Killing Kennedy

by O’Reilly, Bill

  Reading fuels Oswald’s rage. He devours several books a week. The topics range in subject matter from a Chairman Mao biography to James Bond novels. Then, as summer 1963 concludes its first weeks, Oswald chooses to read about subject matter he’s never before explored: John F. Kennedy.

  In fact, Lee Harvey is so enchanted by William Manchester’s bestseller Portrait of a President that after returning it to the New Orleans Public Library, he checks out Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage.

  The collection of essays, which won John Kennedy the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, is about the lives and actions of eight great men.

  Even in the midst of the squalor and depression that define the Oswalds’ New Orleans summer, Lee Harvey Oswald reads JFK’s carefully chosen words and is inspired to hope that one day he, too, will exhibit that sort of courage.

  * * *

  On day seven of his trip to Europe, John Kennedy rides in an open-air convertible through the narrow, twisting streets of Galway, Ireland. The crowd is manic and presses in close toward the Cadillac. The many tight turns force the president’s driver to slow the car to a crawl. Some Secret Service agents believe that seaports such as Galway are higher-risk environments than inland cities because of their large immigrant populations, but as is always the case when a motorcade route causes the president’s car to slow down for a turn, the intersection has been thoroughly prechecked by an advance team of agents.

  But the tight turns are not the only potential hazard: the buildings lining the route are mostly two stories tall. The distance between their upper windows and the president’s motorcade is a third of the distance between General Ted Walker and the alley where Lee Harvey Oswald hid on the night of April 10, 1963.

  In fact, John F. Kennedy is traveling through the ideal kill zone. One man with a gun could squeeze off a shot and escape into the throngs in a matter of seconds. And the president is clearly aware that such a thing might happen. He has been thinking quite a bit about martyrs lately and has become fond of quoting a verse by Irish poet Thomas Davis:

  We thought you would not die—we were sure you would not go;

  And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell’s cruel blow—

  Sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out the sky—

  Oh, why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?

  But today the specter of death doesn’t seem to matter. It is Saturday, June 29, 1963. An estimated hundred thousand Irish citizens line the streets of that raucous port city on the west coast of Ireland. Six hundred Gardai, police, are there to hold back the cheering crowds.

  Due to Jackie Kennedy’s history of troubled pregnancies, she did not make the trip to Europe, as she so famously did two years ago. John Kennedy has the adulation of the crowds all to himself.

  Many questioned why the president would go to Europe at such a volatile time. The title of an editorial in last Sunday’s edition of the New York Times asked, “Is This Trip Necessary?”

  “In the face of much adverse comment and good reasons not to go,” the editorial went on to say, “President Kennedy is proceeding with his trip to Europe at a most inauspicious time.”

  But John Kennedy knows the power of good political timing, and the trip has been a smashing success. At a time when the civil rights controversy has threatened to damage his presidency, the European trip proves that he is clearly the most popular and charismatic man in the world. More than a million Germans lined his motorcade route in Cologne when he arrived there a week ago. Twenty million more Europeans watched him on television. And another million greeted him in West Berlin. There, to chants of “Ken-ne-DEE,” he won over the crowd with a powerful prodemocracy speech. “All free men, wherever they live, are citizens of Berlin,” said the president. “And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’”

  The crowd went wild.

  JFK’s Berlin speech was a security nightmare for the Secret Service. The president stood alone and unprotected on a podium as thousands looked on. The crowd wasn’t checked for weapons, and many watched from rooftops or open windows. John Kennedy, in the words of one agent, was a “sitting duck.”

  Or, in the words of another agent: “All it takes is one lucky shot.”

  * * *

  In Moscow, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, fearing that Kennedy’s popularity would lead to an erosion of support in East Berlin, quickly flew to that divided city to reassert his nation’s claims. He and Kennedy did not meet. In fact, crowds a fraction of the size that greeted Kennedy even noticed that Khrushchev was in town, underscoring JFK’s amazing popularity and sending a clear message that Khrushchev’s power was on the wane.

