The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  And yet death was as common as the veils of rain which drifted up Eighth Street outside the hotel. In California at this moment a great writer, a mind of compassionate sophistication, was in final coma. Aldous Huxley was dying. At Hobe Sound, in Florida, a man who exerted considerable influence on John F. Kennedy had died of cancer, and no one had bothered to tell the President. The Rev. George St. John, headmaster of Choate School, who often exhorted students like Kennedy: “Ask not what your school can do for you, ask what you can do for your school,” was dead at the age of eighty-eight.

  Nor had the presidential eye paused at Page 14-A when reading the Dallas Times Herald this morning. There had been twenty-five death notices, a normal complement, ranging from James Meek, who had struck it rich in oil, to a relatively unknown man named Carl Lucky. Ten miles south of Norwalk, Ohio, brisk winds fanned a blaze in the Golden Age Nursing Home. Sixty-three persons would die there this day, none of them quickly or easily.

  The sky over Irving brightened and darkened and brightened again. Marina Oswald, tidying the breakfast dishes, was interested in the weather. She and her hostess, Ruth Paine, always washed their own laundry; nothing was sent to a cleaner’s; no diaper service truck ever stopped in front of 2515 West Fifth Street. Today was to be a laundry day, but it was too threatening to start washing clothes now.

  Besides, the television set had been left on. Marina never turned it on without asking permission. This morning Ruth had left early for a dental appointment with one of her children. Mrs. Paine remembered that the President of the United States would be in this part of Texas and had left the set on before Marina arose from bed.

  The laundry could wait. Marina sat on the couch in the little ranch house, so that she could watch June, playing on the floor, hear the baby if she cried, and watch America’s First Family. Mrs. Oswald did not dress. Household laziness was a prerogative she exercised at will. The babies could not be taken out in the rain anyway. She heard the commentator’s words, but she understood only the camera.

  She had not looked in her grandmother’s Russian teacup; therefore, she had not seen Lee’s wedding ring. Nor had she examined the money in the dresser drawer. If she had dwelt on her husband at all, Marina Oswald recognized the situation for what it was: a problem which could be postponed at least until next week. The young woman with the straight brown hair, the piquant Nordic face, the Soviet peasant philosophy that it was a husband’s right to beat a wife, wanted to remain in America. She would return to Russia, if it was Lee’s will, but it would not be hers.

  All of her roots, her relatives, her culture, were in Leningrad and Minsk, and yet the seductive influence of the United States, with its air-conditioned shops, its TV, its millions of small homes with gardens, the benevolent ease with which travel was permitted, the lack of suspicion among neighbors who owned automobiles and would give one a lift into town or home, the gatherings of friends over beer and cheese, the lack of restrictive forces in private or public life all superseded the natural affection of this woman for her homeland.

  Her husband seldom saw anything as she saw it. To the contrary. At this moment he was on the ground floor of the School Book Depository, picking up a book order. He was looking across the counters to the front entrance of the building. Lee asked James Jarman, Jr., a checker, what the people were crowding the front step for. They would be waiting to see the President, Jarman said. He didn’t know what time, but he guessed it would be late this morning.

  Oswald looked surprised. “Which way do you think he’s coming?” he said. Jarman was surprised, too, because it seemed as though everybody in town knew the President was coming, all except Lee. Then, too, it was rare to elicit this much conversation from the silent man. The checker said he had heard that Kennedy was coming on down through Dallas on Main Street, then right on Houston, and left on to Elm, right out in front of that door.

  “Yes,” Oswald said. “I see.” The early arrivals were few. There were vantage points for seeing the motorcade all over Dealey Plaza, and, as this was the place where the President would pick up speed for the run to the Trade Mart, it wasn’t considered good enough to attract crowds. Most of the curbside watchers would be employees from buildings around the square, in addition to some who chose to remain free of crowds. The few on hand were trying to keep out of the rain.

