The Kennedy people had marshaled their forces but no one moved. Dr. Earl Rose had returned with a justice of the peace. “This is Theron Ward,” he said. “He is a judge here in Dallas.” Roy Kellerman looked at a small, thin person who could not have been over twenty-three years of age. “Your honor,” he said meekly, “we’re asking for a waiver here because—” Rose snapped: “He will tell you whether you can remove this body or not.” “It doesn’t make any difference,” Kellerman said wearily, “we are going to move it. Judge, do you know who I am?”
The Secret Service agent drew his I.D. card and displayed it. The young man nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.” The O’Briens and Greers and Powers began to edge up belligerently, but Roy Kellerman waved them away. He had decided on an appeal to this boy’s patriotism. “There must be something in your thinking that we don’t have to go through with this agony,” he said. “The family doesn’t have to go through this. We will take care of the matter when we get back to Washington.” Judge Theron Ward was wavering. “I know who you are,” he said sadly. “I can’t help you out.”
“You can’t break the chain of evidence,” Dr. Rose said with finality. Kellerman suggested that perhaps Dr. Rose would like to come along to Washington, watching the casket all the way to make certain that the chain of evidence was not broken. “There is nothing,” shouted Rose, “that would allow me to do it under our law. The autopsy will be performed here.” “All right,” said Kellerman, waving his hands for the argument to subside. “All right.” Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen the door of Trauma One open, and Vernon Oneal and his two assistants were pushing the casket into the corridor.
The medical examiner saw it. He jumped ahead of it, standing in a doorway, shouting: “We can’t release it! A violent death requires a postmortem!” The tragic figure of Mrs. Kennedy began to emerge from Trauma One, and Dave Powers pushed her back inside. The cruelty inflicted on her passed all bounds. The early-morning statement: “Campaigning can be such fun when you’re President!” had degenerated into sudden explosions which had taken his life and crushed hers; it was succeeded by a nightmare ride and shrieking sirens, a dead husband on her lap as pedestrians waved and shouted, “Hi, Jackie!”; the fruitless, witless separation of husband and wife at the hospital, where men of science in white masks went through the motions of preserving a life already gone; where women who had lost nothing wept and she did not; the vigil of congealed blood; the high-speed mental motion picture of marriage and children and the towering climb to the top of the world of society where, in the vacuum of a clear blue sky, came the triple clap of thunder and the end of the world.
It was a repeating motion picture, full of prayer and priests and the strong brown head broken on a bed of roses; the surprised “O” of the mouth; the fixed, open eyes rocking with the speed of the car; the officious nurses with no good word; the running doctors silent in sneakers; the lifeblood in floor puddles; the cooling skin under the sheet; the brown brimming eyes staring at what was left of love—and now an angry shouting man who held his hand up like a policeman stopping the traffic of caskets to say: “We have a law . . .”
She went back into the room. The casket moved and stopped. Moved a foot more, stopped. A policeman wearing a helmet and a revolver now stood at Dr. Rose’s side. The youngster, Judge Theron Ward, decided not to buck the local establishment. “It’s just another homicide case,” he said. The Secret Service men began to form in front of the casket and down the sides. The men who were not permitted to protect the President’s body with theirs in life stood as close to his clay as they pleased. The showdown began to approach physical violence, backed by guns.
The policeman assumed his high-noon expression. “These people say you can’t go,” he said. “One side,” said Larry O’Brien. Ken O’Donnell said: “We’re leaving.” The ultimatum had been rejected. Greer, swinging the bags of laundry, stood in front of the casket and stepped off to walk through the cop and medical examiner. Theron Ward phoned District Attorney Wade. Dr. Rose stood his ground. So did the policeman. It seemed as though they would be run over by a casket.
Kellerman ran back and beckoned David Powers to bring Mrs. Kennedy out. She saw the casket ahead, watched it break bluntly through the blockers, and trotted to put her hand on the gleaming metal. She was on the left side, almost running down the corridor, hair bobbing in one eye, the fingertips of the right hand in contact with the lid. In the nurses’ station, Judge Theron Ward was stunned to hear the deep, heavy voice of District Attorney Wade state that he had no objection whatever to the removal of the President’s body. None at all.
Mr. Oswald looked offended. He got off the elevator on the third floor of police headquarters flanked by detectives in pale Texas cowboy hats. Ahead of him, reporters and photographers ran a few feet to turn and shoot. Microphones were held under his nose. He shouted that he had done nothing wrong except to carry a gun in a movie house. “I want a lawyer,” he said to a television camera. The press asked him his name and he permitted himself to be led, silently, into the Robbery and Homicide office, a third of the way down the middle corridor from the press room.
