The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  Oswald neither smiled nor frowned. The sullen mask had been pasted on tight and it showed nothing. The onset of personal hostility did not alarm Will Fritz. He assumed that Chief Jesse Curry knew what he was doing. Chief Curry assumed that Captain Talbert had charge of the security of police headquarters. The chief passed an order that, if the press was admitted to any of the lineups, they would have to stand behind the witnesses in silence. He did not want them to address any questions to the prisoner.

  Off the edge of the lineup room, Oswald stood quietly as Don Ables, the jail clerk, nodded to him. Two of the men were new. Both were prisoners. Again Oswald was the number two man, shackled to three others. He was intelligent and he must have known that he would again be the only man in those lights with real bruises.

  In front, behind the dark curtain, Troy Lee sat watching. He had come to police headquarters with his wife and his sister-in-law. One was the former Barbara Davis; the other was Virginia Davis. They were young girls, laden with the responsibility of marriage, babies, rent, and husbands. They told the police officers, again and again, that they had been trying to doze off after lunch when Officer Tippit had been shot.

  They heard the explosions and jumped up and ran to the screen door. A policeman, on the outside of his car, had fallen beside the front wheel. Through the screen door they had seen a young man, not walking but not running either, cutting cater-cornered across their lawn. One hand was held high and he was pulling empty shells from a revolver. The sisters were nervous. Troy Lee told them to be calm and to tell the policemen if there was anybody up on that stage that they recognized.

  The lights went on and four men, walking in profile, trooped onstage. The women’s eyes flickered across the brightly lit faces. Virginia leaned across Barbara and whispered to the detective: “That’s him.” She nodded her head positively. “Which is him?” “That second boy.” Barbara Davis agreed. “Yes,” she said quietly. “That’s the one. The second one counting from this side.” They pointed and whispered and Troy Lee leaned across the policeman to listen.

  The policeman made a few notes in a small loose-leaf. “What did you see him doing?” he said. “I have to write up a statement.” The girls again told the story of the nap, the fusillade of shots, and the trotting “boy.” Onstage, a lieutenant asked each of the four men to face front, to turn left, to turn completely to the right. The Davis girls were so excited that they were giving their statements simultaneously.

  The eyes of Marguerite Oswald stared at the furnishings of the Paine house. She nuzzled little Rachel to her bosom and studied the living room. To her, life was a sequence of frustrations. On the way home, she had tried to communicate with her daughter-in-law, but the best she could do was to pat Marina’s hand. There was so much that she wanted to say. She had never protested Lee’s choice of a Russian girl as a wife. But truly the girl was a foreigner.

  Marguerite saw the couch she would occupy, and she looked into the kitchen on the edge of the garage. Marina was in the bathroom composing herself. The Paine children and June Oswald frolicked on the floor. Someone would have to get something to eat for the little ones. It must be close to bedtime. Two men knocked on the front door and Ruth Paine admitted them with her friendly cry.

  One was holding a camera. Marina emerged into the living room looking brighter. Mrs. Paine introduced Marina to the men, Allan Grant and Tommy Thompson of Life magazine. Marguerite Oswald was not introduced. It was an affront—conscious or subconscious—which could not be dismissed. The bud of friendship between Marguerite and Ruth began to wither. Mrs. Paine dropped to the floor with the children, tucked her legs under her skirt, and said gaily: “Now, I hope you have good color film, because I want good pictures.”

  This somewhat obtusely, involved another facet of Marguerite Oswald’s character. It concerned economics. She never lost sight of a dollar, real or fancied. It might be true that her son, her flesh and blood, was in dire peril on this night, but it could not be permitted to obscure the realities. She would be prepared, from time to time, to sell her story and her opinions; she would be ready to sell letters or mementos from her son, but she was not ready to give anything away.

