White House reporters. Now and then, as though to beard the enemy someday, he vowed to buy the Washington Post after completing his second term of office.

  The difference between public and private opinions seeped down to the press corps, and they were often at variance. After the Vienna Summit Conference with the Russians, Mr. Kennedy spoke well of the conversations. In private, he said of Nikita Khrushchev: “Why, that son of a bitch won’t pay any attention to words. He has to see you move.” In 1959, when he was in California fighting Richard Nixon for the presidency, he was aroused by motion picture star John Wayne’s efforts for the Republican party. On a notepad, he scribbled: “How do we cut John Wayne’s balls off?”

  The opposition in Congress were often “bastards.” He made a mental note to criticize Mary Gallagher this morning. Miss Gallagher, as private secretary to Mrs. Kennedy, might have seemed an insignificant item for presidential attention, but the young lady had volunteered to be Mrs. Kennedy’s personal maid on this particular trip, and the First Lady told her husband that she could not find Mary when she was needed. So the President was going to tell O’Donnell, “For Christ’s sake, keep Mary Gallagher on the ball.” Anything which irritated Mrs. Kennedy aroused the President.

  The newspapers of Texas irritated him. Aloud, he read headlines from this morning’s Dallas News: “President’s Visit Seen Widening State Democratic Split”; “Yarborough Snubs LBJ”; “Storm of Political Controversy Swirls Around Kennedy on Visit.” The paper was cast aside. He finished eating the eggs, picked the paper up and turned it inside out. “Have you people seen this?” It was a full-page advertisement headlined “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas.” Around the page was a quarter-inch black mourning border. It was signed by “The American Fact-Finding Committee, Bernard Weissman, Chairman.” The copy asked twelve questions of the President, each slanted toward the arch-conservative attitude of oil-rich Dallas.

  “WHY do you say we have built a ‘wall of freedom’ around Cuba when there is no freedom in Cuba today? Because of your policy, thousands of Cubans have been imprisoned, are starving and being persecuted—with thousands already murdered and thousands more awaiting execution and, in addition, the entire population of almost 7,000,000 Cubans are living in slavery?

  “WHY have you approved the sale of wheat and corn to our enemies when you know the Communist soldiers ‘Travel on their stomachs’ just as ours do? Communist soldiers are daily wounding and/or killing American soldiers in South Viet Nam.

  “WHY have you urged greater aid, comfort, recognition, and understanding for Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, and other Communist countries, while turning your back on the pleas of Hungarian, East German, Cuban and other anti-Communist freedom fighters?

  “WHY has Gus Hall, head of the U.S. Communist Party, praised almost every one of your policies and announced that the party will endorse and support your re-election in 1964?

  “WHY have you ordered or permitted your brother Bobby, the Attorney General, to go soft on Communists, fellow-travelers, and ultra-leftists in America, while permitting him to persecute loyal Americans who criticize you, your administration and your leadership?

  “WHY have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favor of the ‘Spirit of Moscow’?”

  Why, why, why . . . Mr. Kennedy poured a little fresh coffee. “How can people write such things?” he said. To Mrs. Kennedy, he said, with obvious disgust: “We’re really in nut country now.” To the others, he spoke with contempt about oil millionaires, reactionaries who peddled hate but had no alternatives to the program of the Administration. He had not seen the Dallas News of the morning before, in which a sports columnist had written glibly: “If the speech is about boating you will be among the warmest of admirers. If it is about Cuber, civil rights, taxes or Viet Nam, there will sure as shootin’ be some who heave to and let go with a broadside of grapeshot in the presidential rigging.”

  Nor had he seen the handbills which spun across the clean sidewalks of Dallas for the past few days. These had not been signed, nor was the printer’s signature on them, but they featured a solemn front and side view of the President with the words, in large type:

  WANTED for TREASON

  It was a typical sheriff’s poster. The copy read:

  “This man is wanted for treasonous activities against the United States:

  “1. Betraying the Constitution (which he swore to uphold):

  “He is turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the Communist controlled United Nations.

