Time always saps the excitement of the game in the mind of the winner. It was one hour past Lee Harvey Oswald’s bedtime. In his opinion, he had won whatever contest the law had projected in this glassy office. Wit had been honed with sparks against wit for nine hours. They had sent their best—Fritz and Hosty and Kelley and Clements, postal inspectors and FBI and Secret Service and Dallas detectives. Their best had failed to crack his contention that he was guilty of nothing more than carrying a revolver into a motion picture theater. They had battered at the wall of his will and hurt their hands.
Most of the time the office had been filled with the authority of the law, standing, sitting, smiling, frowning at him. Lee Harvey Oswald had taken them on one at a time and all together. He had been smart enough to concede that he deserved the punch in the eye for resisting policemen; he had been bright enough to protest that, in spite of all their protestations, he had no lawyer, no trained opinion to counsel him, nothing but his own magnificent intellect to keep the hounds baying at the foot of the tree.
Long since the questions had become repetitious and Mr. Oswald tired of foiling them. Detective Adamcik walked into the little office and studied the skinny body, the thinning hair of indeterminate color, the lean face melting toward the long neck, and he said: “Where were you at the time this assassination occurred?” The prisoner did not deign to look up at the new opponent. He stared straight ahead, moving his wrists in concert with the handcuffs. Adamcik waited for a response. All he heard was the clamor of the press in the hall. The detective sat to guard the prisoner.
Will Fritz, having arranged a press conference without the consent of the prisoner, returned to ask a question. The captain had rank; he deserved a response. “You took notes,” Oswald said insolently. “Just read them for yourself if you want to refresh your memory. . . . Now you know as much about it as I do.” The captain could accept an affront. He blinked with big hyperthyroid eyes and proceeded with the details of the show to be staged in the assembly room. Neither the question nor the answer were, at this hour, of importance. He would like to have cracked this young man, but it was not a requirement to the prosecution of the case.
If the situation could be related to a card game, Fritz had the winning hand. He realized that nothing his adversary had could trump the cards held by the police. If Fritz felt disappointment, it was in the cautious play of Oswald. The game would close with the prisoner holding onto a few chips, and Fritz would like to have seen them all on the table as stakes. Oswald would have enough in reserve to play again tomorrow, and maybe another day. He might be turned over to Sheriff Decker with sufficient resources to continue the game in court.
The questions became fewer. The hour was late; Homicide and Robbery had been on duty since 8 A.M. It was becoming difficult for the men to concentrate. Some of the conversation between detectives was punctuated by “I don’t know . . .” Men asked each other; “Did you take that statement?” and heard “Could be” or “I forget.” Most of them had lost a concept of time. In penning reports, they had trouble trying to recall if something happened at 2 P.M. or 4 P.M. There was the additional difficulty of trying to recall the names of other detectives who may have been present. They lost patience with each other, the final fatigue.
Lee Harvey Oswald shook his head slowly, as though he was dealing with children. “How could I afford to order a rifle on my salary of a dollar and a quarter an hour,” he shouted, “when I can’t hardly feed myself on what I make?” He bent forward and his elbows perched on his knees. A detective asked the prisoner to explain the difference between a communist who is a Lenin-Marxist and one who is a pure Marxist. “It’s a long story,” he said sullenly, “and if you don’t know, it will take too long to tell.”
It was late for a phone call, but the ring at 1316 Timberlake in Richardson was monotonously insistent. Gregory Lee Olds decided that it was easier to succumb to the demand than to count the rings. The man on the other end of the wire was a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He asked if Mr. Olds knew whether the civil rights of Oswald had been protected. Olds said he knew nothing about the case. He was, as a businessman, editor of a Richardson weekly newspaper; as a militant citizen he was president of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union.
Well, the caller said, the president of the Austin affiliate had phoned long distance. He said that the ACLU should be concerned about the prisoner. In Austin there had been some television pictures of Oswald in a hallway somewhere, in a crowd of intense faces, holding his handcuffs up and shouting hoarsely that he wanted a lawyer and had not been given the opportunity to get one. He knew his rights, he said, but he wasn’t getting them. Olds, who was ready to retire for the night, said that he would check into the matter at once. He admitted that he knew no more than that the President had been shot and a policeman killed. Some young fellow from Irving had been arrested.
