End of Days

by James L. Swanson

  254 “[V]isit our friend.” See Manchester, Death of a President, pp. 619–20.

  263 Souvenirs. An entire book can be written on all of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of souvenirs and other “relics” regarding the JFK assassination. Especially in the age of the Internet and eBay, most of these items, even those that were once thought to be scarce, are quite common and appear frequently on the marketplace. Even wood and bricks from the Texas Book Depository, pieces of the grassy-knoll fence, and Oswald’s furniture come on the marketplace.

  Desk ornament of Dealey Plaza. This infamous desk ornament was not well received in Dallas. In William Manchester’s book, The Death of a President, he labels this item to be one of “continuing embarrassment to the civic leaders” and a “grotesque sideshow” (p. 634). There are several different versions of this item, with and without the paper clip well. It almost always is missing the original pen.

  Night-light. This is very hard to find in the original packaging, and it is likely that few were made. Also, some entrepreneur produced the large “flame of hope” candles and to boost sales was able to get press coverage by having various Kennedy family members pose as they received their boxed sets.

  The first memorial pamphlet was probably the forty-page John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the Federal City He Loved, published in 1963 by Tatler Publishing Company just a few days after the assassination and funeral (with a few photos of the funeral).

  Figurines. Inarco produced three-piece figurine dolls with a large Jackie head in a mourning veil accompanying smaller figurines of the two children, Caroline and John Jr. saluting.

  Oswald radio interviews in New Orleans. Similar to the reissuing and repackaging of identical Beatles long-play (33⅓ rpm) phonographic recordings by Vee Jay Records prior to and during the Capitol Records 1964 release of Introducing the Beatles, so too, did entrepreneurs cash in on the radio interviews and other statements of Lee Harvey Oswald. There were several different phonographic records, but they essentially provided the same material. See Oswald: Self-Portrait in Red, Information Council of America, Eyewitness Records, EW-1001, 1967 (probably the most common), and Lee Harvey Oswald Speaks, Information Council of America, Eyewitness Records, EW-1002, 1967 (essentially the same record with a different cover); Lee Harvey Oswald Speaks, Truth Records, 1966; The President’s Assassin Speaks, Key Records, KLP 880; and Hear Kennedy’s Killer: An Interview with Lee Harvey Oswald, S.S. Records, 1964 (this independent label is slightly more scarce).

  Needless to say, there are more than one hundred phonographic memorial recordings in tribute to JFK, including foreign-language releases, as well as many long-playing documentary records on the assassination itself. No one yet has published a complete discography of all of the long-playing records, 45 rpm singles, reel-to-reel tapes, and CDs that have been released.

  Marguerite Oswald’s financial enterprises. After her son’s death, Marguerite Oswald engaged in some commercial efforts. See her self-published booklet on Lee’s funeral: Marguerite Oswald, Aftermath of an Execution: The Burial and Final Rites of Lee Harvey Oswald as Told by His Mother (Dallas: Challenge Press, 1965). She also participated in a phonographic recording, The Oswald Case: Mrs. Marguerite Oswald Reads Lee Harvey Oswald’s Letters from Russia (New York: Broadside Records, 1964). This was part of two-record series from Broadside Records. The other recording was by Mark Lane, the attorney she retained to represent her son before the Warren Commission, The Oswald Case: Mark Lane’s Testimony to the Warren Commission (New York: Broadside Records, 1964). For Marguerite Oswald’s own biography, see Jean Stafford, A Mother in History (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966). Bob Schieffer, the current moderator of Face the Nation on CBS, was then a young police reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and had the serendipitous opportunity to drive Marguerite Oswald to the police station just a few hours after her son was arrested. His observation about their conversation was that “she was obsessed about money.” See Trost, President, p. 129.

  263 LBJ address to the joint session of Congress, Nov. 27, 1963. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, bk. 1, Nov. 22, 1963–June 30, 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), pp. 8–10.

