The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  In the outer office, James Hosty marveled at the number of law officers who could be crowded into Captain Fritz’s fishbowl. It was impossible to count the people in the hall, but the FBI agent made an effort to tally the enforcement men inside. There were three or four Texas Rangers, five or six Secret Service men, four Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, two postal inspectors, six Dallas detectives, a deputy sheriff, and Captain Fritz. These were in adjoining offices measuring ten feet by fourteen. In this standing-room-only situation, Hosty sought Forrest Sorrels, Secret Service agent in charge of the Dallas office.

  The FBI man wasn’t aware that his agency had been appointed to press the federal investigation into the assassination, so he assumed that the Secret Service was the dominant body. Hosty said that there was additional information at FBI headquarters which could be furnished to the Secret Service. Sorrels asked, “What?” There were two items which Hosty had in mind, but he did not feel at liberty to reveal them. Liaison between the two organizations was good, so Hosty proposed that Sorrels advise his Washington office to ask for material on Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Sorrels thanked him and said he would take care of it. The two items were the contacts Oswald had with the Soviet embassy in Mexico City two months ago and the several letters he had written to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. Down the hall Hosty waited for a public telephone to inform Gordon Shanklin of developments in the case.

  The ultimate indignity is not death but what men do to the dead. The man on his back under the lights was nude, defenseless, broken. The gentlemen of science, like white wraiths, moved about the body in the manner of whispering druids. They made small and sometimes indecipherable notes on pads. Commander J. J. Humes and Commander Thornton Boswell joined in a medical ritual of exactitude. There were prescribed steps to be taken in this profound abuse of the body and, if they were carried out precisely, the President of the United States would leave the room as a shell, and the physicians would be able to say with certainty that he had succumbed to a gunshot wound in the head.

  Kennedy was measured. He was 72½ inches tall. He weighed: 170 pounds. They looked at his eyes: blue. His hair, they decided, was reddish brown. He was 46 years of age, a male, and the subject of autopsy number A63-272. “The body is that of a muscular, well-developed and well-nourished Caucasian. . . . There is beginning rigor mortis, minimal dependent livor mortis of the dorsum, and early algor mortis.” The left eye was swollen and black and blue, obviously from the shot which hit the right rear of the head and pressed the brain violently forward toward the left optic.

  Clotted blood was found on the external ears. The President’s teeth were declared to be “in excellent repair” although there was some pallor of the oral mucous membrane. The doctors were observing. They moved about the body slowly, looking, pointing, noting. There was nothing they missed, from the midline of the head down to the squared toenails. He who would not appear in a country club locker room without a robe and towel was under the merciless eyes of a score of men.

  The small diagonal scar in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen was noted. The fact that he had arrived at Bethesda without clothes was recorded. A ragged wound was noted near the base of the larynx. Gently the body was turned over. The posterior was examined. The head wound was gross and obvious. There was a small oval puncture wound between the spine and the right shoulder blade. An inserted probe was stopped by the strap muscles. A frown darkened the faces of the medical priests. How could a missile go in there and (1) not come out in front somewhere; (2) still be inside? The doctors had a mystery. There was a separate small hole in the back of the head.

  There was a long vertical scar along the midline of the spine below the lumbar region. The man on the slab had felt that the operation almost killed him. It had not even relieved the steady toothache-of-a-pain which wearied every waking moment; it was the excruciating lightning which he was fond of denying when a well-wisher shook hands and yanked the President toward him. It was the dull ache which rang an alarm bell every time he arose from a chair; this was the moment when he smiled with his teeth and died a little in the eyes.

  Strong arms turned him face up again. The doctors had already noted recent violations of the skin. Near the nipples were two incisions, done at Dallas. No hemorrhage and no bruise mark showed; therefore he was probably dead when these were made. Two more were in the ankles. And one in the left mid-arm. Along the front of the right thigh was an old scar which no one but John F. Kennedy would remember.

  Skin tone was good. Muscle tone was excellent. And yet one would always have to revert to that massive head wound. The doctors did not want to probe it yet. It was, they decided, best described as a “large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions.” This involved the right top of the head and part of the side, almost up to the right temple.