  John F. Kennedy’s European presence even affects the arrogant French president, Charles de Gaulle. From his perch in Paris, de Gaulle has become the bully of Western European politics, but he has more than met his match in JFK, prompting an amazed New York Times writer to marvel that “for the first time, President de Gaulle had been confronted by a Western leader whose ideas on that future are as firm as his own, whose confidence in the ultimate triumph of his ideas is as great and who, finally, speaks for the most powerful nation in the community.”

  Kennedy and de Gaulle do not meet on this trip, but the French leader watches every move the president makes.

  * * *

  And then comes Ireland.

  “If you go to Ireland,” Appointments Secretary Kenny O’Donnell pointed out when Kennedy adds it to his European itinerary, “people will just say it’s a pleasure trip.”

  “That’s exactly what I want,” the president replied. “A pleasure trip to Ireland.”

  He has been lauded everywhere he has traveled in the small island nation, hailed as a victorious returning son.

  Galway comes on his fourth day in Ireland, and it’s clear by his easy smile and the playful way he interacts with the locals that the pressures of domestic affairs, foreign problems, and the impending birth of his third child seem a million miles away.

  Three hundred and twenty children from the Convent of St. Mercy greet the president’s helicopter as it lands on a grassy seaside field at 11:30 A.M. Each of the children is dressed in orange, green, or white, and arranged so that together they form the Irish flag.

  Then it is into an open-top limousine for the short drive to Eyre Square, at the center of the city. At one house, Kennedy orders the driver to stop so that he can spend a few minutes talking with the women standing out front.

  The speech he gives in Eyre Square is the most heartwarming and personal of JFK’s entire presidency, harkening back to the emotional beginnings of his political career in Boston. The president is utterly at ease as he looks out upon the thousands who fill the square, which will one day be renamed in his honor. This visit is not a campaign stop, or a fund-raising dinner, or even one of those significant historical occasions he might mark with a speech filled with gravity and somber words.

  This is a visit from a man whose heart has been touched by the people of his homeland at a time when he needs that very much, and who hopes that his words might do the same for them. “If the day was clear enough, and you went down to the bay, and you looked west, and your sight was good enough, you could see Boston, Massachusetts,” he tells the adoring crowd.

  “And if you could,” he continues, “you would see down there working on the docks there some Doughertys and Flahertys and Ryans and cousins of yours who have gone to Boston and made good.”

  And then the president asks for a show of hands from the crowd, asking the people of Galway if they have a relative in America. The square is instantly filled with hands thrust to the sky. The crowd roars in laughter and recognition, and bursts into applause. The president is truly one of their own.

  The impact is overwhelming. Kennedy’s words speak to a belief in the American dream. But those words are more than a dream to these people. No child of an immigrant in the history of the world has returned to his homeland and enjoyed this sort of adulation. Just
one look at Kennedy as he gazes out over the crowd is proof that a family can come to America with nothing and someday reach the highest level. John F. Kennedy, a son of Ireland, is now the most powerful man in the world.

  * * *

  Left unsaid on that day is that black immigrants to America still don’t have that opportunity. But Kennedy is working on it.

  “If you ever come to America,” the president closes, after talking about the bright days he has spent in Ireland, “come to Washington. And tell them, if they wonder who you are at the gate, that you come from Galway. The word will be out and when you do, ‘Cead Mile Failte’—One hundred thousand welcomes.

  “Thank you and good-bye.”

  Kennedy is driven back through town and returns to his helicopter just forty-five minutes after arriving. The love of his homeland courses through his veins. The president has nothing to fear in this motorcade, from these people.

  Thousands of snapshots are taken of JFK that day. Many of them remain hanging in the pubs and homes of Galway.