Olds was a patient man. He was also persistent. He could be deflected but not stopped. He phoned the Dallas Police Department and asked to speak to the chief of police. The chief was busy. He would speak to a deputy. No one knew where they were. Would he want to speak to a detective? No, he would not. Mr. Olds said he was president of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union and he would speak to the man in charge of the assassination case and no one else. He was given one or two men who informed him politely: “Captain Fritz isn’t available, but you can tell me . . .” Gregory Olds slammed his teeth tight and said that he would wait.
Will Fritz got on the phone. He was asked if he was in charge of the Kennedy case, and he said yes. Olds explained his position and said that the Civil Liberties Union was anxious to see that Oswald had whatever legal representation he desired. The captain was a figure of bland unction. The question had come up, he said, and the police department had been at pains to detail Oswald’s rights, but he had declined assistance. Fritz himself had given Oswald the right to phone counsel of his choosing, had ordered the jailers not to hinder the prisoner, and, in fact, Oswald had made a couple of phone calls. The best that the captain could tell Mr. Olds was that Lee Harvey Oswald had not made any requests to him.
Olds hung up. He knew that there are prisoners in every city who refuse the services of an attorney on the assumption that one is not needed. The ACLU had considerable experience in this field; some defendants decided to represent themselves in court; a few, tragically, equated innocence with acquittal. These often paid in prison. The easy way for Olds would have been to retire, safe in the knowledge that he had the word of the Dallas Police Department that all the legal safeguards had been offered to Oswald and he had spurned them.
The editor decided to take a more difficult course. He phoned the board member and suggested that he call a few other ranking members and that they meet in the Plaza Hotel lobby at once. There would be a conference about Lee Harvey Oswald. The men sat on a couch and discussed the case. The guilt or innocence of Oswald did not come to the surface; it seemed incredible that, considering the trouble he was in, he didn’t want a lawyer. Someone suggested: “Call the mayor.”
If there is one thing to which Gregory Lee Olds was accustomed, it was disappointment. Chiefs of police, mayors, and prosecutors regarded an assortment of questions from the ACLU as a personal challenge. Olds got on the phone again and asked for Mayor Earle Cabell. Who was calling? He gave his name and rank and was told that the mayor was busy. The editor wondered what could keep a mayor busy after 11 P.M.
The best thing, he told his confreres, would be for the body of men to walk across the street to police headquarters and ask the questions directly. They might even meet Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Surely, if the police department was justified in its position, it would have no objection to a group of men saying: “We’re from the American Civil Liberties Union. Do you need a lawyer?” If he said no, the case was closed and they would go home. Curry and Fritz would probably be happy to be rid of them.
They were directed to the third floor and the elevator lifted them up and spewed them into the madness of the corridor. Men and cameras curled around them in a stream flowing in the opposite direction. Olds saw a man he knew: Chuck Webster, a professor of law. They explained the problem. Mr. Webster said that he had been around headquarters practically all evening and he thought he knew the man who might reassure the ACLU. Webster escorted them to the other end of the hall and introduced them to Captain Glen King. The captain was a gracious man. He said that Oswald had been charged with the murder of Officer Tippit and was, at this moment, being formally charged in the assassination of the President.
Olds said that this was not their concern. All they wanted to know, in words of one syllable, was whether the prisoner had been advised of his right to counsel. That’s all. Glen King said that, so far as he knew, Oswald had not made a request for counsel. That’s an edge of an answer, but it lacks body. Had the police department advised Lee Harvey Oswald—never mind what he asked for or hadn’t asked for—had they told him that he was entitled to a lawyer, that he could have one right now or at any time throughout this interminable day?
The captain thought that the man best equipped to answer the question, to put all minds at rest, would be the J.P. Mr. Johnston was down in the basement at this moment. Why not run down there and ask him? Mr. Olds remained upstairs. The ACLU men went back down the elevator. It seemed awkward that such a simple question required the affirmation of so many officials. Each in turn was certain that Oswald was protected, but no one was certain just how. The best source, they thought, would be the justice of the peace.
The fact was that, consciously or unconsciously, Oswald’s legal rights were in jeopardy. Shortly after 2 P.M. the police department of Dallas had told him that he didn’t have to answer questions, that anything he said could be used against him in court, that he did not have to pose for press photos or answer questions from the newspapermen or television people. Up to that point the law had blinded him with the brilliance of justice. Beyond that point legal darkness had descended on the scene. He had asked again and again for a lawyer. He had requested the services of John Abt of New York and, when Oswald had reminded the police inoffensively that they had taken his thirteen dollars away from him, he was told to make the phone call collect. This gave him an unnecessary hurdle to clear, and he had failed it.
