City officials are still bitter at the defeat. Congressman Alger describes the UN in his newsletter as “The Soviet’s greatest hoax,” and warns that the United States would be committing “suicide” by remaining in the organization.11
Alger even flirts with the idea of introducing a congressional resolution demanding that the U.S. flag be flown at half-mast on UN Day.
The United Nations is a favorite target of H. L. Hunt’s tax-exempt Life Line program: “Most Americans who think about the matter must surely by now have reached the reasoned conclusion that the United Nations has turned into a monstrous threat to the interests of the United States.”12
Dan Smoot, the former FBI agent and Hunt employee in Dallas who writes and broadcasts some of the most virulent anti-Kennedy attacks in the nation, warns that the UN and communism have the exact same objective: “Creation of a world socialist system.”13 He is unafraid to pin it all on one person—President Kennedy. “If Kennedy stays in power… the drive toward world government will quicken disastrously,” Smoot tells his faithful followers. “The nation may not last long enough… unless something is done in 1964 to halt the Kennedy program.”14
General Walker is also ratcheting up his rhetoric to a new level. The time has come, he announces, to choose between the United Nations and the United States. He prophesies that the issue will be the most important in the 1964 elections.
As Stanley Marcus contemplates matters in his office, sifting through all the reports about that same powerful minority—the barely concealed allegiances connecting the leading newspaper, the leading preacher, the congressman, the former general, and the oilmen—he begins forming a plan: Why not try to inject Dallas with a wonderful dose of logic—why not bring the very face of American internationalism straight to the heart of Dallas and show how forward-looking the city can be?
Marcus decides to use his Washington connections to reach out to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai E. Stevenson and personally invite him to offer a major speech in Dallas—and to prove, once and for all, that the Kennedy administration is not selling out the nation to communists, not surrendering America to some socialist conspiracy.
Stevenson will offer his erudite logic and calm. And Dallas will hopefully extend its hand.
The morning is dawning warm and humid as Walker lights his first cigarette of the day and reaches for the Dallas Morning News. There hasn’t been much to cheer him lately as he nears the one-year anniversary of his arrest in Mississippi.
His pro-white states’ rights crusade was dealt a major blow nine days earlier with the bombing of a Negro church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young girls. As outrage spreads across the country, segregationists are on the defensive. President Kennedy is now meeting openly with Negro leaders and talking about sending federal troops to Birmingham.
Earlier in the week, Kennedy even went before the United Nations Assembly and, incredibly to Walker, apologized for the United States’ race relations: “We share your regret and resentment,” the president told the foreign hordes. “We intend to end such practices for all time to come.”15
Walker is livid that a U.S. president would demonstrate weakness before the entire world. Soviet Russia is systematically destroying the liberty of millions of people, and Kennedy is apologizing for a few blemishes on the United States’ record?
The front page of the Morning News confirms his worst fears about the president. The top headline announces that the U.S. Senate has passed JFK’s Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. It is a major victory for Kennedy—and the Russians. But the local newspaper, at least, is resisting Kennedy’s “Moscow Treaty”—pointing out that the American public is being hoodwinked by pro-communist propaganda, including “the much exaggerated fear of atomic fallout.”16
Walker glances at the letters to the editor. He is often mentioned, praised, by letter writers. Today, September 25, he is pleased to see a letter complimenting the News’s editorial staff and another criticizing the leftist-liberal Kennedy administration for appeasing the Reds.
When he reaches the local news section, there is a large advertisement. The bottom half of the page is dominated by a drawing of a dark night sky, full of stars. White lines between the stars trace out the constellations, but these are not the traditional images of the Big Dipper and Orion. Instead, the lines converge to form images of shoes, glamorous, high-heeled women’s shoes. The ad reads:
“It is written in the stars, most beautiful is she who lithely glides in a Neiman-Marcus evening shoe.”
There is also a smaller news item tucked in between accounts of a freeway crash and a garbage collectors’ strike. The headline reads: U.N. WEEK: ADLAI PLANS DALLAS TALK ON OCT. 24.