  Her glance became hard. Tommy Thompson was saying: “Tell me, are Marina and Lee separated, since Lee lives in Dallas?” Ruth Paine wore her holiday smile. “No,” she said, speaking to millions of people beyond the pages of next week’s Life, “they are a happy family. Lee lives in Dallas because of necessity. He works in Dallas, and this is Irving. He has no transportation and he comes to see his family every weekend.” “What type of family man is he?” “A normal family man. He plays with his children. Last night he even fed June. . . .”

  Marina did not understand the conversation. Marguerite Oswald didn’t think it was Ruth Paine’s story to tell. “Mrs. Paine,” said Thompson, “can you tell me how Lee got the money to return to the United States?” “Oh, yes,” Ruth said. “He saved the money to come back.” Marguerite began to fume. This type of publicity was uncalled for. Her beloved son should be protected from outsiders. And yet she felt that she was on brittle footing because this was Mrs. Paine’s home. Marguerite could be expelled.

  A lady can remain silent only so long. “Now, Mrs. Paine,” said Marguerite Oswald in the petulant, injured tone of her third son, “I am sorry.” All the heads in the room came up. “I am in your home. And I appreciate the fact that I am a guest in your home. But I will not have you making statements that are incorrect.” This was calculated to divert the newsmen to the place where the correct story reposed. “To begin with, I do not approve of this publicity. And if we are going to have the story with Life magazine, I would like to get paid.”

  There it was. The poor can afford to be tactless. Grant and Thompson glanced at each other. Marina realized that a new and jarring note had erased the smile from Ruth’s face, but no one bothered to explain what grandmother was talking about. “Here is my daughter-in-law,” said Mrs. Oswald, pointing dramatically with her free hand, “with two small children. And I myself am penniless, and if we are going to give this information, I believe we should get paid for it.”

  Lee Harvey Oswald was for sale. The type of story a writer would get would depend upon the source. Marguerite would defend her boy; Marina would give it a somber mood and gray skies; Ruth Paine could make it as cheerful as a Quaker picnic in the hills of Pennsylvania; Robert Oswald could analyze it back to the cradle; John Pic wanted to forget it.

  The grandmother had a latent suspicion that Ruth Paine had engineered a secret deal with the men from Life and was being paid. The appearance of the two men at the front door, she was sure, was not accidental. It might even have been set up with Marina’s assistance. Ruth spoke to Marina in Russian. This was an additional frustration because Marguerite could not present her motherly views to her daughter-in-law. Nor did she trust Mrs. Paine to translate her dicta accurately.

  The conversation became a crossfire of two languages. One of the newsmen stood and, addressing Marguerite, said: “Mrs. Oswald, I will call my office and see what they think about an arrangement for your life story.” This was even better. Mrs. Oswald felt that her life story, one of hardships and affronts to Southern womanhood, had more drama and more appeal than Lee’s. She had not seen much of her son since he enlisted in the Marine Corps on October 26, 1956. He had been away a long while, come home for a few days, gone to Russia, come back to Texas, and avoided her. There was a question of how much information she could supply about him.

  The Life man went into another room and called his superior. Mrs. Oswald dandled Rachel and, beyond doubt, had visions of real money at last falling into her hands. Private nursing cases are drudgery. She carried bedpans, changed sheets and nightclothes, brought cool glasses of water with glass straws, listened to the feeble protests of the chronically ill, snatched a little television and a nap, and hurried home to spend her waking time alone. This could be the biggest thing in her life.

  The man came out and said that Li
fe would not pay money for Marguerite’s story. He had a counteroffer. The magazine would pay hotel and food expenses for the group in Dallas. Marguerite was disappointed. She was hurt. However, she would think about it, she said. The men from Life did not leave. Allan Grant made photographs. The flash winked. Marguerite began to feel warm. She rolled her stockings below her knees and sat. The cameraman made a picture. “I am not having this invasion of privacy,” she shouted. “I realize that I am in Mrs. Paine’s home. But you are taking my picture without my consent—a picture that I certainly don’t want made public.”

  The photographer followed Marina into the bedroom. The babies were going to bed. Marguerite hurried to follow and interposed herself between the family and the photographer. He continued to make pictures. “I’ve had it!” she said, waving her arms. “Find out what accommodations you can make for my daughter-in-law and I so we can be in Dallas to help Lee.” Her tone brooked no argument. “Let me know in the morning!” The men left.