On at least one other occasion, Oswald had told the officers that, if he could not locate Abt, he would consult the American Civil Liberties Union. He had also declared that he was a member of the ACLU. Will Fritz, surprised, asked how much Oswald had paid in dues, and the prisoner told him five dollars. If the department had a desire to protect the rights of the prisoner, it would have been a small gesture to have phoned the Dallas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and said: ”We have a fellow over here who says you’re his second choice to help him. Would you like to send someone over to have a talk with Oswald?”
Instead, almost the entire day and evening had been spent inundating the prisoner in a bowl of hostile faces. He faced their combined cunning, analyzing the innocent questions before responding to them, glorying in the attention he drew from the world, perhaps even exultant at the opportunity to hold them off in the swordplay of the tongue.
Two men of the Olds group met Justice of the Peace David Johnston. The judge appreciated the nobility of their cause at once. The ACLU men returned to Olds and said that the judge had assured them that Oswald’s legal rights had already been explained to him and he had “declined counsel.” The law had done its duty. The American Civil Liberties Union had done its duty. It was time for good men to go to bed.
Around Times Square, the taxicabs waited with dimmed lights on the side streets. The theater crowds had gone home. The pancake restaurants were bright with young faces, happy to be out of the chill wind at seventy-five cents per face. A ribbon of news walked in yellow lights around the old Times Tower, telling the story over and over. On the corners, men in stockinged hats sold the morning papers.
The hands of the clock met at twelve, and the big one moved a minute past to inauguarate another day in New York. The New York Times spread the assassination headline across the top of page one as though somewhere it might electrify someone who had not heard. Ten miles outside of Norwalk, Ohio, eighty-four inmates of the Golden Age Nursing Home fretted over the loss of one so young. In twelve more hours sixty-three of them would burn to death. In Los Angeles, Aldous Huxley, a littérateur, was dead of cancer. The paid obituary notices in The New York Times were drenched with the tears of the maudlin. There were twenty-two notifications that John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, had passed away. The American Booksellers Association, Igor Kropotkin, president, mourned his death and “while honoring all his great accomplishments, single out with gratitude his long devotion to the world of books.” Panic and remorse were still dominant and many people sat the long vigil before the television set to subject themselves to the redundant hammer blows. The flagellants and the oratorical sadists were betrothed. The parade was begun over and over and over. Mr. Kennedy smiled and waved his hand, and Mrs. Kennedy flicked the dark lock of hair from her eye and smiled vaguely in an ocean of strange and curious faces.
Everybody knew that a scene would come when people would fall on grass, scrambling to safety; when the President would begin to topple; when the young lady in pink would begin to climb out on the trunk; when a motorcycle policeman would ram his vehicle into the curb, draw his gun, and glance helplessly at windows and railroad tracks. Everybody knew this. The lacerated mentalities had to witness it once more, as though this time the story would end happily.
In time, David Brinkley of the National Broadcasting Company tired of the blows. “We are about to wind up,” he said slowly, “as about all that could happen has happened. It is one of the ugliest days in American history. There is seldom any time to think anymore, and today there was none. In about four hours we had gone from President Kennedy in Dallas, alive, to back in Washington, dead, and a new President in his place. There is really no more to say except that what happened has been just too much, too ugly, and too fast.”
Too fast to some, too slow to others. In Washington, Muggsy O’Leary drove down Wisconsin Avenue and turned into the big parking lot at Harrison. He and the tough, sentimental Gaels—O’Donnell, O’Brien, and Powers—felt that this was the longest, slowest, saddest day of any year. It was a day of so many scores of individually remembered sorrows that no one of them could recall them all. O’Leary, a Kennedy idolator, was a member of the Secret Service because John F. Kennedy endorsed the appointment. The blackbeard, O’Donnell, sat watching the lights of his world flash by the car to explode into the blackness behind. O’Brien, the conciliatory redhead, the onetime bartender, the political mathematician, was doing something that had to be done. He did not relish the task, but he may have been affronted if someone else drew the assignment. Powers, the bald ward leader of Boston, the man who first looked politically upon the tall stuttering son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the man who first said: “Okay. I’ll try to make a Congressman of you”—this is the one who knew the aspirations to be said for the repose of the soul, the spiritual phrases which begged clemency for the sinner.
