I thank my most important reader, my wife Andrea Mays. Despite her busy life as a professor, author, and mother, Andrea helped shepherd all three books in my presidential trilogy—Manhunt, Bloody Crimes, and End of Days—to publication. She read every page of this book more than once, from first to final draft, and her editorial comments, from overall storytelling advice to meticulous line edits, were indispensable and improved the book in countless ways. Our boys, Harrison and Cameron, also helped me tell this story by assisting on my book for young adults—The President Has Been Shot!—that preceded End of Days.
It is impossible to think about the death and funeral of John F. Kennedy without recalling the death of another president ninety-eight years earlier. The upheaval that followed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the unprecedented national mourning unleashed by the events of April 14 and 15, 1865, was not seen in this country again until November 22, 1963. These two profound national tragedies have much in common. Indeed, the parallels connecting these stories are so striking that I began to think of them as bookends to one great sad, American tale of loss, legend, and myth. My previous books on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the chase for his killer, his funeral, and the national death pageant that transformed him from man to martyr made it possible for me to write about John Kennedy.
A number of people helped bring my version of John—and Jacqueline—Kennedy’s end of days to print. Regarding Jackie it is easy to forget that, although she survived the gunfire in Dealey Plaza, the life she knew ended that day. This book is about her, too.
My “first readers” Michael F. Bishop, Ronald K.L. Collins, and David Lovett read the manuscript early on and offered many helpful comments and insights. Michael, former Congressional staffer, White House veteran, and former executive director of the national Abraham Lincoln bicentennial commission, brought his extensive knowledge of the presidency and the modern executive mansion to bear to my advantage. Ron, one of the nation’s preeminent experts on the First Amendment, is a prolific author of books not only about law, but also on American legends of another kind, including Lenny Bruce and the Beats.
David Lovett, Washington lawyer, lobbyist, and association executive, scrutinized the manuscript with exquisite care and went far above and beyond the call of duty to assist me. He is an expert on the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations, and he owns what I believe is the finest and largest private library in the world on the murder of JFK. In his spare time, he is one of the top historical researchers in Washington and one of the city’s best-kept secrets. He threw open the doors and gave me total access to his vast archive. Whatever I needed—books, pamphlets, documents, images, recordings, ephemera, or objects of material culture—he provided. He is more knowledgeable than anyone alive about the bibliography and historiography of the Kennedy assassination. We have been friends for almost thirty years, and he is the only person I know who matches my obsessive zeal for tracking down obscure historical rarities. His uncanny research skills made End of Days a better book. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, David gave his “last full measure of devotion” to this project, and for that I thank him.
My friend Richard Thomas narrated all three audio books in this series. He is one of the finest actors of his generation and, whether he was busy in theater, television, or film, Richard always took the time to lend his great American voice to my words. His artistic choices made the text come alive. No one could have done it better, and I thank him for his generosity.
The late Wesley J. Liebeler, my professor and mentor at the UCLA School of Law, served as an assistant counsel on the Warren Commission. His insights provided a rare insider’s perspective on the murder. Jim had an irreverent and irrepressible sense of humor, and I wish he were around today to read how some of the more outré conspiracy theorists have theorized that I, as Jim’s protégé, must be part of the government conspiracy to cover up the true history of the Kennedy assassination. I miss Jim’s maniacal, cackling laugh. I owe him much. Not only did Jim pass on to me the secrets of the Warren Commission, he gave me something far more precious. He introduced me to my wife.
Fellow UCLA Law alumnus Vincent Bugliosi is one of the finest prosecutors in American history. Vince, a three-time Edgar Award winner, is the author of one of the best nonfiction crime books ever written, one that is also one of the most frightening books of the twentieth century, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. His monumental Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is one of the most important books about the event. He is a remarkable and generous friend, and I have enjoyed our long conversations about the events surrounding November 22.
Thanks to former editor of the Los Angles Times Shelby Coffey III and the great investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein for an unforgettable conversation about Lee Harvey Oswald and the evidence against him. Ed is a brilliant historian of the assassination and his books are essential reading.
I am indebted to Clinton J. Hill, United States Secret Service, for several conversations about what he saw and did on the afternoon of November 22. He is a great American, and a brave but humble man. No one misses President Kennedy more than Clint Hill. He was there, and he knows.
John Seigenthaler and Charles Overby extended many courtesies to me in Nashville and Washington, D.C. John talked about what it was like to know John and Robert Kennedy, and he shared stories about being alone with them in JFK’s last house in Georgetown. His insights on Jackie Kennedy were priceless. John speaks with touching eloquence about what it felt like to live through November 22.
Thanks to Tom Ingram, former editor in chief of Nashville’s David Lipscomb High School newspaper, for providing me with an original issue of the Pony Express extra that covered the Kennedy assassination.