  “He is betraying our friends (Cuba, Katanga, Portugal) and befriending our enemies (Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland.)

  “2. He has been WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S. (United Nations—Berlin Wall—Missile Removal—Cuba-Wheat Deals—Test Ban Treaty, etc.)

  “3. He has been lax in enforcing Communist registration laws.

  “4. He has given support and encouragement to the Communist inspired racial riots.

  “5. He has illegally invaded a sovereign state with federal troops.

  “6. He has consistently appointed anti-Christians to Federal office;

  “Upholds the Supreme Court in its anti-Christian rulings.

  “Aliens and known Communists abound in Federal offices.

  “7. He has been caught in fantastic LIES to the American people (including personal ones like his previous marriage and divorce.)”

  In Section Four of the Dallas News, the President read a story by Carl Freund which raised the hackles on his neck: “Former Vice-President Richard M. Nixon predicted here Thursday that President Kennedy will drop Lyndon Johnson from the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket if a close race appears likely next year. Nixon said Johnson is becoming a ‘political liability’ to the Democratic Party.”

  Mr. Nixon had been narrowly defeated for the presidency in the autumn election of 1959. Since, he had been defeated in a race for the governorship of California by Mr. Pat Brown. Nixon moved to New York and became an attorney for a firm which bottled soft drinks (Pepsi-Cola). He was in Dallas to promote business and, to keep his personal political ambitions alive, often submitted to interviews which concerned themselves more with “gut and gutter” politics than with bottling beverages.

  The President was still fulminating against the press when a Secret Service man said he had a call from the Dallas office, asking if the bubbletop should be put on the car. A negative headshake came from Kenny O’Donnell. Mr. Kennedy said he didn’t want it on. Furthermore, he said, he wanted the Secret Service men told to stop running beside the car and hopping on the rear bumpers. His convictions were firm about this and had been restated many times. “The people come to see me, not the Secret Service.” Besides, the bubbletop offered no protection except from rain. It wasn’t bulletproof, nor would Mr. Kennedy permit himself to use it even if it was.

  No one ever had the temerity to introduce the subject of assassination to the President. But there were occasions when he dragged the ugly subject into focus.* Mr. Kennedy’s feelings were that a President is conscious of sudden death only when he first assumes office. He learns that he cannot expose himself to crowds without prior warning; he is surrounded, in the White House and out, by silent faceless men who are always looking in another direction; his family cannot go shopping without notifying the agen
t in charge of the White House detail; the heating units in his office are tested daily for radioactivity. So is his jewelry, his watch, his telephone.

  After being in office awhile, the President loses his personal fear and it is replaced by irritation. He feels overprotected. Often, he orders Secret Service agents away. In a slow-moving motorcade, the President sees ocean swells of smiling faces; the Secret Service watch for a sudden movement, a flying object. The function of these men is, when necessary, to place their bodies between the President and potential danger. This becomes difficult in a follow-up automobile.

  Mr. Kennedy said that his feelings were the same as President Abraham Lincoln’s. “Any man who is willing to exchange his life for mine can do so,” he said. Leaving church, with two Secret Service men in front of him and two behind, Mr. Kennedy used to crouch lower and lower. His joke was to whisper to the two men in front: “If there is anybody up in that choir loft trying to get me, they’re going to have to get you first.”

  When he was a United States Senator, in the spring of 1959, Kennedy received a note from Mr. Harry A. Squires of Lakewood, California. The reply is revealing:

  “The historical curiosity which you related in your letter of May 4th is, indeed, thought-provoking: ‘since 1840 every man who has entered the White House in a year ending with a zero has not lived to leave the White House alive.’ . . . On face value, I daresay, should anyone take this phenomenon to heart. . . anyone, that is, who aspires to change his address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue . . . that most probably the landlord would be left from 1960—1964 with a ‘For Rent’ sign hanging on the gatehouse door.”

