The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  When they got off the elevator at Suite 850, Mrs. Kennedy preceded her husband into the sitting room and appeared to be refreshed. The President picked up the phone and called O’Donnell. He asked Kenny to come to 850 at once. “We leave here at 10:40,” he said. Mrs. Kennedy sat on the gold couch and began to remove her gloves. “We have a whole hour?” she said. To a vivacious woman who must acknowledge that the presidency maintains priority over her personal wishes, this is a golden time of privacy. It wasn’t quite an hour. She asked the question at 9:55.

  He reflected her good spirits. Subordinate to the political considerations of the trip, but never far from his consciousness, was the certainty that this was a trial political run for Jackie. She would enjoy it or she wouldn’t. If she didn’t, he would feel awkward asking her to join him on these political forays, where everything was counted by the minute. The crowds, the bands, the motorcades, the handshaking, the bedding down in strange places, the whispered conferences between men, the eternal rushing to be ready on time—Mrs. Kennedy couldn’t remember the last time she had laid out a suit, shoes, stockings, a hat, and some gloves before retiring, but she had done it last night.

  It was tiring, but she knew now that she could help him. Mrs. Kennedy—without saying a word—was a vote getter. Women admired her style, and men admired the woman under the style. The President took a chance. Casually, he asked her if she was enjoying the trip. “Oh, Jack,” she said, “campaigning is so easy when you’re President.” Kenny O’Donnell came into the sitting room as the President said: “How about California in two weeks?” His wife nodded happily. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

  There was nothing on the Texas trip that could lift the spirits of Mr. Kennedy more than those four words: “Fine. I’ll be there. . . .” He was proud of his wife, of her obvious “class” as the President called it, and he was not averse, in private, to comparing her with other “dames.” His heart’s desire* was to show her off to the nation, but to protect her from the buffeting of the sweaty crowds and the hearty backslapping of the politicians.

  The President asked to restudy the heavy schedule for today with Mr. O’Donnell. But the Boston Irishman, who seldom smiled unless he was studying an adversary’s teeth embedded in his own fist, was staring across the room at Mrs. Kennedy, his face wreathed in a grin. He didn’t hear his boss.

  10 a.m.

  The breakup of a presidential encampment is dramatic. There are thirty minutes of elasticity between the time the vanguard begins to check out and the departure of the President. The red-brick front of the Hotel Texas was glistening with rain when it began. Newspaper reporters wearing crumpled rain slickers, carrying portable typewriters and suitcases were in the lobby queued up at the cashier’s window waiting to sign their overnight bills or pay them. Some had to report long-distance phone calls, and the telephone operators were requested to get the charges at once. The bellmen waited for service calls near the palm fronds. Texans lounged on the settees waiting for a final look at President John F. Kennedy.

  Two Secret Service men had already checked out. They had packed the Presidential Seal, flags, and the President’s prosthetic chair, and sound equipment in a car and had started out from the Main Street side, asking the doorman, “Which way to the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike?” They were headed for the Trade Mart in Dallas to set these things up before Mr. Kennedy arrived. They had a run of thirty-six miles in rain. Twenty minutes were needed at the Trade Mart to set everything in order. Roy Kellerman, the special agent in charge, forgot to notify the Secret Service men at Dallas, who were waiting with an automobile at Love Field.

  The corridors of the hotel were jammed with people in controlled panic. The three elevators—deducting one which must always wait at the President’s floor—were busy passing floors on the downward journey as operators listened to the knocking and said: “Next car, please.” There were sixty-eight persons assigned to fly the short trip on Air Force One and Air Force Two, and another fifty would fly the leased Pan American plane which would carry the press. Some of the Texas reporters and photographers pooled their cars and left in groups, swinging up the ramp to the turnpike in an effort to get to Love Field first.