Almost all of the offices were glassy rabbit warrens, poorly designed and leading through an endless series of doors from one office to another. A policeman motioned for Oswald to sit. From the hall he could be seen through the half walls, staring at his shoes. Detective Richard Stovall, who had been taking affidavits from Texas School Book Depository employees, asked Oswald his name. “Lee Oswald,” he said, without looking up. A moment later, Stovall’s partner, Guy Rose, asked Oswald his name. “Alex Hidell,” the prisoner said. The detectives began to go through the billfold, saw the two names, and asked which one was bona fide. “You find out,” he said. They asked his address. Oswald said: “You just find out.”
Sergeant Jerry Hill stood guarding his man. Reporters in the hall asked to see the pistol which allegedly killed Officer Tippit. Hill held it up by the butt as photographic flashbulbs lit the scene. He asked Detective T. L. Baker if he wanted to take the gun; Baker said: “No. Hold onto it until later.” Hill said that this was the suspect in the Tippit shooting and did Baker want Hill to make up the arrest sheet or would the Detective Bureau do it.
Captain Will Fritz walked in and said to Rose and Stovall: “Get a search warrant and go out to 2515 Fifth Street in Irving. Pick up a man named Lee Oswald.” Sergeant Hill said: “Captain, why do you want him?” Fritz was a man of lean words and few interruptions. He stared at the sergeant through his glasses and said: “He’s employed at the Book Depository and he was missing from a roll call of employees.” Hill pointed to the prisoner: “We can save you a trip,” he said. “There he sits.”
Fritz looked at the quarry and was unimpressed. It required a moment to comprehend that this young fellow was a possibility as the man responsible for Tippit’s murder and the President’s, too. This was going to be an interesting afternoon. In another office Charles Givens, a Book Depository employee, was staring through the walls of glass and said: “Hey, there’s Lee Oswald.” A friendly policeman leaned out in the hall where reporters were waiting and said: “He’s Lee Oswald, a suspect in the Tippit murder.”
There were venetian blinds in the office of Captain Fritz. They were lowered. The big man glanced at the messages and reports on his desk. There was nothing that couldn’t wait. He asked for the prisoner to be brought in. He ordered Detectives R. M. Sims and E. L. Boyd to remain with him until the Oswald matter was cleared up. Oswald came in and complained about the handcuffs. “Fix them in front of him,” Captain Fritz said. Oswald sat on a chair at the corner of the desk, the shackled hands now on top.
Someone was drawing up a list of items found in the prisoner’s pockets, so Captain Fritz took his time with the young man. When he got the list, his eyes ran down it slowly:
1. Membership card of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, New Orleans, Louisiana, in the name of L. H. Oswald, issued June 15th, 1963, signed A. J. Hidell, chapter president.
2. Membership card of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, 799 Broadway, New York 3, New York. Oregon 4—8295, in the name of Lee H. Oswald, issued May 28th, 1963, signed V. T. Lee, executive secretary.
3. Front and back of Certificate of Service, Armed Forces of the United States Marine Corps in name of Lee Harvey Oswald, 1653230.
4. Front and back of Department of Defense identification card #4,271,617 in the name of Lee H. Oswald, reflecting service status as MCR/inact, service 1653230, bearing photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald and signed LEE H. OSWALD, expiration date December 7, 1962.
5. Front and back of Dallas Public Library identification card in the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, 602 Elsbeth, Dallas.
6. Snapshot of Lee Harvey Oswald in Marine uniform.
7. Snapshot of small baby in white cap.
8. Social Security card #433-54-3937 in name of Lee Harvey Oswald.
9. U.S. Forces, Japan, identification card in name of Lee H. Oswald.
10. Photograph marked Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.
11. Street map of Dallas, compliments of Ga-Jo Enkanko Hotel.
12. Selective Service System card in name of Alek James Hidell which bears photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald and signature “Alex J. Hidell.”
13. Certificate of Service, U.S. Marine Corps, in name of Alex Hidell.
14. Selective Service System notice of classification, in name of Lee Harvey Oswald, SSN 41-114-532, dated Feb. 2, 1960.
15. Selective Service registration certificate in name of Lee Harvey Oswald, bearing signature, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oct. 18, 1939.
16. Slip of paper marked Embassy USSR, 1609 Decatur St., N.W. Washington, D.C., Consular Pezhuyehko.
17. Slip of paper marked The Worker, 23 W. 26th Street, New York 10, New York.; The Worker, Box 28 Madison Square Station, New York 10, N.Y.
18. Snub-nosed Smith and Wesson Revolver, .38. Chambers loaded.
19. Two types ammunition, 6 cartridges, .38.
Fritz, like some policemen, can detect a complicated matter from a distance. The nineteen items added up to two persons who were possibly one, with overtones of communism or a communistic plot, in addition to evidence which pointed to this man as a possible double murderer. The captain did not know how smart the fellow was; he would know in a moment. He left his desk and asked a policeman to get a superior officer to start collecting eyewitnesses to the Tippit murder in headquarters. If any two of them could pick this man out in a lineup, it would be enough to hold him on suspicion of homicide and give everybody time to start unraveling the assassination from the murder.
