Killing Kennedy

by O’Reilly, Bill

  * * *

  About four miles away from the bloody hospital scene, Lee Harvey Oswald boards a bus at the corner of Elm and Murphy and completes his getaway.

  * * *

  The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 was a spiderweb of conspiracy. On the same evening that Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre, there were also plans to kill his vice president and secretary of state. Had those plans succeeded, the top level of American government would have been beheaded.

  As soon as the first shot is fired in Dallas, those long-ago events are instantly remembered. Immediate steps are taken to ensure that a possible conspiracy is not completed. Several members of the cabinet are west of Hawaii, en route to Japan. A radio call orders them to turn around and come home.

  Vice President Lyndon Johnson is under constant watch the instant his rented limousine arrives at Parkland Hospital. He is hustled into a small white cubicle in Parkland’s Minor Medicine section with his wife, Lady Bird. A Secret Service detail guards his life. A patient and a nurse are kicked out to make room for them. There is no word yet on the fate of the president, though everyone knows that surviving such a gunshot wound is just about impossible. The Secret Service wants LBJ flown immediately back to Washington and out of harm’s way. Failing that, it would like him relocated to the safest possible security zone in Dallas: Air Force One.

  But Vice President Johnson refuses to leave the hospital. He remains waiting for word of President Kennedy’s fate. The Secret Service pressures him again and again to depart, but LBJ will not go. Johnson is planning his next steps. Until the presidential succession is official, he will deliver no orders. The oath of office is not necessary to make him officially president. Succession will take place the instant JFK is declared dead. So LBJ stands there in the small cubicle at Parkland Hospital, leaning against the wall and sipping coffee in complete silence, waiting for the official announcement of President Kennedy’s death.

  In Trauma Room One, the president’s body is stripped, except for his underwear. His gold watch is removed from his wrist. He no longer has a regular pulse, but he breathes in short breaths. Blood continues to pour out of his head wound and the hole in his throat; the rest of his body is unscathed. An overhead fluorescent lamp lights the small army of medical professionals at work in the trauma room. The first doctor on the scene is second-year medical resident Charles J. Carrico, who knows what to do and acts quickly. A tube is inserted into John Kennedy’s throat to open his airway, and saline solution is pumped into his body through his right femoral vein.

  The room slowly fills with surgeons, until there are fourteen doctors standing over the president. Outside the trauma room, Jackie Kennedy sits in a folding chair holding vigil.

  Dr. Mac Perry, a thirty-four-year-old surgeon, now steps in to head the team. He uses a scalpel to slice open the president’s throat and perform a tracheotomy, while someone else attaches a tube to a respirator to induce regular breathing.

  Jackie now rises from her chair, determined to enter the trauma room. She has heard the talk about fluids and resuscitation and is beginning to hope that her husband might just live. A nurse blocks her path, but the demure First Lady can display an iron will when she wants to. “I’m going to get into that room,” she repeats over and over as she wrestles with Nurse Doris Nelson, who shows no signs of backing down. “I’m going to get into that room.”

  “Mrs. Kennedy, you need a sedative,” a nearby doctor tells her.

  But the First Lady does not wish to be numbed. She wants to feel every last moment with her husband. “I want to be in there when he dies,” she says firmly.

  * * *

  Bobby Kennedy gets the bad news from J. Edgar Hoover.

  As the head of America’s top law enforcement agency, Hoover is informed of the shooting almost immediately. The FBI director is a dispassionate man, but never more so than right now. He sits at his desk on the fifth floor of the Justice Department Building as he picks up the phone to call Bobby Kennedy. It has been fifteen minutes since Lee Harvey Oswald first pulled the trigger. The surgical trauma team at Parkland is fighting to keep the president alive.

  Bobby is just about to eat a tuna fish sandwich on the patio of his Virginia home when his wife, Ethel, tells him he has a call.

  “It’s J. Edgar Hoover,” she tells Bobby.

  The attorney general knows this must be important. The director knows better than to call Bobby at home. He sets down his sandwich and goes to the phone. It’s a special direct government line known as Extension 163.

  “I have news for you,” Hoover says. “The president has been shot.”