  The police had a problem in front of the hotel’s main entrance. A good part of the crowd which had laughed and cheered with the President in the parking lot was now on both sides of Eighth Street. The local police, assisted by state troopers, had to get them back on the far side, and no one wanted to move. The mounted men urged their horses up onto the sidewalk and moved them sidewards against the mass of citizens. Some had to squeeze between the bumpers of limousines already waiting. Men and women checking out of the hotel came out the door and went back in to try leaving by the Main Street entrance.

  The Secret Service walkie-talkies were busy on several floors. One, from the Will Rogers Suite on the thirteenth, called the men standing in front of 850 to announce that the Vice-President was on his way down to see the President for a moment. Other people, worried by the clock, used the stairways to hurry down to the lobby. Doors to many rooms were ajar. The occupants ransacked drawers and closets to make certain that nothing was forgotten in the packing. Others yelled: “What time do we leave?” and the answer was: “Now. Now.”

  Negro women in neat white aprons stood openmouthed in all the corridors. They had cleaned rooms and made beds for years, but none had seen anything like this. One or two patrons paused to drop a dollar tip; others packed, dressed, and ready, tried the switchboard once more to get a line to home or the office.

  An elevator opened at the eighth floor and two Secret Service men, noting the red light over it, blocked it. Inside was Vice-President Johnson with his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Birge Alexander. They had never met a President of the United States, and Lyndon had promised. In the summer of 1959, they had thought that the Democratic Party might nominate a Texan. Kennedy had beaten their Lyndon, and many voters in the Lone Star State felt that the Democratic ticket was “wrong-side-up.” The nominee should have been the man with the broadest political experience: Lyndon Baines Johnson, the youngest majority leader in the history of the United States Senate. The polished, almost foppish Kennedy, they felt, was no more than the junior Senator from Massachusetts and should have been happy with the vice-presidential nomination.

  After the election, Johnson spent considerable time discouraging the residue of rancor. He told his intimate friends that he tried to make a good run for the nomination, but in his heart he knew that he would never be President of the United States. A week before this day in Texas, he had dinner with friends at Chandler’s Restaurant in Manhattan. Between the lobby and the bar stood a screen made of squares. Each one held a portrait, cased in glass, of the Presidents of the United States.

  Johnson left his table and his friends to pluck his glasses from a breast pocket and examine the screen. The owner, Mr. Louis Rubin, saw the Vice-President crouching, looking from one glass face to another, and he smiled and pointed to the empty glass square next to the youthful head of John F. Kennedy. “When will I put your picture in there?” he said. The Vice-President straightened up, and anger darkened his face. “Never,” he said. “You’ll never see it.” His loyalty to his President was so absolute that it was the subject of jokes among Kennedy’s assistants.

  The Secret Service opened the door to 850, and Johnson led his relatives inside. Kennedy, who was chatting with O’Donnell, turned and hurried to shake hands. Johnson presented the couple, uttered a cheerful word or two, and started to back out, motioning the Alexanders to follow him. Kennedy appeared to be elated. “Lyndon,” he said, following the guests to the door, “I know there are two states we’re going to carry in 1964—Texas and Massachusetts.” The Vice-President grinned and said: “Oh, we’ll do better than that.” There was a gentle irony in this, because, until this moment, Kennedy had never stated that he wanted Johnson on the ticket with him again. “We’re going to carry” was an encouraging phrase for the Vice-P
resident, and he turned and left, reminding his sister that he and Lady Bird had to hurry so that they would be in the motorcade before the President.

  Mr. Kennedy ordered all visitors to be kept out of the suite. He started to yank off his tie. Johnson’s presence reminded the Chief Executive of Yarborough. It was an irritant which he could no longer countenance. As he started toward his bedroom, he told O’Donnell to phone Larry O’Brien and to tell him that Senator Yarborough would ride beside Johnson today, even if the Senator had to be shoved into the automobile. “I want him in that car!” the President said.

  He went into the bedroom. George Thomas was ready. The suitcases were on the double bed. Mr. Kennedy changed to a blue-striped shirt, a solid blue silk tie, and a fresh lightweight gray and blue suit. In the other bedroom, Mrs. Kennedy readjusted her coiffure and her hat, and took one more glance out the window. The skies seemed to be clearing and reclouding. She hoped that the bubbletop would be on that car today.