At a door, a policeman whispered to Fritz: “I hear this Oswald has a furnished room on Beckley.” Fritz blinked his owlish eyes and went into the room. He had noticed that the hall outside was beginning to look crowded with reporters and photographers. Policemen moving from one office to another had to step gingerly over long black cables which snaked the length of the hall. Technicians were bringing a heavy-duty cable up from a generator down in the street. It was being hauled up the outside wall.
The situation in Dallas began, at this point, to go out of control. Press relations was not a function of Captain Will Fritz, but he was not blind to the increasing number of reporters and photographers choking the hall of the third floor. The police department had a press relations man, Captain Glen D. King. He was a personable officer who realized that, while he had the law on his side, the press had the last loud word on theirs. His office adjoined Chief Curry’s, and King was responsible to Curry. It was a pleasant situation, so long as the captain worked for a man who was afraid of the press and what it could do to him. King could go to Fritz or Jack Revill, the newly appointed lieutenant in charge of police intelligence, and get the latest information on any story and release what he thought was proper and discreet. Fritz remained aloof from it. He ran his Homicide and Robbery Division as though it was an entity unto itself.
Fritz decided that he did not want a stenographer to take notes while he questioned this prisoner. Nor did he desire a tape recorder. The first order of business would be to find out what kind of a fish he had in the net, who he was, where from, how clever and, most of all, how tough. There was a time, not too long ago, when the first order of business would have been for a couple of young detectives to rattle the prisoner around a locker room to still the stubbornness and develop some cooperation. Those days were past. Fritz had to match wits with his prisoners, frequently a tiresome game of listening to obvious lies hours on end.
He sat with a sigh. “All right, son,” he said. “What’s your name?”
The crew of Air Force One monitored the Secret Service. They had heard the walkie-talkies discuss an unannounced departure from Parkland Hospital. Colonel Swindal ordered the crew to unscrew two double seats adjacent to the rear entrance of the plane and to secure them in the tail. The box containing the President’s remains could be carried up there and lashed to eyebolts in the floor. He called the tower and asked for taxi instructions. They gave him wind, barometric setting, clearance on Runway 31, and a handoff to Fort Worth FAA after passing the outer perimeter.
He didn’t start an engine. A Secret Service agent came forward and told the crew that the Johnson party was already aboard and the Vice-President was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy. A generator truck stood below, whining at the nose of the air giant, but the crew engineer did not turn the air conditioning on. The captain of Air Force Two was told to open his hatches. Some luggage came from his plane and was carried by hand to Air Force One. Whoever was in charge was confused, because he began to take some of the Kennedy luggage from Air Force One and place it on Two. The pilot of the press plane asked for instructions and was told that no one knew the plans of the press. He was to remain on the stand for instructions.
Swindal was told by the tower that a small plane was en route from Austin with a “V.I.P.” for Johnson. Could the private plane have clearance to pull up alongside AF-1? Swindal asked who was on the little plane. No one seemed to know. Then the plane, still en route, caught the question and said: “Bill Moyers.” Permission was granted. Moyers was a young assistant to Johnson, an ordained Baptist minister who was not yet thirty years old and was associate director of the Peace Corps.
Richard Johnson, of the Secret Service, watched the casket roll up the hospital corridor like a box of laundry. He was approached by O. P. Wright, a hospital policeman, who handed an expended bullet to him. “The Secret Service may want this,” said Mr. Wright. Johnson rolled it around in the palm of his hand. “Where’d you get it?” he said. Wright explained that there were some carts, used ones, standing between the restroom and the elevator. This one had rolled off a cart. “It may have come from the President’s cart.” It couldn’t. Mr. Kennedy’s cart remained in Trauma One until after his body had been prepared for the trip. The body had been lifted from that table to Oneal’s funeral carriage. “I also found rubber gloves and a stethoscope on that cart.” the cop said.
Johnson slipped the bullet into his pocket. He had been told to get on the follow-up car to the airport. There was no time for further conversation. He thanked the man and started out. Back in Trauma One, Miss Bowron studied the antiseptic brightness of the room—ready now for another effort to save another life—and she reached into her pocket. She had the President’s watch. She ran through the corridors, holding it ahead, the gold band dull with dry blood, and gave it to a member of the party. At the same time, Doris Nelson found a blue coat. In it was an envelope marked “cash” and a card labeled “Clint Hill.” They, too, were returned. It was the jacket Clint Hill had tossed over the dead President’s face.