  Weather was a subject of interest to Special Agent Sam Kinney of the Secret Service. Twice he had left the underground parking lot at Love Field to study the sky. And twice he had returned to tell his co-worker, Agent George Hickey, that he didn’t know whether to put the bubbletop on or leave it off. Right now, it wasn’t raining hard enough to put it on the big special Lincoln. It would be better to wait awhile.

  The decision, which was of concern to so many people this morning, could be decided when Forrest V. Sorrels picked up Kinney and Hickey at 11 A.M. Mr. Sorrels was special agent in charge of the Dallas office. This, for him, was a big day. He was the man in charge, even though he shared his decisions with and could be countermanded by Jerry Behn at the White House, Chief Rowley at Secret Service Headquarters, Kenneth O’Donnell, and the President. For three interminable weeks Sorrels had worked this assignment, doing the field assignments and reporting to Washington.

  It had turned out to be one of those slowly accelerating responsibilities, moving faster and ever faster, entailing more and more work until now—on the day of days—a thing like the bubbletop could not be decided, finally and unalterably, until 11 A.M. Sorrels had his own men well briefed, but he had also to meet the “advance man,” Mr. Winston Lawson of the White House Secret Service detail, apprise him of the meetings with the Dallas Police Department chiefs, the route selected for the motorcade, the security of Love Field, the selection of the Trade Mart as the site of the luncheon speech, even though it had overhead catwalks (difficult to secure), the interviews with the Federal Aviation Administration officials at Love Field for landing patterns and gates for presidential aircraft, the screening of luncheon guests, the motorcade from the Trade Mart back to Love Field, the probable time of takeoffs to Austin, even the arrival of the two automobiles on an Air Force C130 at 6:05 last evening.

  Kinney and Hickey had accompanied 100-X, the President’s car, and 679-X, the Secret Service follow-up automobile. The cars could not be taken for granted. They too had to be secured. Both had been taken to the basement garage at Love Field last night. Dallas policemen stood guard all night. At 8:30 P.M. Kinney and Hickey were helping Sorrels and Lawson check, once more, the speaker’s stand at the Trade Mart, the seating arrangements, the kitchen, and the exits. It had been done several times before, and, in the morning, it would be done once more by Deputy Chief Batchelor of the Dallas department.

  Hickey and Kinney had checked out of the Sheraton Hotel at 7:30 this morning. They had breakfast, met Warrant Officer Art Bales of White House Communications, who had already established instantaneous communication with Washington from a private switchboard in the Sheraton and arrived at Love Field at nine. Both men relieved the Dallas police and began the customary job of getting the automobiles ready for the motorcade. This consists of examining the engine section, trunk, and chassis, removing the seats to look for detonating devices, checking oil, water, batteries, and then polishing the cars.

  The special phone on the eighth floor had a light which flicked on and off. Agent Clint Hill, whose assignment was to guard the First Lady, picked it up at its station beside the hotel fire hose. Agent Duncan said that the President was waiting at the breakfast for Mrs. Kennedy, and wanted her downstairs at once. In the ballroom, a boys’ choir sang “The Eyes of Texas” and President Kennedy led the applause. He kept smiling and tapping the tabletop with the fingers of his right hand and glancing surreptitiously toward the wings.

  It was 9:22 when Clint Hill advised Mrs. Kennedy that she was expected downstairs. She hesitated over two pairs of white gloves, selected one, and left with him. Of all the First Ladies, this one was the most naturally beautiful, the m
ost romantic, and the most dedicated patron of the arts. She had poise, presence, and a smile that reduced statesmen and commoners to the absurd and speechless. When the elevator stopped at the mezzanine, and a door opened on the back side of the elevator, Mrs. Kennedy said: “Aren’t we leaving?” Mr. Hill shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re going to a breakfast.”

