I’ve always been able to work seven days a week for months on end, sometimes, when required, a hundred or more hours a week, without manifesting any physical problems. In other words, I find work easy. When I was a prosecutor, trying a two-or three-month murder case before a jury wasn’t fatiguing at all, although I knew some trial lawyers who, after a two-or three-day drunk driving case, would say they had to go to Palm Springs to recuperate. For whatever reason, I always seemed to be immune to the deprivations of hard work. But I had never encountered the Kennedy assassination before. Although I feel I can still get up and run around the block without any problem, for the first time in my life I feel (I’m not sure and certainly hope it’s not true) that the research and writing of this book may have taken a toll on me. And one reason is that, as I’ve indicated, there simply is no end to the case, and more than once I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew.
What I can say with a lot more confidence is that without all the help I got from so many people along the way in this long journey of mine, not only wouldn’t this book be the book it is, but I would have had a much more difficult time reaching the finish line to write these acknowledgments.
*It was not the most expensive and plush suite in the hotel. That was the Will Rogers Suite on the thirteenth floor, normally going for $100 a night, but rejected by the Secret Service because there was more than one access to it. So LBJ and Lady Bird stayed in that suite. (Gun, Red Roses from Texas, p.24)
†Twenty-eight Secret Service agents accompanied the president on his trip to Texas (HSCA Report, p.228).
*The Texas School Book Depository Company had two buildings: an administrative office and storage area at 411 Elm Street (at Houston), and a warehouse four blocks north at 1917 North Houston (between Munger and McKinney). Parking lot 1, designated for “employees and publishers,” was located across the street from the warehouse (Frazier parked there). Parking lots 2 (“company officials and customers”) and 3 (“publishers and managers”) were located on the west side of the Depository Building.
*Presidential historian Robert Dallek, the first scholar to examine Kennedy’s medical records on file at the Kennedy presidential library in Boston, reported in 2002 that Kennedy had nine previously undisclosed hospital stays between 1955 and 1957 and took a substantial amount of medication during his presidency on a daily basis. Included on the list were painkillers for his back, steroids for his Addison’s disease, antispasmodics for his colitis, antibiotics for urinary-tract infections, antihistamines for allergies, and, on at least one occasion, an antipsychotic for a severe mood change that Mrs. Kennedy believed was brought on by the antihistamines. According to Dallek, three doctors were treating Kennedy, including the famous “Dr. Feelgood,” Max Jacobson, who was giving him amphetamine shots during his first summit with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Although Dallek suggested that Kennedy and his advisers had recklessly deceived the public by not telling voters in 1960 just how sick he really was, Ted Sorenson, one of Kennedy’s closest advisers, and reporter Hugh Sidey, who followed Kennedy from 1957 to 1963, denied that the president’s medication kept him from performing his duties. Both reported that the president never faltered during the grueling 1960 presidential campaign, one that left them, and everyone else, absolutely exhausted. Sidey wrote that the newly released medical records were indisputable, “but they don’t give the whole picture and do leave the impression that Kennedy was little more than a chemical shell ready to self-destruct. I have my doubts. John Kennedy was a strong, determined President partly handicapped by a weakened body. But he was never an invalid.” In 1970, long before Dallek’s revelations, Kennedy’s two closest assistants, Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers, wrote of Kennedy’s “tireless energy and stamina which wore out everybody following him on an average eight-hour day of campaigning.” (Lawrence K. Altman and Todd S. Purdom, “In J.F.K. File, Hidden Illness, Pain and Pills,” New York Times, November 17, 2002, pp.1, 28; see also Dallek, Unfinished Life, pp.213, 262, 398–399, 471; Lacayo, “How Sick Was J.F.K.?” pp.46–47; Sidey, “When It Counted, He Never Faltered,” pp.46–47; Peggy Noonan, “Camelot on Painkillers,” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2002, p.A12; O’Donnell and Powers with McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, p.116)