On the National Broadcasting Company network, Tom Whalen intoned: “The weapon which was used to kill the President and which wounded Governor Connally has been found in the Texas School Depository on the sixth floor—a British .303 rifle with a telescopic sight. Three empty cartridge cases were found beside the weapon. It appeared that whoever had occupied this sniper’s nest had been there for some time.”
The casket was moving fast now, except for the sharp turns leading back to the emergency entrance of the hospital. Vernon Oneal was pulling; two of his men pushed from behind. Jack Price, administrator of the hospital, ran ahead asking everyone to please step aside. Everyone did, except the priest, who had arrived late. He held up a hand to stop the casket and suggested that he say some prayers over it. “Not now!” an agent yelled hoarsely, and the body kept moving. Price touched the top of it. He didn’t know why, but he had to do it. He told himself it was a sort of final salute.
An attendant held the door open and the gleaming casket emerged into the sunshine. A few uniformed nurses stood outside the door, under the eaves, weeping. A doctor at a third-floor window glanced once and turned his back to the scene. Tom Wicker of The New York Times stood near some parked cars watching. Larry O’Brien and Kenny O’Donnell, hanging onto silver handles, had their heads down. They were weeping. Some of the White House staff stood near the back of the white Oneal ambulance, mouths and eyes agape, not believing.
Mrs. Kennedy came out into the sunshine, a portrait of despair. The hat was gone. The pink suit was splashed with blood. The stockings, askew, stuck to the legs with dry blood and brain matter. The white gloves were darkened with deep stains. The face, the immaculate face, was almost wild-eyed, whether with fear that they might take him away again or with the crashing waves of reality which come in steady tandem to all who grieve or whether the emotions were cracking under the repeated cruelties—no one knows. The doctors had offered her sedation several times; one even offered to help her clean the blood from her person. She preferred to taste death at the side of her husband, and, at 2:05 P.M., her knees were beginning to knock without control, her fingers trembled, her brain might not endure one more brutality.
Nor was O’Donnell certain that they were going to be able to steal the body of the President of the United States from officious Dallas. He urged Vernon Oneal to hurry. The mortician asked the Secret Service if they were going to the mortuary. They said yes, yes. Suddenly, the flight from Parkland Hospital became more precipitous than that of Lyndon Johnson. Men were running for cars; motors were starting; police were trying to line up as escorts and were told to “get the hell out of the way.”
No one paused to reason. Roy Kellerman ordered Agent Andy Berger to get behind the wheel of the ambulance and drive to Love Field. Mr. Oneal wanted to know why he was not permitted to drive his own hearse, and he was told to stand aside. Kellerman tried to get Mrs. Kennedy in beside the driver, but she insisted that she would sit in the back “beside my husband.” Doctor Burkley got in the back and helped her up and in. The third person, Clint Hill, got inside and slammed the back doors.
Agent Stewart Stout got in front. Roy Kellerman ran around the ambulance to make certain that the right people were inside. Then he told Kenneth O’Donnell and Lawrence O’Brien to take the next car and, privately, head for Love Field and Air Force One. Audrey Riker, who worked for Oneal, ran up to the driver’s side of the ambulance and said: “Meet you at the mortuary,” and Berger nodded: “Yes, sir.”
The ambulance left the parking area fast. It moved across the service road to Harry Hines Boulevard and Berger hit the siren to clear the traffic. Roy Kellerman was on the radio, telling the agents at Love Field to permit an ambulance and one following car through the fence. After that, shut it to everyone and seal it off. In the back, Clint Hill watched behind and saw Oneal and his assistants make the turn—the wrong way to get to the mortuary. They were following, but they were behind O’Brien and O’Donnell and the agents in the second car.
O’Donnell was radioing the same instructions from the second car. Let the ambulance and one other through the fence. Then lock the place up. Tell Colonel Swindal to get ready for takeoff at once. The party would be aboard in ten minutes.
The sun used Air Force One as an aluminum oven. It was unbearably hot inside, and yet people were running toward the front or the back with imperative instructions from someone else. Both entrances were sealed tight. President Johnson received a return phone call from Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach with the precise wording of the oath of office. Johnson asked a secretary, Miss Marie Fehmer, to please take it down and type it. Mr. Johnson looked at the television set in time to hear a commentator say that the Dallas Police Department had just arrested a suspect in the assassination.
The President, on another phone, thought of Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, a Kennedy appointee. The communications people required a couple of minutes to find out her local office number. Then Johnson called, but her office said she was out. He asked that she be found at once and to call him through the White House number in Dallas. He paced the little bedroom, thought of other phone calls, and made them. Mrs. Johnson understood this reaction better than anyone else. Her husband was a man of action; inaction could kill him, but not work.