  Time dragged. The night was long. The people on the streets shuffled aimlessly. The clocks on the banks flicked their lights to 7:55, and a man’s mind would race with regret over broad spans of horror and, when he lifted his eyes eventually to another clock, the lights said 7:55. The eternity of time was the result of trying to turn it back to 12:29 P.M., when the roar of the downtown crowds assailed the ears of the pleased President. It did not matter, really, whether a man liked him or not; this was part of the fair and sunny world of democracy.

  The dreadful thing happened and those who did not admire him mourned with those who did. A blackness had settled on the land and strangers in buses and elevators and planes and in shops said: “I was on my lunch hour . . .” “I called home to see how things were . . .” “It was Friday, I thought we’d go to a movie tonight . . .” “I slept late . . .” “I was in class . . .” “I rarely turn the car radio on . . .” “I was getting a roast for Sunday . . .” “We felt as though we knew him . . .” “We were going out to our country place for a last weekend . . .” “I saw this woman crying . . .”

  The only thing which could reverse the clock was television. The commentators were solemn, the voices sometimes shaken. But there he was, alive again, the arm punctuating the words: “Let the word go forth from this place at this time . . .” “Ask not what your country can do for you . . .” “. . . she takes longer, but then when she appears, she looks better than we do . . .” Robert Oswald, the lonely man, walked seven blocks to his car and it seemed as though he arrived at the same moment he had left police headquarters. Time would not dissolve. Nor would it evaporate. This frightful night would go on and on, torturing the innocent and the helpless. How long ago was it that his mind had been set in flames in that shop in Fort Worth? It must have been a long, long time because the same thoughts had been slipping in and out of the revolving door of the mind.

  He drove through the downtown area. Robert Oswald wasn’t sure where he was going. He could go home, but there was nothing to say. A man does not like to plague his wife and family with this situation. He would be impelled to discuss it, but what would he say? What would he say Monday at the shop? Or, more important, what would the men say to him? Suppose it was true—suppose his brother had done this thing? What do you say: “My name is Robert Oswald—you know, the brother of the assassin.”

  The car moved slowly through the almost empty streets. It came to Dealey Plaza and rolled slowly down the incline past the Texas School Book Depository building. Two policemen stood in the middle of Elm with flashlights, hurrying the flagging motorists. Robert Oswald had no desire to stop. He didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t want to look at that building. His wheels passed near the spot where life ended and eternity began for John F. Kennedy. At the underpass, he moved out across the viaduct and over the damp bed of the Trinity River and on out on Route Eighty.

  Thinking would do no good, and yet thought imprisoned him. He drove slowly, carefully, doing the right things, going west on Arcadia, staring along through the windshield. He could not go to his mother because he lacked the faith. It would be almost as difficult to try to communicate with Marina. The night was cool; that was all a man could say for it. The false summer of the sun was gone. Vaguely, a man could see the bright cat’s eyes of trailer trucks eastbound, making him squint, and then they were gone. He must have passed Cockrell Hill and Arcadia Park because they were behind the car. There were filling stations whizzing by and lights, a diner, a motel. Cars went by him showing broad braces of red lights in the back. He passed Arlington, and Robert Oswald asked himself where he was going.

  Nowhere. He would not flee, even if he could. He would help Lee. Being a good brother carries a price. On this day, it was high. In random thought, he may have asked himself if there was a small key out of the past which might have triggered this deed. There were scores of scenes, unwholesome, unhealthy, which could be dredged from boyhood. To a child, a bad life is livable if he has seen no other. To an adult who has earned his own contentment, old memories can be a pit of vipers. It would seem to the Oswald boys that they never had a youth. They were always little men, doing as they were told by their mother; doing as they were told in orphanages; doing as they were told in school; eating when they were told; eating what they were told. There was a shy, timid joy when Marguerite married another man and, for a moment in time, they had a home and a bedroom and a few toys. Even that was a cruel come-on because the boys barely became acclimated to the joys of climbing a tree, throwing a ball, or breaking in a new pair of shiny shoes when it was gone.