The story announces that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, is officially coming to Dallas—and he has been invited by Stanley Marcus and the other Jewish leaders at his store.
Walker knows why Stevenson is coming to Dallas. He is not just the former governor of Illinois and a two-time candidate for the presidency. He is the country’s leading proponent of the UN. General Walker is the top-ranking patriot opposed to the United Nations. Stevenson’s visit to Dallas represents nothing less than a direct challenge to him.
Walker convenes a strategy meeting with Robert Surrey and his other closest aides at his headquarters on Turtle Creek Boulevard.
Someone mentions that October 23, the day prior to Stevenson’s visit, is officially designated “United States Day.”
This annual tribute to the United States had been established by conservatives ten years earlier as a rebuke to UN Day, but the holiday hadn’t really taken off. With Stevenson confronting Walker in Dallas on UN Day, however, the juxtaposition couldn’t be any clearer. Walker tells his team that they will commandeer U.S. Day.
Alger tried to upstage a Johnson campaign visit to Dallas in November 1960—and the damned plan had horribly backfired. Maybe Walker and his allies can waylay Stevenson’s pro-Kennedy, pro–United Nations foray into Dallas. Maybe they can generate, the day before, a big-time patriotic event that will steal the thunder from the Kennedy administration. The pieces begin falling into place quickly.
Stevenson’s speech will be inside the Dallas Memorial Auditorium, and Surrey quickly makes his own call to the auditorium and arranges to rent the building for the exact evening before Stevenson’s event.
Calls are also made down to Austin and to Texas Governor John Connally—maybe he can issue a proclamation declaring October 23 as “United States Day” in Texas.
In Dallas, bumper stickers are being crafted to read: U.S. DAY OR UN DAY—THERE MUST BE A CHOICE. YOU CANNOT RIDE BOTH HORSES.17
Kennedy aides have summoned Bob Baskin, the Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. They are in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Baskin has been following President Kennedy on an eleven-state tour around the nation—and this Wednesday night, some White House aides are giving him exclusive confirmation that the president is finally scheduling a trip in the near future to Texas.
Kennedy will visit several Texas cities, and his itinerary will include Dallas on November 22. Baskin knows he has a nice newspaper coup, and as he pounds the keys on his typewriter he makes sure that he notes, in his first sentence, that he is the only one to break the news.
Despite the still-icy relationship in the wake of publisher Ted Dealey’s verbal confrontation with Kennedy at the White House, Kennedy’s team knows that the Morning News remains the bellwether publication in the state. Giving the Dallas newspaper the exclusive news represents a mild overture, a chance to perhaps try to sway the tone of coverage inside Dealey’s pages.
Baskin suspects that Kennedy is visiting Texas to shore up the Democratic Party’s machinery, which is becoming increasingly fractured between liberals and conservatives. His instincts tell him that Kennedy will try to make sure that his coming reelection campaign will not be derailed by intra-party squabbles.
Dallas is a place, perh
aps, where some stalwarts of the Democratic Party can be pressured into giving ground under the threats from the right-wing extremists. Kennedy is coming to Dallas, Baskin speculates, to try to stem the tide. First Stevenson will come—to confront the right wing in the heart of Dallas. Then Kennedy will come—and do the same damned thing. It is clearly a coordinated campaign.
As he finishes typing up his story, Baskin decides to weave in some carefully culled snippets from a speech the president has just given in Montana about how he wants to reason—and negotiate—with the enemies of the United States—specifically communism and the Soviet Union.
“What we hope to do is lessen the chance of a military collision between these two great powers, which together have the power to kill 300 million people in a day.”18
This part of Kennedy’s speech is sure to draw ire from the right.
OCTOBER
In many ways, Bruce Alger’s political career remains defined by the searing moment out on the streets of Dallas in November 1960—when the world saw startling images of petite Lady Bird Johnson, her face twisted in fear and then anger, as the mink coat mob swirled around her, some spitting and pushing and screaming. Alger might have believed that the circumspect elders always resented him for it—that, even as much as they wanted LBJ, Lady Bird, and Kennedy assailed, it was never going to help the city’s image.