The day was so horrifying, so beyond belief, that she had to keep reminding herself that it had really happened; then when the reality crushed her, she tried to think of other things. Sometimes, she was seen with a fixed half smile on her face as though people were watching and she had to put up a front. She had been reassured that her daughters were now under the protection of the Secret Service; she wondered what they were thinking. She thought of the two little Kennedy children, and it was a thought impossible to sustain.
Judge Sarah Hughes phoned, and Johnson briefly explained the tragedy and asked if she could come right out to Love Field; he would send Secret Service agents to escort her. No, the judge said, she knew quicker ways of getting to the airport than the White House detail, and she would be there in ten minutes. That would bring her to Air Force One by 2:20. The President said to please hurry, that they desired to take off for Washington. He hung up and told Agent Youngblood to radio clearance for the judge. She would be along in a few minutes. “Check on the location of Mrs. Kennedy, too,” Johnson said. “Let me know when she will arrive.”
Fritz could hear the noise from the corridor, and he asked two of his detectives to tell the newsmen to hold the noise down. An agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Bookhout, phoned his office in Dallas and said that a suspect in the Tippit killing had been picked up. His name was Lee Harvey Oswald. In the office, Agent James Hosty was still running through the old files, trying to dig up anyone who might be a suspect in the assassination, and, when he heard the name Oswald, he felt the chill that comes to all law officers who find themselves on the wrong end of a gigantic surprise.
At once Hosty reported to his boss, Gordon Shanklin, that he had been handling the case of a Lee Harvey Oswald, that he was a defector who had fled to Russia, returned to Texas with a Russian bride, left Texas for his native home in New Orleans, fled to Mexico recently in an attempt to get to Cuba, been turned down, and come home to Irving, Texas. Shanklin demanded a quick rundown, and Hosty said that Oswald could not, on his performance chart, be regarded as a potential cop killer. He wasn’t even a member of the local Communist Party. Hosty knew, because the FBI had a man in it who kept him well-informed.
Shanklin got on the phone. He spoke to Will Fritz. Again he offered the services and facilities of the FBI—in Dallas and in Washington—to the Dallas Police Department. He also asked if he could send Agent Jim Hosty as the bureau representative to listen in on the interrogation of the prisoner. The FBI knew a little about Oswald. The police captain said to send Hosty on over.
The disparate work of the law enforcement agencies began to spread and dissolve, then congeal, only to dissolve again. Three detectives were en route to Oswald’s home in Irving. Stovall phoned ahead to the Irving police and asked to have some local officers meet them at the city line. Their assignment was to find out who lived with the suspect and to search the premises and take with them anything which might be regarded as evidence.
At the Trade Mart, there were several anti-Kennedy pickets who had not heard the news. Lieutenant Jack Revill and his Intelligence unit arrested them to protect them from possible mob violence. At the Texas School Book Depository, policemen continued to work looking for an assassin. V. J. Brian and his officers had found some acoustical tile in the ceiling on the second floor. They were ripping it out because someone had suggested that an assassin could be hiding in the space above it.
Lee Harvey Oswald gave Captain Fritz his right name. The prisoner had a lump and a laceration over his right eye and another underneath the left eye. The captain sat at his desk, rolling a pen back and forth across the blotter, looking up at his man now and then. How, he asked, were the bruises acquired? Oswald said that he had punched a police officer and the cop had punched him back—“which was right and proper.”
“Do you work for the Texas School Depository?” Fritz asked. He had a deep, deliberate tone, the manner of a man who is never in a hurry. An accent touched by the South and by the West. “Yes,” said Oswald, and he too knew that now the forces had joined battle. It was important for him to know when to answer, when to lie, when to evade, when to lapse into sullen silence. He had to know these things, because it was a whole police department pitted against one man. He might tire; they wouldn’t. Nor was he lulled by the soft, easy manner of the captain. That had its own built-in danger. Oswald’s greatest asset was that he enjoyed this game; he knew that the innocuous questions could be answered glibly, as though he were an innocent person trying hard to cooperate; the difficult ones could be blocked by a display of anger or impenetrable silence.
“What floor do you work on?” “The second, usually, but my work takes me to all floors.” “Where would you say you were when the President was shot?” “I was on the first, having my lunch.” “Where were you when the police officer stopped you?” “On the second floor, having a Coke.” “Tell me, why did you leave the building?” Oswald permitted himself a little smile. “There was so much excitement all around, I figured that there would be no more work. Mr. Truly isn’t particular about the hours; we don’t even punch a clock. I thought it would be all right to leave.”
“Do you own a rifle?” “No, sir.” “You don’t own one?” “I saw one at the building a few days ago. Mr. Truly and some of the fellows were looking at it.” “Where did you go when you left work?” “I have a room over on North Beckley.” “Where on Beckley?” “1026.” “North or South?” “North or South?” “Yes.” “I couldn’t say, but it is 1026 Beckley.” “What’s the area look like?” “Oh, a couple of streets come together at that point, and there is a filling station across from the boarding house—.” The captain nodded. “That’s North Beckley.”