*The Dallas Morning News, Texas’s largest circulation daily at the time, with a readership of over a quarter of a million, was no friend of JFK’s, its editorials consistently being anti-Kennedy because of the right-wing inclination of its publisher, E. M. “Ted” Dealey. Indeed, in a White House meeting in the autumn of 1961 between Kennedy and a contingent of Texas media leaders, Dealey bluntly told JFK, “You and your administration are weak sisters,” adding that the country needed “a man on horseback to lead the nation, and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are riding Caroline’s tricycle.” (Aynesworth with Michaud, JFK: Breaking the News, pp.6–7)
*Ultimately, 447 Dallas police officers were used on specific assignments associated with the president’s visit, 178 of them assigned to the motorcade route. The biggest assignment (one would think inappropriately from a priority standpoint) was to the Trade Mart, where 63 were assigned to work the parking area outside and 150 under the command of a deputy chief were to provide security inside. (King Exhibit No. 5, 20 H 464)
*In the spring of 1964, Robert Kennedy stated, “There was no plan to dump Lyndon Johnson. It didn’t make any sense…And there was never any discussion about dropping him.” The president himself told a close confidant in October 1963 that the idea of dumping Johnson was “preposterous on the face of it. We’ve got to carry Texas in ’64, and maybe Georgia.” (Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p.605)
*Kilduff was the acting press secretary in the absence of Pierre Salinger, who was en route to Hawaii at the time of the assassination.
*The president’s exaggeration was not great. Jacqueline Kennedy, traveling abroad to thirteen countries, alone or with the president, and speaking fluent French, Spanish, and Italian as she went, “soon carved for herself a niche of fame” independent of JFK. Described by many as beautiful, cultured, and imperious, “she drew crowds by the thousands and became a good-will ambassador for America on her own.” (Associated Press, November 26, 1963)
‡Kennedy had unquestionably become an effective politician, but unlike most in his chosen profession, he wasn’t inordinately ambitious, was famous for never taking himself too seriously, and once said that he only started in politics “because Joe died. [Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., JFK’s older brother, was the one of the four sons of Joe Sr. who was being groomed for high political office; he and his copilot died during the Second World War when their plane, laden with explosives to be dropped on a German bomb-launching base in France, exploded in midair over the English Channel on August 12, 1944.] If something happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him.” (New York Times, November 23, 1963, p.13)
‡The president received a long, standing ovation when he referred to the controversial TFX jet fighter, built at the General Dynamics plant in Fort Worth, as a powerful force for freedom (Dallas Morning News, November 23, 1963, p.11).
*For years prior to its occupancy by the Texas School Book Depository Company, when it became known as the Texas School Book Depository Building after its principal occupant, the building was known as the Sexton Building, and many old-timers continued to call it that for years thereafter.
*The $8.6 million Boeing 707 jet, tail number SAM26000, was delivered to the air force on October 10, 1962. Though not the first Air Force One, it is the first jet aircraft designed specifically for presidents, JFK being the first one to make extensive use of a jet for presidential travel. (James Sawa, “JFK Air Force One: Conspiracy or Not,” self-published, 2004) When JFK first saw the new Air Force One, he exclaimed, “It’s magnificent! I’ll take it.” President Gerald Ford would later say, “When they fly you on Air Force One, you know you’re the
president.” (TerHorst and Albertazzie, Flying White House, p.13)
*Variations in transcripts of both channels 1 (regular) and 2 (presidential motorcade) of the Dallas police radio transmissions are common. In 1982, the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Ballistic Acoustics (NAS-CBA) created a new recording of the channel 2 radio traffic at the time of the assassination directly from the original Gray Audograph disk. This recording proved to be the best to date, avoiding many of the skips and repeats inherent in previous recordings. Throughout this book, the most complete versions of channel 1 and 2 radio traffic conversations, primarily from the recordings themselves, are utilized.
*The Depository had previously been occupied by a wholesale grocery company engaged in supplying restaurants and institutions, and during the time it occupied the building, the floors became oil-soaked and this oil was damaging the books that were now being stacked on the floor (CD 205, p.135).
*Jackie would later recall that three times on the Texas trip “we were greeted with bouquets of the yellow roses of Texas. Only in Dallas they gave me red roses. I remember thinking: How funny—red roses for me” (Gun, Red Roses from Texas, unnumbered p.5).