These went to buy a casket. A saint does not comprehend the finality of death; a sinner does. The four men knew the mystery of death as they knew the zest and joy of political battle. Death was an unlocked front door; the musty odor of flowers; a red vigil light; camp chairs; the ferns; stiff blue knuckles clutching the black rosary; the sonorous voice of the priest, kneeling before the casket, intoning: “Blessed be God! Blessed be His Holy Name . . .”; it was the sobs of the women; the cautious handshake of old enemies; ham and whiskey in the kitchen; old men puffing pipes and remembering him that was in the box and his father before him and that one’s father before him.
It was a brand-new building, a Georgian structure with lights in the hedges splashing a glow on the pale brick. This was Joseph Gawler’s Sons. In one hundred thirteen years, it had buried three generations of its own, and the fourth waited inside the white doorway. There is no trade, no profession, which stands in such permanent delicate balance as a funeral home. It must be solemn but not doleful; helpful but not cheerful; competent but not morbid; spiritual but not hyper-religious; cordial but not intimate; ready to assist but not overbearing. Joseph H. Gawler understood his function. He stepped forward as the four men came in, and introduced himself and his operations manager, Joseph E. Hagan. The four looked around. The lobby floor was white marble relieved by small black diamonds. There was a circular staircase to the right with ember-red carpet and balustrade; a crystal chandelier hung down from another floor.
O’Donnell began to explain their presence. Mr. Gawler interrupted. He understood. The phone call from the White House had explained everything. The visitors felt relieved. Mr. Hagan, a short man with the air of one who is accustomed to becoming confidential within a short span of time, said that he understood that embalming of the President would also be required. Powers nodded. Hagan just wanted the strangers to know that Gawler’s was prepared. He had an enbalming team waiting in an office to the left; John Van Haesen, Edwin B. Stroble, and Thomas Robinson. Gawler, a brown-eyed man with a ruddy complexion, said that they wanted the Kennedys to know that, in spite of the hour, everything could be accomplished to the satisfaction of the family.
The gold-lined elevator moved in silence. The four were in a world of sedate whispers. They passed the second floor, with its array of large rooms furnished in French provincial. At the third floor, the party turned left and Mr. Hagan opened the double doors leading to the selection room. The men stepped into a cool place on heavy beige broadloom. Recessed squares in the ceiling bathed the place in warm light. In an alcove and a main room there were two dozen caskets. The men hesitated, eyes darting. There were gray metallic boxes, grayish suede; there were gleaming metal caskets, some in mahogany, some burled in a blackish wood. A few were open, disclosing the white shirred satin. All stood on carriages hidden by pleated skirts.
The men seemed embarrassed to be in the room. They wanted “something in good taste.” Hagan didn’t care to remind them that everything in the room was in taste. It required a little coaxing to get them inside the big room, where they could examine the array of merchandise. Mr. Gawler said that his original impression had been that President Kennedy would rest in the funeral home, but that . . . No, they said, he would repose in the White House, where he belonged. They walked slowly around the boxes, none with any knowledge of what Mrs. Kennedy would appreciate.
Someone said that price was not a factor. The Gawler group understood that, but they wanted it understood that there was a standard price on each of these items, that a casket would cost no more for the President’s family than for anyone else. This also applied to their services at the hospital. Above all, Gawler’s exuded an aura of quiet confidence, and this pleased the four men. Two of them stood beside a polished mahogany casket with ornate silver handles. They thought perhaps that something along these lines . . .
The others joined them. They walked around the box. The half-lid was lifted. It looked rich and solemn. There wasn’t a hint of garishness. Walking around it, the men noticed that it picked up arrows of light from the ceiling. “This one,” they said. Mr. Gawler said that it would be delivered at Bethesda Hospital within the hour. Yes, O’Donnell said. Please do whatever must be done as quickly as possible.
Hagan had heard on television that the President had sustained a massive head wound. The embalming team might find it necessary to process part of the skull, matching it identically with the real color and texture of the hair. It could have saved time if Hagan or Gawler had asked about these things before leaving for the hospital. Some things are left unsaid. It would require a little more time, but it would be worth it to assess the cosmetic damage themselves and plan the repair work.
The four men were outside in the crisp night air within twenty minutes. They were glad to be out again. It is a triumph to be alive in the presence of death. It is deadlier to be able to walk away from it. The poetry of the sentimentalist is dolorous. As he treads the edge of eternity to do a service for a friend, he too dies.