Fritz excused himself. He went out into the hall and told a couple of detectives to run over to 1026 North Beckley and search a room rented by Lee Harvey Oswald. “All I did,” Oswald was saying, “was go over to Beckley and change my pants. I got my pistol and went to the pictures. That’s all.” He knew the next question, and he was prepared. “Why do you find it necessary to carry a gun?” The prisoner waved his manacles in an explanatory gesture. “You know how boys do when they have a gun.” He shrugged. “They just carry it.” In Texas, this is good rationale. Young men in large numbers carry pistols not to use them, but to establish manhood, perhaps even virility.
“Can I get a lawyer?” The question was not unusual nor unexpected. The captain nodded. “You can call one anytime you want,” he said. Oswald said the one he wanted was in New York. His name was John Abt. Fritz shrugged. “You can have anyone you want.” Oswald seemed to be calmer. “I don’t know him personally,” he said, “but that’s the attorney I want.” He remembered a case Mr. Abt had handled involving the Smith Act. “If I can’t get him,” he said, “then I may get the American Civil Liberties Union to get me an attorney.”
Fritz said that Oswald would find a phone in the jail on the fifth floor. He would have to make the call himself, at his expense. The captain asked him why he lived on Beckley and his wife lived in Irving. Oswald appeared to be faintly amused, as though, a man among men, the incongruities of women were beyond understanding. He explained that Marina was living with a friend, Mrs. Ruth Paine. Marina was teaching Mrs. Paine to speak Russian, and in return Mrs. Paine gave Marina and the babies a room. Oswald suggested that it worked out all right for all parties; he stayed in town, except on weekends, because he worked in town.
The men in the room—Fritz, Detectives Boyd and Sims, FBI Agent Bookhout—blinked at him. “Why don’t you stay out there with them?” Fritz said. “Well,” Oswald said, the Paines didn’t get along well. They were separated a lot of the time. “Don’t you have a car?” “No, I don’t. The Paines have two cars, but they don’t use them.”
“What kind of politics you believe in?” Fritz said. Oswald required no time for a response. “I don’t have any,” he said. “I am a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. They have offices in New York, but I was a secretary of the New Orleans chapter when I lived there.” Fritz leaned back in his broad straight chair. “I support the Castro revolution,” Oswald said, without being asked. “Do you belong to the Communist Party?” “No, I never had a card. I belong to the American Civil Liberties Union and I paid five dollars dues.”
“Why did you carry that pistol into the show?” “I told you why. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I bought it several months ago in Forth Worth and that’s all.” “You answer pretty quick. Ever been questioned before?” In a trice, the cipher felt himself become an intelligent man to be reckoned with. “Oh yes. I’ve been questioned by the FBI”—he nodded toward Bookhout—“for a long time. They use different methods. There is the hard way, the soft way, the buddy method—I’m familiar with all of them. Right now, I don’t have to answer any questions until I speak to my attorney.”
“Oswald, you can have one any time you want.” “I don’t have the money to call Mr. Abt.” “Call him collect or you can have another lawyer if you want. You can arrange it upstairs.” “Thanks.” “Ever been arrested before?” Oswald nodded. “I was in a little trouble with the Fair Play for Cuba thing in New Orleans. I had a street fight with some anti-Castro Cubans. We had a debate on a New Orleans radio station.”
“What do you think of President Kennedy and his family?” “I like the President’s family very well. I have my own views about national politics.” “How about clearing this thing up with a polygraph test?” “Oh, no. I turned one down with the FBI and I certainly won’t take one now.” The captain realized that this was not an easy subject. This man, whatever he was, communist, nut, socialist, malcontent, Marxist, was about to show off his knowledge of how to fence with the law without getting hurt. Fritz swung around to face the FBI man. “Any questions?” he said.
The men in Love Field tower had a respite. The empty runways, with one long diagonal, looked like a crooked capital H. Air Force One had twice asked for taxi instructions, but the generator was still standing under its nose, breathing power into the bird. There was time to stand up and stretch. The men walked around the glass enclosure, commenting on the Dallas catastrophe and listening to the local gossip. There was a story that a Secret Service man had been killed with President Kennedy. No one had heard about it officially, but the story went that the government was keeping it quiet and had carried the body away secretly because the agent was part of the plot to kill the President.
“Look,” one of the tower men said. An ambulance with red blinker showing was coming off Mockingbird Lane into the airport. It was followed by two cars, all at high speed. Two Dallas officers and some Secret Service men ran to the fence and watched the small motorcade return John F. Kennedy to the place where he had shaken many hands. The ambulance made the turn through the fence. So did the second car. The third was stopped by the bodies of the lawmen. Vernon Oneal, middle-aged and proud, got out to protest.