*The president’s personal style causes the Secret Service deep concern. Not only does he travel more frequently than any previous president, but he relishes contact with crowds of well-wishers. The problem is compounded by the fact that Kennedy is not receptive to many of the measures designed to protect him, treating the danger of assault philosophically. (HSCA Report, p.228)
*According to U.S. Census records, the population of the city of Dallas was 679,684 in 1960. In 1970, it had increased to 844,401.
*Dealey Plaza is a three-acre, well-manicured patch of land with concrete pergolas and peristyles, reflecting pools, and some office buildings. It is called “The Front Door of Dallas” and was named in 1935 after George Bannerman Dealey, a Dallas civic leader and the founder of the city’s main paper, the Dallas Morning News. The plaza is in the form of a triangle, with three main thoroughfares, Main Street in the middle having east and westbound lanes, and flanked by Elm to the north having only westbound lanes, and Commerce to the south with only eastbound lanes. The three arteries converge at a triple underpass built in 1936 beneath the Union Terminal Railroad overpass at the southwestern tip of the plaza. (CE 877,17 H 897–898) The site of the Texas School Book Depository Building at the northwest corner of Houston and Elm in the plaza was originally owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas.
*There is no evidence that the two Secret Service agents in the president’s limousine, Greer and Kellerman, were as alert as Youngblood and directed the president to get down.
*Kellerman is the only one in the car who heard this remark. In 1964 he testified that he spoke often with the president during the three years he served him, and would not have mistaken the president’s Boston accent (2 H 75). But it’s unlikely the president could have spoken after the bullet penetrated his throat.
*Back at Love Field, where Air Force One pilot Colonel James B. Swindal is listening to the radio chatter of the Secret Service agents in the motorcade (the plane’s communication center was linked with the White House Communications Agency’s temporary signal board in the Sheraton Dallas Hotel, which in turn was linked to the Secret Service radio frequency), he hears two loud shouts over the radio frequency around 12:30 that he recognizes as the voice of Roy Kellerman. Then he hears a third sharp cry from Kellerman: “Dagger cover Volunteer,” the code names, respectively, for Rufus Youngblood, the chief Secret Service agent in LBJ’s limousine, and Vice President Johnson. But the radio immediately becomes a “babel of screeching voices. Then it fell silent.” (TerHorst and Albertazzie, Flying White House, pp.199, 210–211)
*Mrs. Kennedy would later have no recollection of crawling on the trunk of the car. Looking at still frames from the Zapruder film while working with author William Manchester, she said they brought nothing back to her. It was as though she were looking at photographs of another woman. (Manchester, Death of a President, p.161 footnote)
*Parkland Memorial Hospital, a ten-story county hospital about four miles from Dealey Plaza, was the largest and best hospital in Dallas County, a distinction it holds to this very day. Taking its name from the wooded parkland it sat on, the hospital opened on May 19, 1894. The present Parkland Hospital, on a new site, was dedicated on October 3, 1954.
*Later estimates of the speed vary. Two of the motorcycle escorts gave estimates of the speed on Stemmons Freeway ranging from 80 to 90 mph (Savage, JFK First Day Evidence, p.364; Sneed, No More Silence, pp.129, 156). Dallas police radio recordings (NAS-CBA DPD tapes, C2, 12:34 p.m.) indicate approximately four minutes were required to cover the four-mile ride to Parkland, which computes to an average speed of 60 mph over the entire route, which accounts for the slowing down of the limousine once it got off the Stemmons Freeway onto Industrial and then Harry Hines Boulevard.
‡Not all pass the Trade Mart. The first press bus in the motorcade, unaware the president has been shot, proceeds to the Trade Mart, where the bus passengers soon learn he’s been shot and is at Parkland Hospital (Semple, Four Days in November, pp.591–592).