Lee Harvey Oswald stood. It stirred a turning of heads. He was tired of sitting, he said. The handcuffs hung on his thighs. He arched his back a few times and sat. The prisoner was not told that he was about to star in a press conference. He would be taken downstairs, as though for another lineup, and he would not know, until he saw the cameras and heard the questions, that for a brief time he was being tossed to the press as a sop.
In the outer office, Captain Fritz bent over a desk and told detectives Sims and Barratt to make out an arrest sheet on Lee Harvey Oswald in the murder of one John F. Kennedy. It was to be done at once, before the prisoner left the office. Fritz wanted to sign it. Everything he had pointed to Oswald. There was no other suspect. The captain didn’t have a piece of evidence which would lead him to believe that another person might be involved. For the sake of Dallas it would be a good thing to present the assassination as solved to the press of the world. The day could be closed on a note of triumph.
The man with the rumpled suit and face introduced himself to a young policeman in the hall. “I’m looking for Joe DeLong of KLIF,” he said, holding a pencil and note pad in view. “Can you page him over the loudspeaker?” “Who?” the cop said. “Joe DeLong,” Jack Ruby said. The policeman walked to a corner where a microphone stood. A booming voice echoed through the long hall. “Joe DeLong. Joe DeLong of KLIF. Please report to press information.”
The hall was nearly empty. A dozen men lounged in groups. Two men unplugged a thick black cable and followed it to an office window and dropped it to the sidewalk. The cop said: “He isn’t here.” Ruby said: “I’ll wait a minute.” A reporter, passing, said he was glad that Curry was putting Oswald on display downstairs. It would serve two purposes, he thought. One would be to give the world a solid look at the man. The other would be to permit the press to ask a few questions. Even if Oswald denied everything, they would have a statement from him.
Ruby said: “Thanks” and started down to the assembly room. He felt a tingle of excitement. Tremendous things were happening and Ruby was there to witness them. He did not want to draw attention to himself, and he would seek a position in the back of the room. Sometimes a young punk cop who did not know Jack Ruby might challenge him—might order him off the premises. The older men, friends of Ruby, might not want to bail him out of a situation like that. So he kept the pencil and pad in view and the gun hidden.
It was a nickel-plated .38. It was inside his trouser belt, between the pants and the shirt. Jack Ruby never used it. Sometimes friendly cops asked: “Why the hell do you carry that thing?” Mr. Ruby said that he carried two, sometimes three thousand dollars hidden in the trunk of his car. The gun was a form of insurance. It was carried, as so many were in Texas, like a 14-carat toothpick, the badge of the male. Sometimes, when Ruby was out socializing, he tossed the gun into the trunk of the car. On other occasions, it was to the left of the zipper on his trousers, with the handle up.
Lewis removed his coat and nodded politely to Wesley Frazier. Sometimes a polygraph operator wonders if his brother officers understand the procedure. They thought that all he had to do was to take a subject like Frazier, ask him questions, and watch a needle jump. Officer R. D. Lewis was a qualified operator. He called Adamcik into the other room to ask a few questions about the frightened boy. The more he knew about Wesley, the better the setup for the test. The office lights were turned up, an armchair was turned so that it faced a blank wall. Lewis arranged the blood pressure cuff for a human arm and looked at the needle tracings on a paper on his desk. Who was this kid? What was his name and what kind of material was Fritz interested in?
The kid’s name was Wesley Frazier. He lived less than a block away from Oswald’s wife. Frazier worked at the School Book Depository with Oswald and drove him home on weekends. Homicide was pretty sure that Oswald was the man they were looking for, but this Frazier kid was something else. A rifle was found in his house. He could possibly be a party to the assassination. Hours ago he had been questioned in Robbery, but he seemed scared. The kid was halfway home when Fritz got this idea for a polygraph test.
Lewis asked more questions. He needed them as controls. Captain Dowdy beckoned for Frazier to be brought in. The test was explained to him. The first order of business was to sit in that chair and try to relax. He would find that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. The best way to relax, he was told, would be to keep reminding oneself that you are going to tell the truth, no matter whom it hurts.
The boy sat. The cuff was wrapped around his arm, and his sleeve was shoved high. He was told to stare at the wall and try to think of nothing. Lewis, at his desk, studied the pulsing of the needle. He was getting steady vertical tracings. The beats were fast; that was nervousness. He waved the others back out of sight and began the test.