  264 Creation of Warren Commission. Ibid., p. 13. For Executive Order 11130, see p. 14.

  264 November 29, 1963, Washington Star article, Charlie Barlett, “hero for a friend.” See Manchester, President, p. 446.

  CHAPTER 10: “ONE BRIEF SHINING MOMENT”

  266 White interview, Life magazine. See Life, December 6, 1963, pp. 158–59.

  269 See Benjamin Bradlee, That Special Grace (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964).

  270 Magazine memorial issues. During the last fifty years, there have been hundreds of serial magazines with images of the Kennedys printed on the cover. Life magazine, perhaps more than any other, was especially smitten with placing the Kennedys on its covers. This is perhaps because of the relationship Henry Luce, the publisher of Life, and his wife had with Joseph and Rose Kennedy. JFK, his wife, other family members, and even their children, appeared on the covers of Life nineteen times up until November 22, 1963. Including memorial and other special issues, the Kennedys have appeared on the cover of Life over seventy times. Scores of specialty individual magazines (“one-shots) were issued to cover the Kennedy presidency, his life and death, his funeral, various aspects of the JFK assassination, Oswald’s life, and the Ruby trial.

  Some special items: Stanley Marcus of the Dallas-based department store Nieman Marcus commissioned a very special limited edition of five hundred copies of JFK’s undelivered Dallas Trade Mart speech. This publication was created by book designer Carl Hertzog.

  The State Democratic Executive Committee Mailing. All of the more than two thousand individuals who bought the $100 gold tickets to the Austin dinner fund-raiser for the evening of November 22 received in the mail a commemorative packet, which included in a black cardboard mailer: a short paper message acknowledging the contribution, a long-play phonographic recording, His Last 24 Hours, a reprint of the two JFK speeches never delivered, and a specially produced one-page dinner program.

  The Funeral Cortege of President John F. Kennedy (toy soldiers). This boxed set contains twenty-six pieces, including gun carriage, six-horse team, riderless horse, flag-draped coffin, military escorts and honor guard, Ted, Robert, Jackie, Caroline, and John Jr., as well as instructions for their positioning. It was produced in 1997 by S.T.E. Ltd., in a limited edition of five hundred sets.

  Stamps and coins: In the years immediately following the assassination, many countries issued commemorative JFK stamps, perhaps the most unusual being a series of eight stamps issued by Umm Al Qiwain of the United Arab Emirates depicting scenes from Kennedy’s funeral. See Helen Emery, Stamps Tell the Story of John F. Kennedy (New York: Meredith Press, 1968). One of the more unusual commemorative coins was issued in Germany by Deutsche Numismatikin in various sizes in gold and silver with JFK being shot on the obverse and Ruby shooting Oswald on the reverse. See Aubrey Mayhew, The World’s Tribute to John F. Kennedy in Medallic Art: Metals, Coins and Tokens—an Illustrated Standard Reference (New York: Morrow, 1966).

  270 CBS employee brochure, dated Dec. 18, 1963, with a cover letter from Frank Stanton. Other networks created similar items for their employees. For instance, ABC produced a two-disc long-playing record, November 22nd, 1963, for internal use by their staff. In addition, networks and radio stations issued items for commercial sale, for instance, the phonographic recording The Fateful Hours: Actual Unforgettable News Reports of Friday, November 22nd, 1963, by KLIF Dallas, a McLendon Station (Capitol Records RB-2278, n.d.). NBC issued two books on its broadcast: Seventy Hours and Thirty Minutes: As Broadcast on the NBC Television Network by NBC News (New York: Random House, 1966), and an illustrated version, There Was a President (New York: Ridge Press, 1966). Even TV Guide published a special issue on the television coverage of Kennedy’s assassination. Both AP and UPI issued books on their own
coverage: The Torch Is Passed: The Associated Press Story of the Death of a President (New York: Associated Press, 1964), and Four Days: the Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy (American Heritage, 1964). Local newspapers imprinted their own names on these wire-service editions, and some entrepreneurial newspapers, such as the Kansas City Star, actually printed their own dust jackets to cover the AP edition. Many newspapers also issued special pamphlets touting their own coverage, and of course just about every newspaper had a special pullout section. There were scores of these types of publications, some of which were reprinted for anniversary editions. See, for instance, Good Night, Brave Spirit: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (“as covered by the Boston Globe,” forty-page magazine format); Oh, No! Oh No! Four Tragic Days as Reported by the Milwaukee Journal (large stiff-paper format); or Assassination of a President: A Chronicle of the Six Days from November 23 to November 28, 1963, Reprinted from the Pages of the New York Times (New York: Viking, 1964; newspaper size in both boxed and envelope editions).