  In the corridor, that question was propounded for the final time. The special phone rang. It was Special Agent Winston G. Lawson in Dallas. He asked to speak to the boss, Roy Kellerman. The weather appeared to be clearing at Love Field, Lawson said, although it was still “drizzling.” Kellerman, in charge of the Secret Service, did not want to make the decision. “One moment,” he said, “and I will check with you one way or the other.”

  He went into 850 and asked Mr. O’Donnell. The President’s assistant had concluded his conversation with O’Brien, in which he advised Larry to go the limit with Yarborough. “Mr. O’Donnell,” said Kellerman, “the weather—it is slightly raining in Dallas. We have predictions of clearing up. Do you want the bubbletop on the President’s car, or should we remove it for this parade to the Trade Mart?”

  O’Donnell glanced around the room to make certain that he had left no memos. “If the weather is clear,” he said, “and it is not raining, have that bubbletop off.” Kellerman thanked him. It was not the unequivocal response he desired, but it was obvious that the Kennedy group, given a choice, would rather have the top off than on. He returned to the phone and repeated O’Donnell’s words verbatim.

  It was still “iffy,” but Lawson read the message correctly. He would leave the top off unless, at the last moment, a downpour made it advisable to put it on. It was never a simple matter to put it on or take it off. The car was a special 1961 Lincoln Continental, accommodating seven passengers: a chauffeur and agent, two persons on jump seats, and three on the rear leather seat. The bubbletop was in four pie-shaped sections and covered the area from the back of the rear seat to the front windshield.

  The bottom sections had to be bolted and screwed to the car. There was a metal bar, attached to the rear of the driver’s seat, which stood fifteen inches above the headrest. This was used when the President and a visiting Chief of State wished to stand, holding on to the bar, to respond to crowds. On the back of the trunk, at the bumper, were two fixed stirrups with metal bars on the trunk so that agents could hold on when the car moved at speed.

  The two jump seats were three inches lower than the rear seat at the lowest position. The President, by flexing a small metal arm, could lift the back seat ten and a half inches. However, after several experiments, he decided that the bottom position, which placed him and his wife a little more than three inches above their guests in the jump seats, was about right.

  Lawson told his men to leave the top off.

  The capital was always serene, impassive, and majestic from the streets. The broad boulevards, spokes in an unbalanced wheel; the huge edifices of granite; the bronze figures of statesmen, standing to declaim, sitting to ponder, riding to battle on horses green with the droppings of pigeons; the fountains arcing iridescent in the morning sun; the feel of history under the pedestrian’s foot; the saucer of green hills curling away from this American Mecca; this Parthenon; this Vatican City; and, withal, the strained dignity of the courtesan who is not aware that she has lost her soul.

  The motivation of the city of Washington has always remained the same: self-righteousness. The American posture, which pours from this heart through the provincial arteries, is one of nobility, giving away money, merchandise, and counsel to a retarded world. Behind the granite façades of many public buildings, the imperturbable regality is lost; the outside and the inside have no more relation to each other than the dignity of an opera house lobby has to the turmoil onstage.

  This was a routine day. The United States Supreme Court was not prepared to turn the country from its natural course with a shattering decision; Congress, in an hour, would convene, listening to two well-paid chaplains invoke the favor of God on this nation above all others; the President pro tem of the Senate would step down to permit the new junior Senator from the State of Massachusetts, the Honorable Edward Kennedy, to sit behind the gleaming gavel and make parliamentary rulings; the Oval Office of the White House was empty, but the East and West Wings would continue to grind out the wordy projects of new laws, speeches major and minor, the hand-scripted invitations to a gala, the stereotyped responses to missives from the citizens, the publicity handouts to the few journalists who were not with the President; the logging of phone calls to and from Texas; the situation reports from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State.