It took time to get the control questions and the placidity of the victim juxtaposed so that, on simple interrogations such as: “Do you live with your sister?” the needle would not jump. “Ever fire a gun?” induced a spasm peak. There was nothing incriminating in either question or answer (“Yes”), but Frazier, judging by the needle, bordered on controlled hysteria.
Officer Lewis reassured him several times, told him he was doing fine and not to worry about explanations when responding. If a question could be answered with “Yes” or “No,” use the single word. Also, when a question was asked which involved Lee Harvey Oswald, the answer would not necessarily involve Wesley. He might be asked if Oswald worked at the Texas School Book Depository building and the answer should be “Yes” without excitement.
Lewis realized that it would be a lengthy test, but he was a patient man. He expected a jump on the needle when he asked a control question such as: “Ever do anything you’re ashamed of?” or “When you were little, did you ever lie to your mother?” There were five police officers in the room and the doorway, and there wasn’t one who expected to learn anything from Wesley Buell Frazier. All they had managed to do was to scare the wits out of him.
The charge of murder was complete. It was studied by Assistant District Attorney William Alexander. As he stood beside Wade, they made an imposingly tall team. In the courts, Alexander was known as a vengeful prosecutor, a remorseless examiner, an old-time hanging district attorney. He told Sims to call Fritz out. The captain looked at the document, swore that he was the complainant in this case, and signed it. Henry Wade took it, waved the signature dry, and said: “Well, he’s filed on.”
Oswald wasn’t. The charge had no validity until a bail hearing was held by a “magistrate”—a justice of the peace—and signed by him. The young J.P. was down in the assembly room, sharing excitement with the press. David Johnston was thirty-six years of age, and he had never participated in anything as important as this case. The defendant in the action had yet to be notified.
The document was dubbed F-154 and it announced the contending parties as the state of Texas versus Lee Harvey Oswald. The charge was murder; the defendant’s address was listed as “City Jail.” Inside the flap, the stereotyped words stated that J. W. Fritz had “personally appeared before me” and being “duly sworn,” says he has good reason to believe “and does believe” that one Lee Harvey Oswald, on or about the 22nd day of November A.D. 1963 in the county of Dallas and state of Texas, “did then and there unlawfully, voluntarily, and with malice aforethought kill John F. Kennedy by shooting him with a gun against the peace and dignity of the state.” To the left of Fritz’s signature, Henry Wade signed.
Except for brief cutaway shots, the television story of the assassination had slowed to an embarrassed repetition. On the streets in some cities, men with microphones asked pedestrians what they thought of the death of the President, and the faces moved up to fill the screen with features which, a moment ago, had betrayed pleasant smiles and which rearranged themselves into grim expressions or open-mouthed horror: “Well, I was just plain shocked . . .” “I mean, he was a family man and I don’t know much about politics, but. . .” “I was having a sandwich on the job and this guy walks over and tells me the President is shot and I said: ‘This a joke?’” “I called my husband and I said: ‘What kind of a place is this Dallas?’” “Did they find out who did it yet?”
The President watched the set on the other side of the bedroom with heavy-lidded eyes, half listening, half nodding to suggestions made by his three young assistants. He held up both hands for quiet. “. . . and now,” a commentator said, “we return you to Washington.” The vision of faces faded, and Andrews Air Force Base came on screen like a well-lighted insect trap surrounded by darkness. A big glistening plane was rocking its way into the patch of light and an announcer said: “. . . just arriving from Honolulu. This is the plane which carried Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other members of the Cabinet, who were on their way to Tokyo. The tragic news reached them out over the Pacific, and Mr. Rusk ordered the plane to return to Washington.”
Mr. Johnson heard the dying whine of the jet engines. The Boeing 707 stopped and a ramp was wheeled to the front of the plane. A large percentage of his government was on this aircraft. The men around the President’s bed turned to watch. Valenti turned the dials of the set to get a better picture and better sound. The lugged door swung back and men began to file out, squinting in the light.
Herb Kaplow of the National Broadcasting Company said: “Secretary of State Dean Rusk is first off the plane, followed by Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman [the gentlemen of the Cabinet began to collect at the foot of the ramp, around Rusk], Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, and presidential secretary Pierre Salinger.