  Mrs. Kennedy had expressed it simply: “They shot his head off.” As a result of the bullet which entered the neck, he was leaning forward, falling to his left. A bullet, flying at about two thousand feet per second, had then hit the skull in the right rear portion. This, the third bullet, had exploded the brain, and both brain and bullet had crashed upward through the skull, inducing pressure cracks in all directions. The cerebellum fits snugly inside its case and anything which displaces or engorges it—such as edema or hemorrhage—can cause extensive damage to the brain and, sometimes, death. The 6.5 bullet, once inside, was a tumbling, disruptive force which scattered the dura mater at high speed, giving it sufficient force to find the weakest part of the skull—the fissure cracks—and broke it open with flying bits of bone and hair, also providing an exit for most of the bullet.

  The doctors measured the missing area of the skull. It came to a little more than five inches from back to front, about half the head. In addition, there were star-shaped fractures of the skull which radiated across what was left of the cranial bone and down the sides and back. The doctors completed their pre-autopsy examination and called for a radiologist to take X-rays.

  Across the room, the men of the FBI—Sibert and O’Neill—made notes. William Greer, a hearty product of County Tyrone, Ireland, a man who always drove President Kennedy’s car and who drew pride from it, felt his stomach sicken. When the shot had been fired, he had heard the sound, as though someone was snapping a dry twig against his ear, and he had heard the echoes carom around Dealey Square, but he had not been able to look back at his distinguished passenger. At Parkland he had attended the beautiful and stricken young lady outside Trauma One and inside, too. There everyone had been so busy, so desperately busy, that Bill Greer had had no time to look for damage to the man he admired.

  Now he looked. Now he saw the tan nude body bereft of station or dignity. As he looked at the head, all Greer thought of was a hard-boiled egg with the top sliced off.

  Detective Rose of Dallas got out of his car at 835 Irving Boulevard and, with Detective Adamcik, hurried into Irving police headquarters. Their man turned out to be a frightened boy. Detective McCabe had him on a bench in a corner. He was tall and slender, about seventeen years of age, a long-necked boy with a nervous Adam’s apple, big feet and hands, and speech laden with the homely idioms of the clay country of Alabama. Guy Rose was an experienced man. He looked at the kid and felt disappointed. If the assassin had an accomplice, it could hardly be a scared boy.

  The first interrogation was brief. The responses were forthright. He knew Lee; drove him home to his wife on weekends and drove him back to the School Book Depository on Monday mornings usually. Lee was a fellow who didn’t talk much, didn’t make friends, brought his own lunch, and never bought anything, not even a drink of coffee or a newspaper. It was funny how he suddenly wanted to come home yesterday, because yesterday was Thursday, see, and he always made it on Friday. He said he wanted to get some curtain rods for his room in Dallas. Oswald was not a fellow you asked many questions.

  T
his morning he had the long package wrapped in brown paper. It was on the back seat of the car. Detective Rose said: “Oswald says that was his lunch.” Well, it couldn’t be his lunch because it was “this long,” said Frazier, holding his hands out in a spread of two and a half to three feet. “This morning, he told me he was going to buy his lunch. I remember because I was surprised. That’s one of the few times he was fixing to buy his lunch.”

  The detectives asked Wesley Frazier if he owned a rifle. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I got me a rifle. A good hunting rifle.” “Where is it?” “Home. I can show you if you want to see it.” Where was his car? Detective McCabe said it was left at the Irving Professional Clinic, where Frazier had been picked up. “We brought him here in our car.” Guy Rose said they would all go back and locate that car. He wanted to have a good look at it.

  The car turned out to be a ten-year-old Chevrolet. It was well frisked by the police. They even pulled the mats up. The country boy watched. It was difficult for him to comprehend what had happened and what he might have done to bring the wrath of the law upon him. By nature he was obliging and polite. When the police finished their work, they took Mr. Frazier to his sister’s house and went through it carefully.