*Jackson redeemed himself two days later when he took a Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
*Harkness testified that Euins told him, “It was under the ledge,” which referred to the sixth floor (6 H 313). Photographs of the building show a decorative ledge separating the sixth and seventh floors. Harkness further testified that “it was my error in a hasty count of the floors” (6 H 313) that led to his broadcast reference to the “fifth floor.” Harkness’s error is understandable in light of the fact that in 1963 the Depository’s first-floor windows were covered with decorative masonry. Persons unfamiliar with the building could easily mistake the second floor for the first, third for the second, and so on—making the sixth floor appear as if it were the fifth floor. This is apparently what Harkness did during these initial confusing moments.
*Later that afternoon, Euins told the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department in a sworn and signed statement that the shooter “was a white man” (CE 367, 16 H 963).
*The gesture, witnessed by a spectator, became the basis for an early report that Johnson had been wounded or suffered a heart attack (Associated Press wire copy, November 22, 1963, 1:18 p.m.; Manchester, Death of a President, p.169).
*There was one red rose from the bouquet that did not make it into the hospital. Stavis Ellis, one of the Dallas police cyclists who had led the close-tailing presidential limousine to Parkland is among the large crowd of people who have swarmed around the emergency area in back of the hospital. After President Kennedy’s body and Connally have been removed from the limousine he can’t resist the temptation to look inside the car. He sees several puddles of blood on the rear seat and floorboard. Right in the middle of one of the puddles lay a beautiful red rose. Years later he would recall, “I never forgot that. I can still see it, that red rose in that blood.” (Sneed, No More Silence, p.147)
*Inside the emergency area at Parkland were four emergency rooms, Trauma Rooms One, Two, Three, and Four. They were located on what was called the ground floor, not the first floor, at Parkland Hospital. Kennedy was immediately taken to Trauma Room One. (3 H 358–359, WCT Dr. Charles James Carrico) Above the ground floor were floors one through ten. The operating rooms were on the second floor. Though Governor Connally, who was taken to Trauma Room Two, was eventually brought up to an operating room on the second floor, Kennedy never left Trauma Room One. The entire emergency area at Parkland has since been reconstructed, and the Trauma Room One that Kennedy was brought into is no longer in existence. (Telephone interview of representative of Parkland’s Corporate Communication section by author on January 21,2004)
*Photographs show this second-floor window to be closed at the time of the shooting. Brewer no doubt meant the sixth-floor sniper’s nest window, which would have been at
the southeast corner, second floor down from the roof.
*At the time, CBS did not have the capability of putting a commentator on camera immediately. “It took nearly twenty minutes to set up the cameras so Cronkite’s voice could be joined by his face, and because of that experience, CBS would later install a ‘flash studio’ to enable visual, as well as audio, bulletins to be transmitted immediately.” (Gates, Air Time, p.3)
*After eliciting from Carrico and other Parkland doctors that the president was wearing a back brace, nowhere did Warren Commission counsel go on to ask the doctors just what they did with the famous brace, although one could assume they would have removed it at some point. One doctor testified he saw it “lying loose” (6 H 66, WCT Dr. Gene Coleman Akin), though another said he “pushed up the brace” to feel the president’s femoral pulse (3 H 368, WCT Dr. Malcolm O. Perry), suggesting it wasn’t removed. In less-than-clear testimony, Secret Service agent William Greer suggested that the brace was among the items of the president’s belongings he was given in two shopping bags by a Parkland nurse when the body was ready for removal (2 H 125), but this wouldn’t tell us when, if at all, it was removed by the Parkland doctors during their effort to save his life. Almost thirty years later, Dr. Marion T. “Pepper” Jenkins, one of the Parkland doctors, said the president “must have had really severe back pain judging by the size of the back brace we cut off. [Again, not when, though the natural assumption would be at the beginning of the effort to save the president. But Dr. Paul Peters, who arrived at least five minutes after the president entered Trauma Room One, said the brace was still on, and he only refers to his removing “an elastic bandage wrapped around his pelvis,” but says nothing about removing the back brace (6 H 70).] He was tightly laced into this brace with wide Ace bandages making figure-of-eight loops around his trunk and thighs” (Breo, “JFK’s Death, Part II,” p.2805). A Parkland doctor described it as a “corset-type” brace with “stays…and buckles” (3 H 359, WCT Dr. Charles James Carrico).
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