Jessica Kline assisted me with gracious expertise and good humor whenever I needed help with computer problems. Amy Hart was invaluable in producing all the printed materials I needed to revise the manuscript from first to final draft.
My literary agent and good friend Richard Abate worked tirelessly to bring End of Days to publication. The great agents believe that once they sell a book, their work is not done—it has just begun. This is our sixth book together. On all of them, Richard has stood beside me and he has, with great taste, humor and a historian’s eye, made them better books. I always look forward to our strategy sessions at our favorite classic New York City steakhouses.
My editor Henry Ferris has been with me on all three of my books about presidential history. By now I have inflicted upon him a century’s worth of American tragedy, death, and mourning. I promise that someday I will write a happier book. Until then, I owe him my thanks for his patience, kindness, and invaluable contributions along the way.
Henry’s lieutenant Cole Hager assisted in gathering the photos, bringing the manuscript to final draft for publication, and getting it into production. During a hectic process he was always cool under fire, and I thank him.
Sharyn Rosenblum has been with me on all my books and remains the best publicist in the business. I have fond memories of a memorable dinner at Martin’s Tavern, where we outlined the campaign for this book, and then went on a midnight walk past John and Jackie Kennedy’s last Georgetown house a few blocks away, before strolling down to the old C & O Canal. The spirit of the Kennedys still lingers in their old neighborhood.
Martin’s still serves customers at the same tables once occupied by Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Richard Nixon, and a young unmarried senator named John F. Kennedy. When Kennedy dined their alone, he often sat at the first table to the right—the half booth or “rumble seat.” Legend has it that he proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier at another window booth in the restaurant. My friends at Martin’s—owner Billy Martin and manager Joseph Filosa—have for years been hospitable hosts to me, and to the ghosts of Camelot who still dine there.
At the Monocle, the famous Capitol Hill restaurant and watering hole for several generations of American political and government leaders, owner John Valanos and manager Nick Selimos gave me a home away from home during the time I wrote End of Days, and all my other books.
Thanks to my first-class legal team of Eric S. Brown and Michael I. Rudell, and also Jonathan D. Lupkin. I can always rely upon their counsel.
Thanks to my friend and fellow Washingtonian Mark Vargas for his energetic promotion of my books. We have spent hours in conversation discussing our mutual fascination with 1960s American politics, John Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jacqueline Kennedy. Sean Langille explained to me the mysteries of social media and other new forms of communication.
It was Douglas Brinkley who first suggested, one day in the summer of 2007 as we stood together on a Washington, D.C., street corner, that I write about the Kennedy assassination someday. He also gave valuable suggestions on how to think about this story. On another occasion, we enjoyed a marathon dinner where we talked about the life and legend of Jackie Kennedy.
I can trace the origins of this book back further, to my childhood. In the fall of 1963, I was almost five years old. I remember nothing of November 22, although that afternoon I must have been at home, watching news coverage with my mother. I do remember this. Across the street from our house lived my two favorite childhood playmates, Ourania and Evanthia Malliris. The girls were a few years older than I. Their father was a conservative Greek grocer who did not allow them to watch television. His daughters, he dreamed, would attend prestigious universities one day—Harvard was one of the ones he mentioned—and idling in front of a TV screen had no part in that plan. On Sunday, November 24, my mother told me that the girls were coming over to our house because they had received special permission to watch something on television. It must very important, I thought, and I asked why. My mother said that the president of the United States had died, and that we were going to watch a horse-drawn carriage carry his coffin to the U.S. Capitol and then watch the memorial service there.
Several years later my mother, Dianne, led me led me to what she called her “morgue”: a tall, floor-to-ceiling closet with a sliding door that concealed several shelves piled with vintage newspapers, magazines, picture books, photographs, and ephemera. She was a painter, and these were some of her references and sources for ideas. When I was eight or nine years old, I discovered a treasure trove in that closet—her time capsule of materials that she had collected about the assassination of president Kennedy. Mesmerized, I paged through old Life and Look magazines from the fall of 1963. With care, I opened long-folded newspapers, their pages browned and brittle, and read their frightening headlines. I did not know much about President Kennedy, and did not understand the significance of everything I saw, but I knew from my mother’s tears that something terrible had happened.
Every year, when late November came around, my father, Lennart Swanson, shared with me his memories of the day President Kennedy was shot and entranced me with stories about where he was at 12:30 P.M.—in Larsen’s restaurant on the northwest side of Chicago—and what had happened there and in the city that afternoon and evening. He bought me the Kennedy “Eternal Flame” plug-in, electric night-light pictured in this book. He also gave me the bright-red steel Chicago American newspaper vending rack that I wrote about in the book and that remains, to this day, filled with a stack of copies of the edition from that unforgettable Friday afternoon.
And so I thank my parents, who inspired me long ago to tell the story that you now hold in your hands.
James L. Swanson
Edgartown, Massachusetts
August 1, 2013