  Linnie Mae Randall helped in every way. The detectives found very little worth bringing to headquarters. Frazier pointed to his .303 rifle, with full clip, and part of a box of hunting ammunition. Rose asked him and his sister to accompany them back to Dallas police headquarters. Captain Fritz would want sworn statements from them regarding their knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Wesley Frazier shook his head. “The only time he smiled,” he said, “was when I asked him did he have fun playing with the babies.”

  7 p.m.

  A wave of nausea engulfed Big D. The city became physically ill. Hospitals and sanitariums were subject to an inordinate number of emergency calls. The Vern Oneal ambulance service had three vehicles racing through the city with red lights winking, sirens shrieking, to pick up citizens who thought they were sustaining heart attacks, strokes, fainting spells, and ulcer attacks. Parkland Hospital had two nurses standing inside the emergency room door to wheel the patients in for treatment. Doctors were making emergency house calls. A large part of it was hysterical reaction, but the community reflexes also turned in the opposite direction—some of the people were glad that Kennedy was dead, although regretful that it had happened in their city.

  Gloom dominated joy. Dallas, Southern in emotion and Western in speech, was jealous of itself. The city was hypersensitive to criticism. It saw itself as rich and righteously Christian. No dust of civic scandal was permitted to cling to its boots. The world was going to give this story a lot of front-page attention and Dallas was being soiled by a lone communist who was not even a Dallasite—a native of New Orleans, perhaps, or Fort Worth. In Dallas he was a cheap laborer, a roomer in a boarding house. He had drawn a bloody scar across the beautiful face of the city and, even if it healed, the scar would show and people would always say: “Dallas—oh, yes. Where Kennedy was assassinated.”

  In a bare room at Parkland Hospital, Bardwell D. Odum sat watching. The work was almost complete. Doctor Earl Forrest Rose was sewing together what was left of Officer J. D. Tippit. Cool and professional, he completed his work notes on the autopsy. The dead frame on the table was almost the same size and configuration as the President. The hair was dark brown and thick; the body was muscular and well nourished. The face was broad and serene. He was a fairly young Caucasian male who should have had productive years ahead of him. Life had fled in a barrage of bullets when least expected. The pain, the bitterness would be in the eyes of a widow and children.

  Agent Odum of the FBI continued to watch and to make his personal notes. Dr. Rose completed his work, sighed, and peeled the rubber gloves from his hands. He studied his notes for a moment, added an observation or two, and nodded to an orderly. A sheet was tossed over the body of Tippit, and the stretcher was wheeled out. The cop could go home now.

  Odum got to his feet. The doctor fished into a small stainless steel tray. There was a battered uniform button in it and some bullets. When lifted, they rolled around the tray and made a musical sound. The doctor took an instrument and made a small indentation on each object. “This is my mark,” he said to the FBI man. “I will be able to identify it in court.” Bardwell Odum opened an envelope. The doctor dropped three .38 bullets into it. They had been taken from Tippit’s chest. So had the uniform button. There was one additional bullet which Doctor Paul Moellenhoff had found when Tippit arrived at the Methodist Hospital earlier.

  Lieutenant Day would be interested in these slugs. He and his men were still working on the fourth floor at police headquarters. As evidence came in, they studied it, analyzed, made notes and photographs. The Dallas crime laboratory was doing well. Day and his assistants had found two smudgy fingerprints on the side of the rifle close to the trigger guard. A palm print was raised from the underside of the barrel. There was a good palm print from a packing case. In some instances, they photographed their finds without completing comparison tests so that they could work on new evidence.

  On the third floor, the crush of journalists was worse. Newspapers had flown in extra men, and they were arriving in groups, demanding to be brought up to date on the status of the case. The crowd was so dense that movement became difficult. When someone like Captain Will Fritz uttered a few words publicly, only those in front could hear it, and they had to shout it over their shoulders until the quotation rippled the length of the long corridor.