  Bobby hangs up. His first reaction is one of great distress, and his body seems to go slack. But his next thought, as always, is to protect his older brother. He calls the White House and has all the locks on JFK’s file cabinets changed so that Lyndon Johnson cannot go through them. The most delicate files are completely removed from the White House and placed under round-the-clock security.

  Bobby then fields phone call after phone call from friends and family. He holds back tears, but Ethel knows that her husband is breaking down and hands him a pair of dark glasses to hide his red-rimmed eyes.

  The calls don’t stop. In the midst of them all, Bobby realizes that the tables have been turned. And he knows that he will soon get a call from a man he despises.

  * * *

  Jackie Kennedy gets the bad news from Dr. William Kemp Clark.

  It comes just moments after, against great odds, the First Lady battles her way into the trauma room. She stands in a corner, out of the way, just wanting to be near her husband.

  The sight is singularly medical, as tubes now sprout from the president’s mouth, nose, and chest. His skin is the palest white. Blood is being transfused into his body. Dr. Mac Perry presses down on the president’s sternum to restart the heart, even as the electrocardiogram machine shows a flat line. Dr. William Kemp Clark, Parkland’s chief neurosurgeon, assists Perry by monitoring the EKG for even a flicker of deviation.

  Finally, Clark knows they can do no more. A sheet is drawn over JFK’s face. Dr. Clark turns to Jackie Kennedy. “Your husband has sustained a fatal wound,” the veteran surgeon tells the First Lady.

  “I know,” she replies.

  “The president is dead.”

  Jackie leans up and presses her cheek to that of Dr. Clark. It is an expression of thanks. Kemp Clark, a hard man who served in the Pacific in World War II, can’t help himself. He breaks down and sobs.

  * * *

  Most people in the United States get the bad news of the president’s death from CBS newsman Walter Cronkite.

  The most trusted man in America first breaks into the soap opera As the World Turns just eight minutes after the shooting, saying that an assassin has fired three shots at the president. Despite the fact that most Americans are at work or school, and not home watching daytime television, more than seventy-five million people are aware of the shooting by 1:00 P.M.

  * * *

  Lyndon Baines Johnson gets the bad news from Kenny O’Donnell.

  Shortly after 1:00 P.M., John F. Kennedy’s appointments secretary marches into the small white cubicle in the Minor Medicine section of the hospital and stands before Lyndon Johnson. O’Donnell is openly distraught. He is not the sort of man who weeps at calamity, but the devastated look on his face is clear for all to see.

  Even before O’Donnell opens his mouth, LBJ knows that it is official: Lyndon Baines Johnson is now the thirty-sixth president of the United States.

  * * *

  Jack Ruby gets the bad news from television, just like most of America.

  The nightclub owner is on the second floor of the Dallas Morning News building, just four blocks from Dealey Plaza. He has come to place an ad for his burlesque business, the Carousel Club—“a f---ing classy joint,” in Ruby’s own words. He pays in person because the Morning News has canceled his credit after he fell behind on his payments one too many times. T
he ad announces his featured performers for the coming weekend and is no different from his usual weekly ads gracing the newspaper.

  Ruby is five foot, nine inches and 175 pounds, and is fond of carrying a big roll of cash. He’s got friends in the Mafia and on the police force. He is known to like health food and has a lightning-quick temper. But most of all Jack Ruby considers himself a Democrat and a patriot.

  The first reports state that a Secret Service man has been killed, but as Ruby and the advertising staff of the Morning News gather around a small black-and-white television for more information, the harsh truth is announced.

  A despondent Jack Ruby wanders off and sits alone at a desk. After a time, he gets up and announces that he is canceling the club advertisement. Instead, he places another ad. This one tells the good people of Dallas that the Carousel Club will be closed all weekend, out of respect for President Kennedy.

  Jack Ruby will not be doing business over the next few days. He will be doing something else.

  * * *

  Lee Harvey Oswald is on the move. After his bus stalls in heavy post-assassination traffic, he gets off and walks a bit before finding a cab, which takes him closer to his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley. Upon arriving there, he races to his room, grabs his .38-caliber pistol, and sticks it in his waistband. Then he quickly leaves.

  Little does Oswald know, but eyewitnesses at the scene have given the police his description. Now the cops are on the lookout for a “white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds.”