And now reporters are asking questions: What is waiting for John F. Kennedy, this time, in Dallas? What will Alger do when President Kennedy’s motorcade passes through the downtown streets?
Alger agrees to an interview with Dealey’s Dallas Morning News. He is careful with his answers. It is a choice opportunity to salvage his conservative mettle. The interview is with Bob Baskin. Alger says he is speaking for his people in Dallas: “We should welcome him if he’s prepared to answer questions and get away from pious platitudes. He owes us that courtesy.”
Baskin decides that he will round out his story by interviewing Joe Pool, a conservative Democrat and congressman-at-large from the Dallas area. Pool is a savvy politician, someone who knows, perhaps better than Alger, how the men atop the Dallas Citizens Council treasure a somber, subdued discretion—and are repulsed by anything that erodes an iota of fiscal confidence in Dallas. Pool grew up in the areas of Dallas that are now undergoing white flight. And he went to the all-white Southern Methodist University law school. When he speaks to the Dallas Morning News about what will happen to the president of the United States in Dallas, it is as if he is actually talking directly to Bruce Alger—and, by extension, to all the men in Dallas who have openly opposed Kennedy.
“While I disagree with the Kennedy Administration on much legislation, I feel that he is president of the United States and believe that the people of Texas will extend to him a courteous reception.
“I am sure that he will not have any discourteous demonstrations, such as occurred in Dallas in 1960 during a visit of our vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and his wife.
“Everyone, both Democrats and Republicans, regrets the 1960 incident, and I for one am hopeful that his visit will receive a typical Texas welcome.”1
Larrie Schmidt is busy making plans for the upcoming visits. He writes to his friend Bernard Weissman in New York:
“There are to be protests. All the big things are happening now—if we don’t get in right now we may as well forget it… The opening is here—all we need to do is pick up the ball and run like hell.”2
Schmidt contacts Dealey’s editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News—who is president of the local Young Americans for Freedom chapter. Schmidt’s idea is simple: Let’s organize the Young Americans for Freedom to picket Stevenson’s appearance.
He is told no. The YAF, given its direct affiliation with the Morning News, wants to steer clear of any street protests. Disgusted, Schmidt abruptly resigns from the organization. It’s a dicey game, turning his back on Dealey and his powerful newspaper. But Schmidt knows this chance will never come again—to take direct action against Stevenson and maybe Kennedy. He talks to his brother, the chauffeur for Walker. He contacts the John Birch Society. Surely he can drum up some ideas, money, support for some anti-Stevenson, anti-Kennedy operations.
He also writes to Weissman:
“Watch your newspaper for news of huge demonstrations here in Dallas on Oct 23 and 24 in connection with UN Day and Adlai Stevenson’s speech here. Plans already made, strategy being carried out.”3
General Edwin Walker is scanning the front-page stories touting Adlai Stevenson’s upcoming visit. He is irritated. The communists are receiving free publicity, but his own U.S. Day rally is all but ignored.
The local CBS television affiliate announces that Stevenson’s speech will be broadcast live. No such provision is made for Walker. The general’s aides have been whispering that they might not fill the auditorium. An extensive word-of-mouth campaign is launched. Walker’s aide Robert Surrey has designed and printed hundreds of flyers and yard signs: U.S. OR U.N. IN 1964. Advertisements appear in the Dallas Morning News: U.S. DAY RALLY! the black-bordered ads read. US OR UN? YOU CAN’T STRADDLE THIS!
Rumors are spreading across Dallas that hundreds of picket signs are stashed at Walker’s headquarters. Neiman Marcus executives are worried, and they call Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry to inquire about protection for Stevenson. The chief assures them there will be no danger.
The Dallas Times Herald runs an editorial cartoon crystallizing the anxiety: In it, Stevenson is carrying a suitcase marked DALLAS. Standing with him is Lyndon B. Johnson, survivor of Dallas’s mink coat mob in 1960. LBJ has a reassuring hand on Adlai’s shoulder, telling him: “Be brave.”
