Dallas
It was only a three-day trip, but the stakes were high.
Not long after a revitalized Jackie returned from her Greek vacation, Jack asked her to accompany him on an official visit to Dallas later in November. Whether out of gratitude for sending her to Greece or out of some newfound devotion, Jackie was excited to go. She knew that Jack would need her star power, there more than ever. The civil rights legislation that Jack was trying to push through Congress had made an enemy of many Southern states, and the vitriol against Jack was as strong in Texas as anywhere else in the South. Further, the Democratic Party within Texas had split into squabbling factions, and Jack needed the state unified—and behind him—if he was to carry the electoral college in 1964. He was joined by native Texans Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in an effort to win Texan affection.
They were relieved by the warmth of their reception in San Antonio and Houston, where Jackie got to speak Spanish to the meeting of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Her Spanish was halting, but, predictably, the crowd went wild. The next morning, in Ft. Worth, Jackie was twenty minutes late to the Chamber of Commerce breakfast, but when she appeared, the ovation she received prompted Kennedy to begin his speech by saying, “Two years ago I introduced myself in Paris by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris. I am getting somewhat the same sensation as I travel around Texas.” As an aside, he added, “Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear.” The audience ate it up.
After breakfast they made a quick flight to Love Field in Dallas, where they smiled and waved and shook hands with the jubilant throng. Jackie, flat-out pretty in a pink Chanel suit and matching pink pillbox hat, was given a dozen roses, which she cradled in her lap as the president’s motorcade departed for the Dallas Trade Mart, where Jack was to give his luncheon speech. Though it had stormed in Dallas the night before, the day was bright and clear, and the Kennedys, riding with Texas governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, soaked up the sun in the back of the Lincoln Continental convertible. The Johnsons were in a convertible just behind them. It was to be a relatively quick drive—seven miles from the airport to the Trade Mart.
As they approached downtown Dallas, the adoring crowds thickened. “Mr. President,” Mrs. Connally shouted over the sound of the cheering spectators, “You certainly can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you.”
Then Jackie heard what sounded like a motorcycle backfiring. Turning to look at her husband, she saw that his hands were at his throat; he was trying to slump forward, but, as it turned out, a brace he was wearing for that perennial bad back held him erect. It was then that the final shot hit its mark. Jackie watched the right side of his head explode.
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill had started running toward the president’s car as soon as he saw Kennedy’s hands at his throat. He was close enough when the headshot came that his clothes, face, and hair were covered in a haze of blood and brain tissue. As he reached the car, a terrified Jackie was crawling onto the trunk of the moving car.
“She was reaching for something,” Hill wrote. “She was reaching for a piece of the president’s head.”
He pushed Jackie back into the back seat, where Jack fell into her lap. “My God! They have shot his head off!” she cried. The back seat of the convertible was an abattoir: blood, brain matter, and skull fragments were everywhere. Governor Connally had been wounded as well, though not fatally. Hill wedged his body above Jackie to shield her from any further bullets as the car accelerated up Elm Street.
She cradled Jack’s head. “Jack,” she said. “Jack, what have they done to you?” Four minutes later they arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Jack would be declared dead at 1:00 p.m., thirty minutes after bullets struck him in Dealey Plaza.
These details have been played and replayed a thousand times: the pandemonium outside of Parkland Hospital and the controlled chaos inside; the surgeons attempting interventions they knew were hopeless; Jackie’s refusal to leave the hospital—and then Texas—without her husband’s body. One moment, though, shows Jackie in microcosm.
As the Lincoln convertible arrived at the hospital, Agent Hill tried to get Jackie and the president out of the back seat. But Jackie wouldn’t budge. She remained crouched over Jack’s destroyed head, covering his wounds from the gaze of onlookers and a press that was already arriving. Hill pleaded with her to let go, and he presently realized that she didn’t want anyone to see Jack so injured, so vulnerable. He took off his suit coat and draped it over Jack’s head.
“She still hadn’t said a word, but as soon as my coat was covering the president, she released her grip.”
It was now Jackie’s job to control, as best she could, what the world saw of Jack, and what would remain hidden.