  13

  AUGUST 7, 1963

  OSTERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS

  MORNING

  Enjoying the New England summer, a very pregnant Jackie Kennedy leans on a chest-high fence rail watching five-year-old Caroline’s horseback riding lesson. The First Lady and the children are spending the summer at a rented cottage named Brambletyde, just a short distance from the Kennedy family compound at Hyannis Port. Normally, the First Family would stay in the house they own adjacent to the compound property.

  The president’s father and Bobby Kennedy own homes right next door. This enclave has long been the family oasis for planning campaigns, celebrating weddings, or just playing a spirited game of touch football. The Kennedy presence has put Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on the map.

  So much so that hordes of tourists now invade the area each summer. The raucous crowds have gotten in the habit of trampling shrubbery and causing traffic headaches on the narrow beachfront streets in their desire to catch a glimpse of JFK and Jackie. The Hyannis Port property is also a security nightmare for the Secret Service, which is why the First Family has rented a more secluded residence for the summer of 1963. Jackie and the children are there all the time, while the president commutes from Washington on weekends.

  Brambletyde is concealed by thick woods and is accessible only by driving down a narrow one-lane gravel road. From both a privacy and a security standpoint, renting the home makes perfect sense.

  There is another reason Jackie chose Brambletyde: she doesn’t want any of the press taking photos of her pregnant. She doesn’t even go into town, letting the head of her Secret Service detail, Clint Hill, pick up the tabloids she secretly loves to read.

  Today is Wednesday. Hill is taking the day off. The veteran agent is vigilant in his protection of the First Lady. He works six days a week, sometimes sixteen hours a day. But now Special Agent Paul Landis is taking his place. Landis stands near the riding ring, keeping a trained eye on the First Lady while Special Agent Lynn Meredith, of the “kiddie detail,” hovers nearby to protect Caroline.

  Suddenly Jackie feels a sharp pain in her abdomen. Then another. Soon the pain won’t stop. “Mr. Landis, I don’t feel well,” she says, sensing a crisis. “I think you’d better take me back to the house.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Kennedy.” But there is no urgency in Landis’s movements.

  “Right now, Mr. Landis,” Jackie commands. Her breathy voice has a sharp edge.

  Landis rushes to the car and holds open the rear door. Jackie’s face has a fearful look as she slides into the backseat. The pain is coming from her womb. Her growing panic is caused by painful memories of the two troubled earlier pregnancies that ended in the loss of children. Jackie miscarried in 1955. Her second pregnancy resulted, on August 23, 1956, in a stillborn baby girl, whom she and her husband christened Arabella. The loss of even a single child is staggering. Losing two, even more so. But to lose a third baby, particularly after delivering two healthy children, would be intolerable for Jackie.

  So although the First Lady is just a few short weeks away from a full-term delivery, she takes nothing for granted when it comes to her unborn baby’s welfare.

  Caroline stays with Agent Meredith as Landis drives eighty miles an hour down the narrow road, at the same time radioing ahead to have a doctor and a helicopter on standby.

  The First Lady’s anxiety increases as it becomes clearer that she’s going into labor. “Please go faster,” she commands.

  The time has come to get to a hospital—immediately. Should Landis be unable to get there in time, it’s very likely that the Secret Service agent will be forced to pull over and personally deliver the president’s child in the backseat of a government sedan.

  Agent Landis presses down harder on the gas.

  * * *

  In Washington, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy confronts a different kind of problem. Polls show that his popularity in the crucial state of Texas has dipped to an all-time low—and continues to drop. The state is growing increasingly conservative and Republican. Lyndon Johnson has lost all political power there. This hurts not just in potential electoral votes, but in the wallet, too. Texas has long been a major source of Democratic campaign funding, thanks to the deep pockets of its wealthy oilmen and other big-business people. And once upon a time, LBJ could be counted upon to deliver that money. But now Texas governor John Connally, a conservative Democrat, holds the purse strings—and behind the scenes, he is not a big Kennedy fan.