  272 “I wanted my old house back.” Pottker, Jan, Janet & Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), p. 232.

  272 Honoring Clint Hill. See Hill, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, pp. 326–27.

  273 LBJ Medal of Freedom Ceremony, Dec. 6, 1963, State Dining Room of the White House. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, bk. 1, Nov. 22, 1963–June 30, 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), pp. 29–34.

  275 McNamara note. See “The White House Years of Robert S. McNamara,” Sotheby’s Auctions, Oct. 23, 2012.

  275 LBJ candlelight memorial service for President Kennedy at the Lincoln Memorial, Dec. 22, 1963. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, bk. 1, Nov. 22, 1963–June 30, 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), pp. 79–80.

  276 Presentation of inaugural-address books to McNamara and Powers. See “The White House Years of Robert S. McNamara,” Sotheby’s Auctions, Oct. 23, 2012.

  277 Short thank-you film in movie theaters. On January 14, 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy appeared in a newsreel, which preceded the featured film in movie theaters throughout the country, to thank the nation for its outpouring of sympathy. For a video of her brief remarks, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJhAkD8LGwg. For some of the letters of the nation’s outpouring of grief, see Ellen Fitzpatrick, ed., Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation (New York: Ecco Press, 2010), and Jay Mulvaney and Paul De Angelis, Dear Mrs. Kennedy: The World Shares Its Grief—Letters, November 1963 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010).

  278 JFK Library. In 1964, the trustees, hoping to raise funds for the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, launched a traveling exhibit. A fund-raising pamphlet was produced for this purpose. See The John F. Kennedy Library Exhibit (Rockville, MD: Haynes Lithograph Company, 1964).

  279 Kennedy Funeral Tribute. See Melville Bell Grosvenor, The Last Full Measure: The World Pays Tribute to President Kennedy (Washington, DC: National Geographic, March 1964), pp. 307–55. This article was subsequently reprinted as a freestanding pamphlet.

  280 Move to New York. Though she avoided the press and public comments, hundreds of articles and numerous books were written after Jackie’s White House years. See Bill Adler, The Eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Portrait in Her Own Words (New York: William Morrow, 2004); Christopher Anderson, Jackie after Jack (New York: William Morrow, 1998); Michael Beschloss, ed., Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (New York: Hyperion, 2011); Sarah Bradford, America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (New York: Viking, 2000); C. David Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie (New York: Carol Communications, 1989); William Kuhn, Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books (New York: Nan A. Talese, 2010); and Gregg Lawrence, Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011).

  281 In 1972, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, exasperated by her unwelcomed obsessive photographer stalker, Ron Galella, successfully obtained a restraining order. Gallella was enjoined from “(1) keeping the defendant and her children under surveillance or following any of them; (2) approaching within 100 yards of the home of defendant or her children, or within 100 yards of either child’s school or within 75 yards of either child or 50 yards of defendant; (3) using the name, portrait or picture of defendant or her children for advertising; (4) attempting to communicate with defendant or her children except through her attorney.” Galella v. Onassis, 353 F. Supp. 196 (1972). This judgment was affirmed in part and modified in part by the appellate court, 487 F.2d 986 (1973). Galella’s claim against the Secret Service agents’ aggressive response to his presence when he was near Jackie’s family was dismissed. In 2010, the cable television company HBO produced a documentary, Smash His Camera, on this paparazzo photographer—the titled borrowed from Jackie own request to her Secret Service detail as to how to respond to Galella’s intrusive behavior.

  283 LBJ Choice for VP. Almost immediately after the assassination, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey perceived a political opportunity to ingratiate himself with Johnson—especially on the civil-rights issue—perhaps with the hope of securing the number-two spot on the Democratic ticket in 1964. His first meeting with LBJ, along with other congressional leaders, occurred almost immediately after Johnson returned to his office in the Old Executive Office Building. See Gillon, Kennedy Assassination, pp. 174–77. Also see Hubert H. Humphrey, Education of a Public Man: My Life in Politics (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), p. 260 (“desire to be of all possible assistance”).