  Seth Kantor was certain that he had never been in a situation like this. He had covered many stories, big and small, but he had never been party to a stampede. In the long dull periods, reporters often stared at each other for periods of time, uttering solitary words periodically: “In-CRED-ible!” “UN-believ-able!” “IM-poss-ible!” The tide of writers engulfed the corridor and spilled over into police offices, where they appropriated typewriters and paper and used the telephones.

  Detectives sought corners in which to question witnesses. Radio reporters, hungering for news, fell back on the cannibalistic practice of interviewing news reporters. Lack of information made the demands more strident. Getting to the men’s room near the elevators was a time-consuming assignment. No man dared to leave for a snack unless he had a reporter substituting for him. An air of acrimony was detectable. Early deadlines for the morning newspapers were passing, and Fritz refused to reveal what Oswald had said or what evidence he had against the man.

  In the Burglary and Theft office, a lieutenant and three detectives worked a telephone, running down assignments for Homicide. The glass door opened, and Detective A. M. Eberhardt looked up. Jack Ruby was smiling. “Hi, Mike,” he said. Ruby shook hands. Eberhardt said: “What are you doing here, Jack?” The nightclub owner was in good spirits. He said he had brought some kosher sandwiches—“nice lean corned beef”—to the reporters.

  Eberhardt, like most of the Dallas department, knew Ruby as a nightclub owner who would stake a cop to a drink or a free strip show. He was a “police buff,” one who enjoyed standing on the fringe of excitement. The other policemen exchanged greetings, and Ruby displayed a notebook and a pencil. “What’s that?” they asked. He said he was acting as translator, or interpreter, for the newspapers of Israel. Detective Eberhardt didn’t know whether this was a joke or not. He was aware that Jack Ruby could speak Yiddish, but didn’t the people of Israel speak Hebrew?

  “Isn’t it terrible, the assassination?” Ruby said. The men were back at work. They nodded. Two stenographers were checking statements before asking for attested signatures. “Mike,” he said, using Eberhardt’s middle name—“it is hard to realize that a complete nothing, a zero like that, could kill a man like President Kennedy.” Ruby asked how the detective’s family was. He pointed to his lapel and said: “I am here as a reporter.” The police knew that this was not true. There were no reporters from the newspapers of Israel. The statement was a ple
asant excuse in the event that a young policeman, not aware of Jack Ruby’s generosity to the department, should ask questions.

  He had an hour before going to temple services for the President. When a phone booth was empty, he phoned his nightclub. Larry Crafard answered. Ruby never identified himself on a telephone if he could avoid it. “Any messages for me?” he said. The handyman said there weren’t. Ruby didn’t say he was at police headquarters. He hung up.

  Almost every community has an assortment of indefinable personages who are referred to as “characters.” Most of them are neurotics who are anti-social. They strive for unknown goals, reach for an equanimity which is never grasped. The majority of them are sensitive and emotional, rising to hilarity or anger quickly and returning to a mildly depressive state within minutes.

  Jacob Rubenstein was a character. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, his aspiration was to become well known. Oswald selected a swift and desperate path. Ruby tried to ingratiate himself with those whom he regarded as his betters. Above all, he hoped to be accorded respect. When he got it, he accorded it quickly. He found criticism to be insufferable; a challenge to his virility led to a fistfight. He paid stripteasers $110 a week and enjoyed posing with them in their brief costmes.

  There was a hint of homosexuality in his belligerence. In most brawls, he made certain that his quarry was intoxicated or smaller than he. He was in trouble with the unions for underpayment of scale wages, for complaining about other nightclubs which featured amateur night stripteasers. As an automobile driver, he was arrested or subpoenaed twenty times. He blackjacked an employee, kicked customers in the groin, slapped girls, threatened to throw a customer down a flight of stairs, and asked a stripper named Jada to move into his apartment “platonically”—to prove his manhood.

  Cash was his god. His two bank accounts seldom showed more than $200, but on his person and in the trunk of his car he often carried over $2000 in bills. At times he wrote invalid checks. The Internal Revenue Service had a claim of delinquent taxes in the amount of $44,000. Still he regarded himself as a strong patriotic American, a religious Jew, a gentleman of “class.”