“They are being met at the plane by Protocol Chief Angier Biddle Duke and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. The party is moving to the microphones. Dean Rusk will speak for the Cabinet.” Mr. Rusk, a man with a voice like dry breakfast cereal, had no intention of making a mistake. The flight had been long and fatiguing, and there was a new “boss.” As the landing gear of the plane thumped downward in air, he had walked down the aisle advising the passengers that he, Dean Rusk, would lead the government officials off. He expected the Cabinet members to follow. If there was any speaking to be done, he would do it.
The Secretary of State saw his deputy, George Ball, in the circle of light and nodded. At the collection of black-fingered microphones, Rusk glanced at a curled sheet of paper in his hand and said: “We have fully shared the deep sense of shock at the grievous loss the nation has suffered. Those of us who have had the honor of serving President Kennedy value the gallantry and wisdom he brought to the grave, awesome, and lonely office of the presidency.” Mr. Rusk looked up into the lights. “President Johnson needs and deserves our fullest support,” he said.
It was the right thing. The words made an adieu to a departed chieftain and offered an unfettered hand to the new one. The President fluffed the pillows behind his head and returned to the “grave and awesome” tasks at hand. He interrupted the conversation to ask what had become of his daughter Luci. She had retired. Mr. Johnson was a kissing husband and father. He could not believe that he had permitted her to go to bed without a goodnight kiss. It was Luci who had reminded herself that her father was now President of the United States and should not be disturbed on this, the most terrifying night of their lives. Luci planned to spend time reciting some prayers for the repose of the soul of John F. Kennedy.
“You’ll get it all back tomorrow,” Henry Wade said. The district attorney was ready to defend the Dallas Police Department’s paramount right to the evidence, but he could see far beyond the confines of the city and county and he knew that the assassination had federal aspects which ought not to be ignored. Chief Curry listened sulkily. His department, he felt, was doing well. It did not require the expensive equipment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation nor interrogations of the Secret Service. Besides, what could they find out about the evidence which Will Fritz and Lieutenant Day had not already ascertained?
With a big trial coming up, it was not proper to permit the chain of evidence to be broken by flights to Washington. In a sense, everybody in the department was walking on tiptoe to make certain that they had a good case against Oswald, an airtight case. Phone calls had been coming to Curry’s office all evening asking him to release the gun, the blanket, the empty shells, the works. The calls came from Wade’s office, from the Texas attorney general, Waggoner Carr, from ranking officials. Curry didn’t care, really, what Lyndon Johnson had to say about putting the FBI in charge of the investigation. This was still a Dallas County case. If the amassing of evidence proceeded properly, it was the Dallas Police Department which would do it; if it failed, the blame would fall on him.
The big D.A. nodded. As they walked down the hall to Curry’s office, he reminded the chief that the case could not and would not be taken away from Dallas County. He would have to prosecute Lee Harvey Oswald, not the FBI. There was no percentage in spurning federal assistance. The FBI had offices in places like New Orleans, where Oswald had lived. They had a big network which could trace guns, find people who employed Oswald, or knew him in the Free Cuba movement; they could add to all that Curry now had in his hands.
The chief surrendered. He said that he would order Fritz and Day to hand the stuff over to Washington right away. It must be clearly understood that the FBI would sign a receipt for each item, they would photograph it and send copies to the Dallas Police Department, they would fly it up to Washington tonight, run it through their mill, and have it back in police headquarters tomorrow night. In the name of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Vincent Drain, the big smiler, agreed. He phoned Gordon Shanklin, still in his office down the street, that Jesse Curry had agreed to the lending of the evidence.
Lieutenant Day was working on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle when he received the order. He gave it to Drain reluctantly, along with the other material. After telling Drain that a palm print of Lee Harvey Oswald had been located on the stock of the gun, Day forgot to explain that it was no longer there. He had lifted it off in toto with adhesive paper.
Shanklin phoned Washington and gave the news to Belmont. “We’ll be waiting,” he said. The head of the Dallas office then phoned the office of the commanding general at Carswell Air Force Base. “One of our agents,” said Shanklin, “is taking evidence in the assassination to Washington. We have a directive that you will help us fly it up and wait for it to come back.” Ten minutes later, a K-135 jet tanker on the hardstand cut in pod number three, and a blast of heat thrust the cool night of Fort Worth back and away.