  He drove over Lancaster into Fort Worth and out near the Ridglea Golf Club and turned around. The car, like his thoughts, was on a carousel. Robert Oswald returned to Dallas. He did not know why. There was nothing he could do. And he had no place to go.

  8 p.m.

  A Secret Service man stood outside the seventeenth-floor suite with two cases. There was an overnight bag with fresh clothing for Mrs. John F. Kennedy. The small one was a makeup case. Both carried the monogram JBK. They had been packed by Providencia Parades, an attractive darkskinned maid from Santo Domingo. Miss Parades knew that Mrs. Kennedy required a change of clothing. The bags were taken into the suite. Mrs. Kennedy had them placed in the bedroom and left them unopened.

  The guests tried to become accustomed to the blood and brains. It was impossible. The glances were masked. In spite of the several conversations going on in the sitting room, the kitchen and the bedroom, the sight of this remarkable young woman emerging from a room constricted throats and hurt eyes. It was as though they were looking at a murder. Part of the President of the United States was in the room. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara sat on the kitchen floor, his back against a counter, as Mrs. Kennedy chatted.

  The conversation drifted. He saw the “bloody skirt and blood all over her stockings” and he, the most composed of men, thought of it as “fantastic.” “Where am I going to live?” she asked, at one time. This was specious and small-girlish. No one who lives in the White House has ever regarded it as a permanent residence. It was not as though she were being evicted, nor even as though she had no place to go. She had inherited a fine home at Hyannis Port; her mother had a big home in Georgetown; Mrs. Kennedy had riches. It is possible that she intended the question to mean “What place would be best for me?”

  An hour had passed since Godfrey McHugh came upstairs with news about the President’s remains. Mrs. Kennedy, alert with the energy which nature lends to those most deeply hurt, noticed that some of the women looked fatigued. She suggested that they all go home and “get some rest.” The ladies declined. Some pointed out that she was the one who needed rest, that there would be much for her to do, many decisions to make, and that she should consider lying down. She too declined. The widow had promised herself that she would remain at her husband’s side until she brought him “home.” It was a sacrifice for Mrs. Kennedy to remain on the seventeenth floor while he was in the autopsy room.

  Charle
s and Mary Bartlett arrived, and this brought a freshet of tears. Mr. Bartlett was a Washington columnist. Twelve years ago, when Jacqueline Bouvier had been an inquiring photographer for a local newspaper, the Bartletts had introduced her to the young and dashing Congressman from Massachusetts, Jack Kennedy. He was a ladies’ man indeed, with an eccentricity, he seldom carried cash. Often, at a motion picture house, he fanned his pockets and had to borrow money from his dates. For a young man who was granted a trust fund of one million dollars before he earned one, it was embarrassing to watch the lady of his choice hold up a queue while she delved into her purse.

  The tears came. The tears dried. Often, the mind of the widow regressed to the good days. She remembered and remembered and remembered. In some of the sad, sweet recollections, a joy suffused her wan face. The eyes became enormous pools of dusky light, the graceful hands augmented the stories, Dallas didn’t happen. Her relatives and friends nodded and smiled and added some anecdotes of their own. Then she would speak of how she planned to conduct herself, and the doleful word “funeral” was uttered, and suddenly all the happy days lay shattered in the silence and on the stunned faces.

  America would be watching this funeral; of that she was certain. And Mrs. Kennedy said that she was going to hold her head high. She would not break down because she would not permit it. Everything that she would do, or permit to be done, would have to conform with what she thought her husband would approve. She recalled that, as a former naval officer, he had looked forward with pleasure to the forthcoming Army-Navy game. That is why she had asked for a Navy ambulance and a naval hospital. The Navy, she felt, would remove the bullets from his body and dress it for burial. She was not told that the procedure involved a full autopsy.