That was his ambulance inside the fence. It was supposed to lead him to his own mortuary at 3206 Oaklawn. Something wrong was going on because the driver had come to the airport. It was his ambulance and he had a right to be inside the fence. The President was in an Oneal casket.* The Secret Service men glanced at him and walked away. They left him to the mercies of the local police. Mr. Oneal was told firmly that he could not get inside the fence. In time the ambulance would be returned. He could wait if he pleased.
The rear ramp of AF-1 was opened briefly and a host of Secret Service men performed a final service for a dead chieftain. They carried the bronze casket up. It weighed 400 pounds. The body weighed 180. The men staggered and stepped forward and tilted the big box and, halfway up, appeared about to drop it. Two crewmen came down the steps and tried to wedge themselves along the sides. At last it got to the top, and a group of Dallas citizens stood behind the fence, unable to contain the tears. Clint Hill saw a photographer, “I’ll get him” he said to Mrs. Kennedy. “No,” she said. “I want them to see what they have done.”
The door slammed shut. The casket was dragged across the floor. O’Brien noticed that a space had been made for the casket. He told the agents to secure it on the left side of the plane barely inside the rear door. Mrs. Kennedy dropped into a seat at the breakfast nook opposite. She appeared to be spent. The woman slumped as though lifeless. Kenneth O’Donnell motioned for the rear door to be secured and guarded. He requested that the ramp be pulled away.
At the moment, he was scared. O’Donnell was certain that official Dallas would protest the kidnapping of the President’s body. If they rammed through an order forbidding AF-1 to take off, the authorities could besiege the plane in their zeal to adhere to a local law. They could show up any moment in force and demand an autopsy. The President’s trusted assistant and friend was determined that this was not going to happen. The only way to forestall it, he was sure, was to get this plane the hell out of Dallas before anyone realized what had happened.
He looked up, as the crew was tossing bracing straps over the casket, and saw General Godfrey McHugh. “Run forward and tell Colonel Swindal to get the plane out of here,” he said. McHugh went through the corridor as fast as he could. Coming up the front ramp were two associates of Johnson: Jack Valenti, a Texas press relations expert, and Bill D. Moyers, the bespectacled preacher from the small plane. General McHugh passed everyone without a glance. He told Colonel Swindal to take off for Washington at once. “The President,” he said, “is aboard.”
The passengers were growing in number. There was no passenger manifest. Some, like Liz Carpenter, secretary to Mrs. Johnson, reported to AF-2 and were told that the Johnsons were now on AF-1. The Kennedy people were aboard because this was the aircraft they had arrived on. Malcolm Kilduff, standing at the foot of the front ramp waiting for the newspaper pool car, was astonished to hear that President Johnson wanted to speak to him at once. The assistant press secretary did not know that Johnson was on this plane.
Few others knew about it. Larry O’Brien, still crouching over the casket, looked up to see the President and Mrs. Johnson coming down the aisle from the private stateroom. He was flabbergasted. The man was President. This was Air Force One.He saw the Johnsons move silently over to the breakfast nook. Mrs. Kennedy looked up and emerged from her reverie. There can be no doubt that she was surprised to see them aboard this aircraft. It is understandable if she felt resentful, because the trip home to Washington would normally be a “wake,” a private mourning.
It might even seem, to her shocked gaze, that the Johnsons were “taking over” abruptly. Until a few hours ago, they would not even be invited aboard AF-1 because security dictated that the President and the Vice-President must fly on different planes. Normally, she was accustomed to seeing them perpetually at the foot of the ramp, welcoming the President and the First Lady of the land to each city. Sometimes there were three or four such welcomes in a day.
There were no welcomes now. The Johnsons were trying to find the proper words for a grief they felt but could not enunciate. The words came out soft and reassuring, but they were empty vessels. Mrs. Kennedy took Mrs. Johnson’s hand in hers. “Oh, Lady Bird,” she said. “It’s good that we’ve always liked you two so much.” It was a non sequitur, but this was a time for feelings, not the analysis of sentiment. Mrs. Johnson began to weep again. “Oh,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “what if I had not been there? I’m so glad I was there.”
The President stood big and helpless. Like many men, he quailed in the face of grief and could not cry. Mrs. Johnson kept thinking, in horror: “This immaculate woman . . . this immaculate woman caked with blood, her husband’s blood . . . That right glove is caked. . . .” She suggested that she get someone to help her change. The iron returned to Mrs. Kennedy. “Oh, no,” she said. “Perhaps later I’ll ask Mary Gallagher. But not right now.” She was determined to appear in civilized Washington in these clothes and show the world what Dallas had done. Her clothing, her forlorn expression, were more eloquent than the bronze casket.