  Therein lies the problem: JFK has been pushing Johnson to arrange a fund-raising trip to Texas. But Johnson knows that such a trip will reveal his lack of clout, making it obvious to the president that Connally will be the man delivering the big donors to the Kennedy campaign. This will further erode any chance of Johnson remaining on the ticket.

  Making matters even more complicated, not only has LBJ deliberately avoided arranging any trip by the president to Texas, but Governor Connally is also trying to prevent Kennedy from coming to the state. Both are Democrats, but the governor knows that any public appearance he makes with Kennedy will cost him dearly with Texas voters.

  But John Kennedy needs Texas and its money. He is determined to make the trip a reality.

  That is the problem hanging over the president’s head on the morning of August 7. In an instant, it will be almost completely forgotten.

  * * *

  Secret Service agent Jerry Behn approaches the desk of Evelyn Lincoln. It is 11:37 A.M.

  Special Agent Behn discreetly informs the president’s secretary that Jackie is being airlifted to the hospital at Otis Air Force Base, located near Falmouth, Massachusetts, on the western edge of Cape Cod. The agent also tells Lincoln that the First Lady doesn’t want her husband to be disturbed, in case the labor pains are a false alarm.

  Evelyn Lincoln, knowing the president’s deep emotional involvement in Jackie’s pregnancy, steps into the Oval Office anyway.

  “Jerry tells me that Mrs. Kennedy is on her way to Otis,” she says calmly, passing along the message without trying to upset the president or his guests unnecessarily.

  It doesn’t work. The meeting is immediately adjourned. A hasty series of phone calls confirm that Jackie is being sedated and is about to deliver the Kennedys’ new child by Caesarean section. The president summons Air Force One.

  But all four of the president’s airplanes are unavailable today.

  JFK doesn’t care. He demands an airplane, any airplane, immediately.

  * * *

  One hour later, as the president of the United States, his Secret Service detail, and select members of his staff race to Otis Air Force Base crammed inside a small six-passenger JetStar aircraft, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy takes his first breath. The president’s second son weighs just four pounds, ten and a half ounces.

  However, there are grave concerns about that breath. It appears shallow and labored. The baby grunts as he exhales. His skin has a bluish pallor, and his ch
est wall is retracted. The infant is immediately placed in an incubator.

  Baby Patrick is assigned a Secret Service agent, even though it’s becoming clear that the only direct threat against the newborn’s life comes from within his own body. The lungs are among the last organs to develop in the womb, and young Patrick is suffering from hyaline membrane disease, the most common form of death among children born prematurely.

  The First Lady is still sedated from her Caesarean and doesn’t know of the problem. As soon as the president arrives, he takes command. He huddles with Dr. John Walsh to discuss the status of his new son. The doctor explains that there is a chance Patrick might die. Kennedy immediately summons the base chaplain to baptize Patrick, ensuring that his son will go to heaven, based upon the teachings of the Catholic Church.

  Dr. Walsh then makes the suggestion that Patrick be moved to Children’s Hospital in Boston, which has state-of-the-art facilities for treating hyaline membrane disease. The president immediately agrees.

  At 5:55 P.M., as Jackie is still shaking off the grogginess of her sedation, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy is placed in an ambulance for the hour-long drive to Boston.

  This child is precious cargo. Far dearer than the Mona Lisa. So like the famous painting, Patrick makes the journey escorted by a full complement of Massachusetts police. Sirens wail as the ambulance pulls away from the air force hospital.

  The caravan does not stop. The baby’s life must be saved.

  * * *

  Now comes the waiting. Jackie Kennedy remains in her ten-room maternity suite, recovering. So it is the president who moves on to Boston to hold vigil at Children’s Hospital. This is a far different man from the one who, in 1956, waited three days before returning from Europe to see his wife after her first miscarriage. Now he stares helplessly at the thirty-one-foot-long experimental high-pressure chamber in which the small body of his son gasps for air. Patrick can clearly be seen through the chamber’s small windows. The intensive care unit is cleared of all visitors whenever JFK is on the floor, which only adds to the president’s solitude.