The White House Press Office was quiet. Malcolm Kilduff sat at a desk. The dark hair framed the strong face. This was the hive of government on most days. The press should have been clamoring outside the outer office where Helen Ganss sat. This, of all nights, should have been one of statements and releases, of jangling phones and news tickers noisily walking their black feet across white paper. There was no sound except the sobbing of Christine Camp and Sue Vogelsinger. Andrew Hatcher was in another office.
Down the hall thirty feet was the President’s office, It, too, was empty. No highly placed statesmen gathered to debate a decision. No bill was ready for signature, the array of pens standing in a holder like asparagus. The sixteen buttons on the scrambler phone were dark. And, between them, the Fish Room was empty; so was the office of the appointments secretary.
Kilduff, assistant press secretary, made a few phone calls. No one asked him to run down to Ralph Dungan’s office and think of names important enough to be invited to a funeral. No one asked his knowledge of Lincoln’s funeral. He could, if he chose, straighten a few paper clips, or he could go home. There was no self-pity in his makeup. Mr. Kilduff was at his shiniest when he was fighting for something or against something.
As with so many others in government service, he had been a Kennedy man. Malcolm Kilduff had a weakness: he could not work for someone he did not admire. It was fortunate that in John F. Kennedy he saw the bright idealist, the tough politician, the decision maker, the charisma of eternal youth. The man, the job, the future had exploded today and Kilduff sat in the press office, glancing now and then at the big color photos of Kennedy—the handsome, grinning, we-own-the-world face—telling himself that it was all shattered and the pictures would start to come down tomorrow.
He had made the solemn announcement of the death of a President. It was his function. The press secretary, Pierre Salinger, had been winging to Japan when it happened. Andrew Hatcher, the other assistant press secretary, had not been assigned. The trip to Texas had been Kilduff’s first as acting press secretary. Before he left with the President, he knew that, for him, it would be the last. He had been fired.
The word had come down from Kenneth O’Donnell to Salinger to Kilduff. He was offered a position in another government agency. It was a good, dull post, far enough removed from the excitement of the White House to placate O’Donnell. The matter was placed on a lofty plane: we have to get rid of one assistant press secretary and it cannot be Andy Hatcher because he’s a Negro. You are the one.
Kilduff had been offered a “better” post with a skillfully disguised ultimatum: the job would be open three days. The man who sat in the press office alone on this long sad night felt that perhaps the President did not know that Kilduff had been fired. In spite of the proximity of their offices, there was no way that Mac Kilduff could get to see Kennedy without the approval of Mr. O’Donnell. Kenny was the appointments secretary and more. He was the captain of the palace guard; the watchman; hatchetman; keeper of the privy seals.
No one got into the President’s office, even casually, without Mr. O’Donnell’s knowledge, if not his approval. Kilduff, the fighter and brooder, had to find a way. One morning he walked into the office of Mrs. Lincoln, personal secretary to the President, a dark slender woman who kept fancy dishes of candy on her desk. There was no harm in chatting with Mrs. Lincoln. She kept the door between her office and that of the President ajar about thirty degrees.
Kilduff gave her a hearty greeting and partook of the candy. He chatted loudly near the door. He and Mrs. Lincoln heard the voice of the President, alone and at work, say: “Is that you, Mac? Come on in.” The assistant press secretary, who had accompanied Kennedy on his trip to Ireland, walked inside almost apologetically and told the President that he was being offered a “better” job. The smile on Kennedy’s face faded.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Aren’t you happy here?” Kilduff said that indeed he was; he would like nothing better than to continue serving the President, but he had been told that one man had to be cut from the roster. “Forget it,” the President said. “I’ll take care of this when we get back from Texas.”
Kilduff sat at his desk wondering who had won this tiny political battle in a world of politics. Kennedy was gone and so, except for the sufferance of Lyndon Baines Johnson, was everyone else. On the plane this afternoon, Malcolm Kilduff had tried to bridge the gap between the rancorous Kennedys and the bustling Johnsons. He had run the errands faithfully, delivering messages and responses to messages.
At one point, he had paused beside the seat of Kenneth O’Donnell. A few feet away was the casket containing Kennedy. The appointments secretary had taken Kilduff by the arm and pointed to the broad back of Lyndon Johnson. “He’s got what he wants now,” O’Donnell murmured. “We take it back in ’68.”
The office lights remained on. No reporter buzzed Kilduff or asked for an anecdote to sweeten a bitter story. There was nothing to say and no one to whom to say it. Kilduff got his jacket from a rack and put it on. He glanced at one of those smiling photos and said a silent “Good-bye.”