  283 RFK speech at convention. Go to the PBS website at www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/filmmore/pt.html.

  283 LBJ election mandate. See U.S. House of Representatives, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1964, corrected to Aug. 15, 1965 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), p. 53.

  284 Life interview. See Manchester, Death, p. 625.

  285 LBJ announcement that he would not seek reelection, March 31, 1968. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, bk. 1, Jan. 1–June 30, 1968 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. 469–76, and Horace W. Busby, The Thirty-First of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson’s Final Days in Office (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).

  286 Jackie’s note to McNamara about Harvard and library. See “The White House Years of Robert S. McNamara,” Sotheby’s Auctions, Oct. 23, 2012.

  287 Jackie’s burial at Arlington. As the widow of an American serviceman, Jackie Kennedy Onassis was entitled to be buried next to the president. While ill with non-­Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she decided that this would be her final resting place. Paul F. Horvitz, “Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Laid to Rest Near Eternal Flame,” New York Times, May 24, 1994, www.nytimes.com/1994/05/24/news/24iht-subjackie.html.

  At this site in the cemetery, she is buried next to JFK, her unnamed stillborn daughter, and their infant Patrick.

  EPILOGUE

  288 Sixth Floor Museum: See Conover Hunt, A Visitor’s Guide to Dealey Plaza National Historic Landmark, Dallas, Texas (Dallas: Sixth Floor Museum, 1995), and Conover Hunt, The Sixth Floor: John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation (Dallas: Dallas County Historical Society, 1989). The Sixth Floor Museum’s website is www.jfk.org.

  289 Touring Dallas sites. In Texas, the first commercially released self-published stitch-stapled vest-pocket guide that contained numerous illustrations and maps locating the many sites associated with the assassination was by John Wesley Tackett, Nov. 22—Where It Happened: The Historical Guide to the Assassination Site, Oswald’s Grave, Ruby’s Trial, Marina Oswald’s Home, and Others ([Fort Worth]: Author, 1964). In subsequent, years, others have also published similar works.

  290 Conspiracy street bazaar: Much like Ford’s Theatre, where President Lincoln was shot, the Sixth Floor Museum provides a somber, thoughtful, and hist
orical response to the JFK assassination. However, the visit to Dealey Plaza itself is a very different experience. It has become a major Dallas tourist attraction. Over the years, a tourist could be greeted by a person trying to sell a souvenir newspaper, such as JFK Assassination: Historical Journal (reprinted numerous times, as a “a Dealey Plaza special edition” or a special anniversary edition), or one might spot a well-known conspiracy theorist lecturing on the Grassy Knoll. One such individual and perennial vendor of books in Dealey Plaza is Robert Groden. He has waged a legal battle against the city after being ticketed repeatedly next to the pedestal on the Grassy Knoll where Abraham Zapruder filmed. Groden was arrested in 2010 for selling his assassination literature at this location. This feud with the city is ongoing. See Rudolph Bush, “Attorney for JFK Author Frustrated by Sixth Floor Museum’s Dealey Plaza Permit,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 14, 2011, http://city hallblog.dallasnews.com/2011/11/attorney-for-jfk-author-frustr.html.

  Professional tour guides provide guided visits to the various JFK sites of interest in the city, and at one time, there was even a conspiracy museum, in a storefront just a few blocks away from the Texas School Book Depository.

  291 Common relics. Everyone saved newspapers and magazines that were printed in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes the millions. Many were reprinted numerous times over the last fifty years.

  292 The following is a listing of some of the most interesting artifacts and relics.

  Air Force One, Boeing VC-137C (SAM 26000). The plane is on display in the Presidential Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/index.asp.

  Parkland Hospital’s trauma room one. Since 1963, Parkland Hospital has been both expanded and remodeled. Today the wall tiles and contents of trauma room one are the property of the National Archives and remain in its underground storage facility in Lenexa, Kansas.