  When the boys’ choir completed a second number, Raymond Buck glanced toward the wings and shouted: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, an event I know you have all been waiting for.” Clint Hill nodded to Mrs. Kennedy. She was a vision of pink confusion as she stepped out into the talcum glare of the klieg lights. The audience got to its feet, and so did the President. He saw his wife blinking in the lights and beckoned to her.

  At the head table, Nellie Connally was standing and applauding with the others when she saw that pink wool ensemble and looked down with dismay at her own pink wool suit. An embarrassment of this sort happened only in comedies. The First Lady stood beside her husband, and Texas realized that all it had read and heard about this remarkable young lady was true. The men stood on their chairs to whistle with their fingers between their teeth. The women stared archly at their men.

  In the back of the room, there was some commotion when General Godfrey McHugh tried to pass in, and a Texas ticket taker tried to keep him out because he didn’t have a ticket. This occasioned a little pushing and shoving with both sides shouting: “Do you know who I am?” A Secret Service man explained the matter to the ticket taker, and the President’s military aide was permitted to proceed, feathers askew but dignity intact.

  At the microphone, Buck was presenting gifts from Fort Worth to the First Family. It would be doubtful that Mrs. Kennedy would ever wear those ornate hand-tooled boots, but Buck wasn’t going to permit the President to get off as easily. He gave Mr. Kennedy a big fawn-colored cowboy hat and motioned for him to put it on. The television cameras were on the scene; still photographers down front trained their Rolliflexes and their Nikons and got ready for the big moment. Those who knew the President had heard him speak of such “baloney pictures” with contempt. He thought that former Presidents sacrificed something when they adorned themselves with broad-brimmed hats or Indian feathers.

  He stood to accept the gift, smiling sheepishly and glancing appealingly around him. A few guests yelled, “Put it on, Jack!” and the President held the hat out in front of him and, at last, in a burst of laughter, he said: “I will put this on Monday in my office at the White House. I hope you can be there to see it.” As the President sat, the master of ceremonies began his introduction, and Kennedy felt in his pocket and showed his wife the Mass card sent by Monsignor Wolf. Mrs. Kennedy looked down the table and smiled her gratitude to the priest.

  In a moment, the President was grasping the lectern with both hands, looking out at the enthusiastic crowd, and, as one who had become accustomed to eyeglasses in private, his eyes darted to the large type on the pages to make sure that he could read it. The press out front studied its copies of the same speech to check whether the President would depart from it. He did at once. Instead of opening with “I am glad to be here in Jim Wright’s city,” the tribute to the local congressman came second to one he reserved for his wife:

  “Two years ago,” he said, “I introduced myself in Paris by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris. I am getting somewhat that same sensation as I travel around Texas.” The crowd loved it. So did Mrs. Kennedy, who covered her laughter with her white glove. “Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear,” he said lugubriously.

  His desire in this speech was twofold: to pander to the aircraft payrolls the government maintained in this region and to make the speech a major pronunciamento on defense. The President said that Fort Worth was always in the forefront of national defense. A hundred years ago, he said, the town had been a fort, a shield against marauding Indians. In World War I, Canadian pilots had been trained to fly in Fort Worth; in World War II, the President’s brother Joe had picked up his B-24 Liberator in Fort Worth to fly it overseas. The B-58, “finest weapons system in the world,” was built in Forth Worth; also “the Iroquois helicopter from Fort Worth is a mainstay in our fight against the guerrillas in South Vietnam.”

  Mr. Kennedy had the attention of his audience, and he began to speak forcefully, almost stridently, as though challenging anyone to deny the veracity of his statements. He espoused the cause of the controversial TFX—Tactical Fighter Experimental—which was designed to save enormous sums by being available in slightly modified form for both the Air Force and the Navy.