  At 1:15 P.M., Officer J. D. Tippit of the Dallas Police Department is driving east on Tenth Street. Just after the intersection of Tenth and Patton, he sees a man matching the suspect’s description walking alone, wearing a light-colored jacket.

  Tippit is a married father of three children. He is thirty-nine years old, earned a Bronze Star as a paratrooper in World War II, has a tenth-grade education, and earns just a little over $5,000 a year. The “J.D.” initials do not stand for anything.

  Tippit has been with the Dallas Police Department eleven years as he pulls his car alongside Lee Harvey Oswald. He knows to be cautious. But he also knows to be thorough in his questioning.

  Oswald leans down and speaks to Tippit through the right front window vent. He is hostile.

  Tippit opens the door and steps out of his police cruiser. He walks around to the front of the car, intending to ask Oswald a few more questions. Based on the answers, Tippit will then make a decision whether to place Oswald in handcuffs. But the policeman doesn’t get farther than the left front wheel. Lee Harvey Oswald pulls out his .38 and fires four bullets in rapid succession. Tippit is killed instantly.

  Oswald, the man who nervously missed General Walker so many long months ago, has now killed the president of the United States and a Dallas police officer in cold blood just forty-five minutes apart.

  But Oswald is running out of options. He is out of money, almost out of ammunition, and the Dallas police know what he looks like. He will have to be very clever in these next few minutes if he is to continue his escape.

  The killer quickly reloads and continues his journey, turning down Patton Avenue. But this time he doesn’t walk; he jogs. There is no doubt about it: Oswald is being hunted. The police are closing in. He needs to move quickly now. The time is 1:16 P.M.

  * * *

  At 1:26 P.M. the Secret Service whisks Lyndon Johnson to Air Force One, where he immediately climbs the steps up to the back door of the plane. There he moves into President Kennedy’s personal bedroom, takes off his coat, and sprawls on the bed while he awaits Jackie Kennedy’s return to the plane. She has remained behind at Parkland, refusing to leave until the body of her husband comes with her.

  And so LBJ waits. Even as he relishes his first moments of power, outside the bedroom, mechanics are removing several of the first-class seats in the rear of Air Force One to make room for John Kennedy’s coffin.

  LBJ has chosen the bedroom because he wants privacy. He picks up John Kennedy’s personal presidential telephone next to the bed and places a call to a man he loathes.

  On the other end of the line, Bobby Kennedy picks up the phone and says a professional hello to his new boss.

  * * *

  Lee Harvey Oswald hears the sirens and knows they’re coming for him.

  He races toward the quickest hiding place he can find, a movie house called the Texas Theatre. Oswald has traveled eight blocks in the twenty-five minutes since killing Officer Tippit. He shed his jacket shortly after shooting Tippit, hoping to confuse his pursuers. He runs past the Bethel Temple, where a sign advises “Prepare to Meet Thy God.”

  But Lee Harvey Oswald is not showing fear.

  Foolishly, he runs right past the ticket booth. In the dark of the theater, he finds a seat, trying to make himself invisible. His seat is on the main floor, along the right center aisle. The matinee film is War Is Hell, an ironic name for a decidedly hellish day of Oswald’s invention.

  After seeing the man run inside without paying, and then at the same time hearing sirens as police cars race to the scene of Officer Tippit’s murder, ticket taker Julia Postal puts two and two together. Realizing that the man she just saw is “running from them for some reason,” she picks up the phone and dials the police.

  Squad cars are on the scene almost immediately. Police close off the theater’s exits. The house lights are turned on. Patrolman M. N. McDonald approaches Oswald, who suddenly stands and punches the policeman in the face while reaching for the pistol in his waistband. McDonald is not hurt and immediately fights back. Other policemen join the scrum. Thus, screaming about police brutality, Lee Harvey Oswald is dragged out of the theater and taken to jail.

  * * *

  Undertaker Vernon Oneal receives the call from Clint Hill personally, ordering him to bring his best casket to Parkland Hospital. Oneal specializes in taking care of the dead, running a fleet of seven radio-equipped white hearses that convey the newly departed to his mortuary, where relatives can sip from the coffee bar before paying their respects in the Slumber Room.