A welcoming committee steps into position as the 990 Astrojet arrives from Chicago on October 23. A diminutive woman in a sweeping, Vietnamese-style dress emerges from the plane, and cheers ring out.
Dallas is not on the official itinerary of Mrs. Ngo Dinh Nhu, the vainglorious “First Lady” of South Vietnam. She is scheduled to simply change planes at Love Field and continue on her American tour. But Madame Nhu has heard about the great American patriots in Dallas, and she is intrigued. She has also heard about something even more exciting: Neiman Marcus. She orders a brief layover in Dallas.
General Walker and dozens of his followers are waiting to greet her. At the head of the large Dallas delegation is fifteen-year-old Karen Surrey, the daughter of General Walker’s closest aide.
Surrey steps forward and announces that she is representing General Walker’s U.S. Day Committee in Dallas. She presents Madame Nhu with a dozen red roses and two small American flags, telling her they are for “a very brave and courageous lady.”4
Madame Nhu is on a worldwide tour insisting that Vietnam is winning the war against the communists. Her troops, however, have ignited international outrage for their attacks on Buddhist temples. Monks have committed ritual suicide by immolating themselves on city streets. She dismisses the suicides as “Buddhist barbecues.”
“If the Buddhists wish to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline and a match,” she announces.5
President Kennedy has refused to meet her; he is planning to cut aid to her government, and rumors are swirling the CIA is plotting a coup to topple her husband’s regime.
Madame Nhu calls Kennedy an appeaser and says that his plans to cut aid to her government are “treason.” She wonders why “all the people around President Kennedy are pink?”6
Her edgy comments have ostracized her in Washington. But Walker and his comrades are eager to embrace her—especially on a day when Walker is scheduled to blast Kennedy during his U.S. Day speech.
As Madame Nhu greets her admirers, more cheers ring out. Her security chief beams at the crowd and tells a Dallas Morning News reporter that the reception in Dallas is the warmest they have received in America.
Fifteen minutes later Madame Nhu arrives at Neiman Marcus, attended by a large entourage, including the Surrey family. It is not quite what she expected. St
anley Marcus has tricked the store out to look like some idealized postcard from Switzerland. The group walks under the display of Swiss flags and approaches the grand replica of Bern’s clock, towering over the main entrance. They stare at Father Time, who is attended by a crowing rooster, a group of bears marching in a circle, and a surreal jester clanging a bell. Inside, the elevator doors resemble entranceways to Swiss chalets. There are mountains of fake snow, big Swiss clocks, and even a faux ski lift.
Madame Nhu ignores the reporters and the spreading crowd gawking at her. She focuses on shopping. She picks up a man’s shirt and turns to a saleswoman:
“Is this American?” she asks pointedly. “I do not want anything foreign.”7
As Madame Nhu flies away and twilight descends over Dallas, the main event for U.S. Day begins.
Hundreds of people file into the Memorial Auditorium for Walker’s rally. Even though it is late October, the heat hasn’t broken. Dallas is still waiting for its first cool front of the fall.
Inside, the auditorium is filling up with John Birchers, Minutemen, Young Americans for Freedom, the National States Rights Party. Also in attendance is the former chairman of the now defunct National Indignation Convention, Frank McGehee, as well as Larrie Schmidt, along with his brother, who is still working as Walker’s chauffeur.
And still another man is present—he has come by himself.
After being fired from his job, after failing to murder General Walker at his home, Lee Harvey Oswald decided to move to New Orleans, hoping that city would be more receptive to his pro-Cuba, pro-Castro politics. Marina joined him for a while but eventually returned to Dallas without him. Things in New Orleans spiraled quickly downward for Oswald. There were run-ins with the police—and he found virtually no support for his cause. New Orleans was, in many ways, a miserable experience punctuated with moments of paranoia, loneliness, and a simmering anger at the lack of support for his pro-Cuba agenda.
Dallas 1963 Page 24