  In addition, Kennedy had personal courage. It was something he felt honor-bound to display. A warning from the Secret Service that it would be dangerous to attend a Harvard football game without prior screening guaranteed the President’s presence. A reminder not to pause to shake hands with citizens behind police lines was almost always ignored. Nor did he appreciate seeing law enforcement men on rooftops with riot guns. The possibility of losing his life by violence occurred to this bright young man, but it never deterred him nor did he believe that it would happen.

  Philosophically, to Mr. Kennedy, death was a state of abrupt termination. It stopped everything: thought, ideals, projects, progress, love, action. There is a Hereafter; there is a Heaven; there is a God sitting in judgment; there is a religious code through which these happy states may be attained, but the President was in no hurry to attain any of them. When Caroline brought a dead bird into his office, Mr. Kennedy averted his head. Against his will, he had shot a deer on the Lyndon Johnson ranch and it offended him to think about it. The news that a friend or acquaintance died brought Kennedy’s activities to a halt. The dreadful finality of death stopped his thinking and momentarily numbed him. The previous summer, at Hyannis Port, he had taken an afternoon cruise with his father, victim of a cerebral accident, and when the President returned he had dashed angrily into the bedroom, ripped his tie off, and growled to Mrs. Kennedy: “Don’t ever let me get like that.”

  The room was now quiet for a moment. Mrs. Kennedy returned to her bedroom as the waiter, George Jackson, wheeled in a second table with scrambled eggs and crisp bacon for her. Mr. Kennedy sat sipping coffee. Then, glancing at Kenny O’Donnell, he murmured: “Anyone perched above the crowd with a rifle could do it.” The President’s assistant slipped off the windowsill and reminded him to phone Mrs. J. Lee Johnson of Fort Worth. She had hung several original paintings in Suite 850. Mr. Kennedy also wanted to phone congratulations to former Vice-President John Nance Garner at Uvalde, Texas. He was ninety-five. It was time to start the business of the day. The phone calls were made.

  In the corridor, Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman spoke to Agent Winston Lawson in Dallas. The bubbletop was to remain off the car unless, of course, there was heavy rain at the time of arrival. Kellerman also advised that the President had again requested that Secret Service men remain away from the lead car. “He wants everybody to remain on the follow-up,” said Kellerman.

  The Kennedys drew no joy from Suite 850. The management had redecorated and painted the three rooms, but, when the President arrived shortly after midnight, he and Mrs. Kennedy had looked the place over with little appreciation. The first remark was: “Get that damned air conditioning off. I can’t sleep with air conditioning.” The suite had been selected by the Secret Service because, as it stood in an elbow of the corridor, it was the easiest to protect.

  The paintings, the appointments drew no huzzahs from the sophisticated. The rooms seemed small, almost dowdy, to the Kennedys. To Fort Worth, a friendly, old-fashioned cattle town, the suite was lavish. The large bedroom on the left had a double bed, or rather two singles pressed together under a broad walnut headboard. There was a chest of drawers, a pineapple bridge lamp, a green-tiled bathroom with a recessed formica vanity and chair. The walls were painted blue; a portable television set was on casters near the bathroom door. Under a glass top was a message: “Hotel Texas. Check out time is 12:30 P.M. If you plan to stay after this time please contact Assistant Manager.”

  There was also a green upholstered chair on the opposite side of the room from the bed, a small coffee table, a golden lamp with a shantung shade. A couch reposed against the far wall with checkered upholstery; a phone, an ash tray, and a phone book reposed on the small table. An extra phone had been placed in this room. It was hooked up to the Secret Service men in the corridor. A few colored throw pillows were on the bed. Mr. Kennedy glanced out the window. Fort Worth was quiet. He saw lighted signs proclaiming: “Hotel Texas Official Parking Lot.” “The Fort Worth Press.” In the distance, the yards of the Texas & Pacific Railroad and “Bewley Mills.”

  This bedroom, the larger, had been set up for him. He glanced into the bathroom. The tub, judging from the breadth of the shower curtain, appeared to be small. None of it was spectacular; still the management and the scions of the Amon Carter family, who owned it, had worked hard to display Western hospitality to the First Family of the nation.