  In appealing to local pride, no statement was too outrageous for the President, no allusion to government spending overdrawn. “In all these ways,” he said, “the success of our national defense depends upon this city in the western United States, ten thousand miles from Vietnam, five or six thousand miles from Berlin, thousands of miles from the trouble spots in Latin America and Africa or the Middle East. And yet Fort Worth and what it does and what it produces participates in all these great historic events. Texas as a whole and Fort Worth bear particular responsibility for this national defense effort, for military procurement in this state totals nearly one and one-quarter billion, fifth highest among all the states of the union.”

  He drew a laugh when he pointed out: “There are more military personnel on active duty in this state than any in the nation save one—and it is not Massachusetts—any in the nation save one, with a combined military-civilian defense payroll of well over a billion dollars.”

  He was at a tender moment in history when a President could boast about his spending, rather than apologize for it.

  “In the past three years we have increased the defense budget of the United States by 20 percent; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our counterinsurgency forces which are engaged now in South Vietnam by 600 percent.” The President decided that he could afford to take a laughing shot at the rich oil millionaires of Texas who plaster the highways with billboards demanding a stronger America and lower taxes. “I hope those who want a stronger America and place it on some signs will also place those figures next to it.”

  In the field of foreign affairs, the President had felt that he failed one test—the invasion of Cuba by Cubans—and had triumphed in another—the confrontation with Khrushchev over Intermediate Ballistic Missile sites in Cuba. Now he proposed to tell all Americans that, for good or ill, they had firm commitments all over the world.

  “. . . As I said earlier, on three occasions in the last three years, the United States has had a direct confrontation. No one can say when it will come again. No one expects that our life will be easy, certainly not in this decade, and perhaps not in this century.

  “But we should realize what a burden and responsibility the people of the United States have borne for so many years. Here, a country which lived in isolation, divided and protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific, uninterested in the struggles of the world around it, here in the short space of eighteen years after the Second World War, we put ourselves, by our own will and by necessity, into defensive alliances with countries all around the globe.

  “Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight. Without the United States, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization alliance would collapse overnight. Without the United States, the CENTO alliance would collapse overnight. Without the United States, there would be no NATO. And gradually Europe would drift into neutralism and indifference. Without the efforts of the United States in the Alliance for Progress, the Communist advance into the mainland of South America would long ago have taken place.”

  It was not a new military posture for the United States. The rich and powerful democracy had been on the world scene since 1917, but its stand as an Atlantic power and a Pacific power had seldom been stated so succinctly, and never had a President made it so painfully clear that, without the United States, most of the treaty organizations would
have collapsed. The cheers of the Chamber of Commerce were ample proof that, though the members may not have supported John F. Kennedy politically, they certainly admired any statement which made their country look stronger while others appeared to be weaker.

  “I am confident,” he said on a softer note, a time to conclude, “as I look at the future, that our chances for security, our chances for peace, are better than they have been in the past. And the reason is because we are stronger. And with that strength is a determination to not only maintain the peace, but also the vital interests of the United States. To that cause”—he flung up both hands in farewell—“Texas and the United States are committed. Thank you.”

  The President remained standing through the tumult of cherished sound. It was obvious that he would not remain. The Secret Service men fell in ahead of him and along the flanks. Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, a cameo in a pale gown and triple strands of pearls, stood with her husband and the Connallys, applauding as long as the crowd did. One agent remained behind to pick up the black leather prosthetic chair Mr. Kennedy always used. He would also pack the Seal of the President.

  In a room on the eighth floor, O’Donnell and O’Brien watched the President catch his wife by the arm and lead her across the breadth of the speaker’s table to the wings, where they disappeared into the kitchen. O’Brien shut the set off. “She seemed to enjoy it,” Kenny O’Donnell said. Mrs. Kennedy had enjoyed it. O’Donnell must have sensed a satisfaction in this, because it had been whispered with political venom that Jack Kennedy’s wife felt that politics was beneath her. O’Donnell and O’Brien both knew that she had been pregnant through a presidential campaign and again in a bielection year. Earlier in 1963 she had lost a baby, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, to a natal edema of both lungs. She had left the White House for a rest in the Greek islands.