  The gentlemen sat around the spacious and darkly subdued office waiting. They had been summoned by the Attorney General of the United States and, when he burst through the door with an assortment of papers in his hand, they got to their feet. Robert F. Kennedy waved them back down, and the toothy smile was turned on. This was the most energetic of the Kennedys, the most belligerent and, in the same set of scales, the least tactful. He was the President’s brother, campaign manager, buffer, and hatchetman.

  In childhood, it was John who protected Robert. The older brother, Joseph, who “minded” the family when the parents left the house, was a martinet not above administering corporal punishment to the younger members of the family. In these situations, Robert—younger, smaller, weaker—hid in the dark at the head of the stairs as John diverted Joe’s attention and sometimes took the blows intended for Robert. The situation was now reversed. Robert, as Attorney General, often diverted attention from his brother and faced the wrath of the public himself.

  The President felt that Robert would make a good Attorney General, but he found little support for the appointment, even among his followers. It amounted to arrogant nepotism and, one night in Georgetown, the young President-elect said: “I think the best way to announce Bobby’s appointment is to wait until late some night right here and then go out front and look up and down the street. If nobody is around, I will take my brother by the hand and lead him out on the porch and shout: ‘I appoint my brother as Attorney General of the United States!’”

  As the legal counsel to the nation, Robert Kennedy had little experience in courts and even less in the field of political compromise, but the President was pleased with his work and more than pleased. He appointed Robert to the National Security Council, where the secret decisions were made; he sought “Bobby’s” advice in all matters and often listened to propositions from outsiders only to ask the rhetorical question: “What does Bobby think about it?”

  As counsel to the McClellan Committee, young Robert fought organized crime, an appellation pinned to those (usually of Italian ancestry) who had permanent committees and boards of directors in many cities for the enrichment of all in the fields of vice, narcotics, and gambling. He had also applied himself to the exposure of union racketeers, notably James Riddle Hoffa of the Teamsters Union. Exposure turned out to be easy, with the assistance of renegade witnesses and the cameras of television, but conviction in court was seldom achieved and the devising of new statutes by the committee was lax and ineffectual.

  As Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation belonged to his Department of Justice. This opened a
new avenue of investigative procedure, a broad one encompassing the use of thousands of trained agents in many cities across the land. The free use of this weapon, Kennedy found, was blocked by the massive presence of John Edgar Hoover, who had been prosecuting interstate felons since 1924, the year before Bobby was born.

  Hoover had enjoyed the confidence and respect of presidents from the administration of Calvin Coolidge onward. Now, in advanced years, the old tiger and the young wildcat were in the same hunting preserve. One of the least appreciated of Kennedy’s virtues was his habit of stepping on the polished shoes of other public servants. In some cases, fear of the President kept the victims from protesting. In others, notably Hoover and the FBI, the schism became a gaping wound, unhealing and suppurating.

  The Attorney General wanted to take charge of the FBI. Hoover did not relish being “summoned” by an inexperienced ”boy.” In this contretemps, John F. Kennedy could not help his brother. Hoover was a national hero; his FBI had never been tainted by scandal and permitted no encroachment by other departments. John F. Kennedy, elected president by a margin of only 118,000 votes out of more than 70 million cast, could not risk the wrath of the people by retiring Hoover. The wildcat was stuck with the tiger.

  This morning, Bobby was making one of his periodic moves designed to keep a needle in the hide of Hoover. He had a group called the Organized Crime Committee. Some were federal prosecutors, beholden to the Attorney General. Others were officials in other offices. A few were investigators and public relations men. Their work was to expose and prosecute the American Mafia, or Cosa Nostra. This, of course, was high on the agenda of the FBI, but Robert Kennedy hoped to take the play away from his own FBI.

  On the surface, the Department of Justice and the FBI worked well together. The attitude of subordination was maintained by Hoover, and the departmental amenities flowed in memoranda between the wings of the big doughnut-shaped building on Pennsylvania Avenue. But, in law, Robert Kennedy could issue unpalatable orders and force their execution.