  The sitting room faced south and east. Mrs. Kennedy, fatigued, walked through it glancing left and right and rubbing her arms against the chill of the place. There were three windows facing south, toward the parking lot. On the opposite side of the room was a recessed bar. Radio music was coming from the ceiling somewhere. A green Chinese cabinet, which had no relation to anything else, held a television set behind gold-ornamented doors. At the corner window was a black-topped table with four chairs upholstered in blue.

  In the ceiling were two chandeliers with electric candles. Proceeding toward the second bedroom, there was a long tan couch against the windows. A low serving table stood before the couch. A Gideon Bible and a lamp reposed on a cabinet. Walking slowly, Mrs. Kennedy pushed open the door to her bedroom. It was smaller than her husband’s.

  The bed was small, with a brass headboard designed like harp strings. End tables on each side were adorned with Oriental base lamps. She saw a blue easy chair, a leather chair, and one window. There were two framed crests over the bed. The closet was small. Two snack tables were folded inside. The bathroom was small. The tub was small. The glass shelf over the basin was not big enough for lotions and unguents.

  The caterer, Peter Saccu, arrived in the suite and turned the air conditioning off. Mr. Kennedy asked if a window in his room could be raised “halfway.” Saccu lifted the window and noted that the President might be awakened by the slamming of freight trains in the Texas and Pacific yards. Mr. Kennedy smiled for the first time. It wouldn’t bother him, he said.

  The word flashed up and down the hall that the President and Mrs. Kennedy had retired. The sudden relaxation of tension hit the Secret Service. Stiffly erect bodies sagged. The agents standing out in the drizzle on Eighth and along Main began to chat with each other. In the corridor, the soft whirl of elevator cables started and stopped. Some off-duty agents went to bed. Others looked for an hour or two of relaxation.

  They asked the clerk b
ehind the desk if there was any place open after midnight. The clerk pointed up Main. “The Cellar,” he said. A group of agents walked up three blocks and saw a flashing sign. They entered, but The Cellar was not in the cellar. It was up a flight of dark stairs with a red light at the top.

  A young man asked them for a dollar apiece entry fee. They gave it and he stamped the backs of their hands with invisible ink which shows up under ultraviolet light. This was to identify customers who might depart and return or non-customers who claimed that they had already paid.

  The Cellar was a huge square room lighted in perpetual dusk. The walls were painted flat black. In a corner on the right, a combination of young men with long hair hooked their guitars to loudspeakers and lyrics roared. The waitresses, young and slender, with opera-length stockings, and breasts which appeared to float on top of corset stays, took orders for “setups.” In Fort Worth no one can buy an alcoholic drink. Customers bring their own in paper sacks and buy ginger ale, Coke, and ice in a glass.

  The Secret Service men found seats at a long straight board table in the rear. They shouted their orders as the country rhythm pulsed against the walls. The only lights were small red bulbs in the ceiling. A waitress, noting that they were strangers, tried to tell them that soft drinks would cost sixty cents. No one could understand her.

  It was too dark to read a small legend in white on the far wall. It said: “Tomorrow is cancelled.”

  A sweet, sad face was framed in the window. Mrs. Linnie Mae Randall was washing the dishes in the kitchen sink and looking out at the veiling of rain, at the same time partly listening to the breakfast chatter of her younger brother, Buell Wesley Frazier, her mother, and the children. The house is on West Fifth Street in Irving, but the kitchen faces Westbrook Drive.

  She saw Lee Harvey Oswald, bare head down, coming up Fifth Street with a long package in his hand. He held the fat part under his arm; the tapered end was pointing at the sidewalk. The rain didn’t seem to bother him. He walked steadily, up Fifth, across the corner lot, toward Mrs. Randall’s garage. She kept watching him, a dark, pretty woman with shoulder-length black hair. By rote, she set the dishes upright in the drain.