  The casket Oneal quickly selects for John Kennedy is the “Britannia” model from the Elgin Casket Company. It is double-walled and solid bronze. The upholstery is satin.

  Upon his arrival at Parkland Hospital, Oneal is told that Jackie Kennedy wants one last moment with her husband. That’s all. She removes the wedding band from her finger and slides it over the knuckle of Jack’s little finger with the help of an orderly, so that it will not fall off during the inevitable embalming. She then smokes a cigarette. Jackie is exhausted and brokenhearted. The mood at Parkland is mournful but slowly returning to normal hospital routine. As doctors and nurses begin attending to other cases, Jackie Kennedy is feeling more and more out of place.

  “You could go back to the plane now,” she is told.

  “I’m not going back till I leave with Jack,” she replies.

  Meanwhile, Vernon Oneal places a sheet of plastic down on the inside of the coffin, lining the bottom. He then carefully swaddles the body of John Kennedy in seven layers of rubber bags and one more of plastic. Finally, the president’s body is laid inside. Oneal is concerned that the president’s blood will permanently stain the satin lining.

  Almost an hour after being declared dead, John Kennedy is now ready to leave Parkland Hospital and fly back to Washington.

  Yet ironically, the city of Dallas, which once wanted him to stay away, now will not let JFK leave.

  * * *

  It is a little-known fact that it is not a federal crime to kill the president of the United States. It is against federal law to initiate a conspiracy to kill the president, which is why J. Edgar Hoover is now insisting that JFK’s murder was the act of many instead of just one. Hoover wants jurisdiction over the case. But at this point, he is not getting it. Jurisdiction falls to the state of Texas and the municipality of Dallas.

  Thus Dallas officials won’t let John Kennedy’s body leav
e the state of Texas until an official autopsy has been performed. The Dallas medical examiner, who has now arrived at Parkland, will not budge on this matter.

  Veteran Secret Service special agent Roy Kellerman, who has now taken charge, is livid. “My friend,” Kellerman makes it clear to Dallas medical examiner Dr. Earl Rose, “this is the body of the president of the United States and we are going to take it back to Washington.”

  “No. That’s not the way things are,” Rose replies. “Where there is a homicide, we must have an autopsy.”

  “He is going with us,” Kellerman tells Rose.

  “The body stays,” insists the medical examiner, an upright man fond of wagging his finger in people’s faces.

  Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson and Air Force One are stuck on the ground because of this legal wrangling. Jackie Kennedy won’t leave without JFK’s body, and LBJ won’t depart without Jackie, fearing he would be considered insensitive if he did.

  The argument now becomes an old-fashioned Texas standoff—a physical showdown between the Secret Service, Dr. Rose, and members of the Dallas Police Department. There are forty men present. Pushing and shoving break out. The Secret Service is determined to have its way, but the Dallas police won’t back down. Finally, Kennedy’s close friends Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers order Secret Service agents to grab JFK’s coffin and bull their way through the police. “We’re getting out of here,” O’Donnell barks as the undertaker’s cart on which the casket rests is rolled toward the exit door. “We don’t give a damn what these laws say. We’re leaving now!”

  The president’s body is loaded into Vernon Oneal’s 1964 white Cadillac hearse. Jackie Kennedy sits in the rear jump seat, next to her husband’s body. Clint Hill and other agents jam themselves into the front seat. Bill Greer is still inside the hospital, but Roy Kellerman isn’t waiting for him. Secret Service special agent Andy Berger takes the wheel and races for Love Field at top speed. As he watches the hearse peel out, Vernon Oneal wonders aloud how and when he’s going to be paid.

  There is no stopping when the Cadillac reaches the airport. Tires squealing, Special Agent Berger races the hearse onto the tarmac, ignoring the signs reading “Restricted Area” and “Slow—Dangerous Trucks.” He speeds past the Braniff and American Airlines hangars, oblivious to all dangers until the hearse screeches to a halt at the back steps leading up to Air Force One. Kennedy’s friends and bodyguards then personally manhandle the six hundred pounds of coffin and president, banging it off the stairwell leading up into the plane and tilting the casket at awkward angles. They load the body onto Air Force One through the same rear door John Kennedy stepped out of three hours earlier. That moment was ceremonial and presidential. This moment is morbid and ghastly.