”Oh, Mrs. Kennedy,” said Lady Bird. “You know we never even wanted to be Vice-President and now, dear God, it’s come to this.” Mrs. Kennedy nodded. She was aware of the big fight in Texas between her husband and Lyndon Johnson—a dirty party fight in which both sides impugned the motives of the other—and of how, when Kennedy won his party’s nomination for the presidency, Johnson didn’t want the second position, even when Kennedy offered it. At this moment, the man who didn’t want the vice-presidency (“Why should I trade a Senate vote for a position with no vote?”) had backed into the leadership of his country because a nobody with a rifle saw an opportunity to become a somebody.
The disparity between the Kennedys and Johnsons was apparent to both. The Kennedys were effete Europeans, in manner and address; the Johnsons were earthy Americans. It was not a detriment to either family to be what it aspired to be, to nourish its own style of living and its culture. The subtle bon mot was an effervescent joy to John F. Kennedy and his Jacqueline; it was lost on the Johnsons. The beauty of the hill country of Texas was lost to the Kennedys; to the Johnsons, a frame farmhouse, hard furniture, and cattle silhouetted against a sunset were matters which brought serenity to the heart.
The latest book, the newest song, the gossip of high society, the galas at the watering places were daily food and drink to the Kennedys. To the contrary, it was said of Lyndon Johnson that he could ruin a good suit of clothes merely by putting it on; his humor was a rough Texas guffaw and his wife enjoyed buying dresses from a shop rack. Johnson was closer to the work-hard-and-fight-’em-all philosophy of old Joseph P. Kennedy than John Kennedy was. Mrs. Kennedy enjoyed her lack of knowledge of politics; Mrs. Johnson worked full-time as her husband’s assistant from the time he left Texas to take a seat in the House of Representatives. Lady Bird also found time to take her inheritance and build it into a television and ranch fortune.
The meeting in the back of the plane was awkward for both sides. Suddenly the simple, blunt people were running the United States of America. The adroit, the charming, the sophisticated Kennedys were out. A single blow had reversed the roles, and no one was prepared for it. No one said: “Now the Kennedys must move out of the White House and the Johnsons will move in,” but the shock wave of probabilities moved through Air Force One as the passengers sat in gloomy meditation. When General McHugh said: “The President is aboard,” he assumed that there was only one. Many of the passengers could not acknowledge Johnson’s supremacy, even to themselves.
The President and the First Lady retired from the aft compartment, and Johnson went into the private bedroom to make certain that Marie Fehmer had the oath typewritten correctly. He was barely in the chair when the door opened, and Mrs. Kennedy was in the doorway. She looked as though this was the final humiliation. The President jumped to his feet, asked Miss Fehmer to leave, and apologized to Mrs. Kennedy. He said he had been checking something—“there’s a little privacy here”—and was leaving at once. He got out, and went into the main stateroom, the area of desks and couches and television sets, and Mrs. Kennedy disappeared into the lavatory.
The pool car arrived and Malcolm Kilduff waved to the men to get aboard at once: Merriman Smith of UPI and Charles Roberts of Newsweek magazine. A third man—Sid David of Westinghouse Broadcasting Company—was told that he could cover the swearing in, but could not return to Washington on AF-1 because there wasn’t sufficient room.
In the President’s cabin, Johnson’s intimates sat watching television. They understood little of what had happened, and, isolated in the plane, the only avenue of information was television or radio. David Brinkley, in Washington, was speaking:
“Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Eunice Kennedy Shriver arrived at the White House a few minutes ago to go to Andrews Air Force Base—perhaps to fly to Dallas. Robert Kennedy will fly to Texas. Congress has recessed, and several members of Congress have given their reaction to the President’s death. Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana is ‘shocked.’ Senator Alan Bible of Nevada calls it ‘one of the great tragedies of our lifetime.’ Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia is ‘deeply shocked.’ Similar sentiments are being expressed by all members of Congress.”
On the other side of the airport, Mayor Earle Cabell had a complement of Texas congressmen who desired to return to Washington. In the distance, the brilliant blue and white of AF-1 appeared to be standing dead in the sun, but the mayor was afraid that it would take off at any moment, so he asked the nearby Southwest Airmotive Company to please contact the tower and ask permission to drive across the runways to the President’s plane. The tower sent a police car to escort the distinguished men, who got aboard before Judge Sarah Hughes arrived.
Johnson knew that this inauguration would go down in history as one of the most somber. His impulse was to have it done quickly and secretly and to bring his dead predecessor back to Washington. He sent Youngblood for Kilduff. “Do we have to have the press in here?” he said. Kilduff had no doubt. “Yes, Mr. President. There should be press representation. Also Captain Stoughton should be here to make pictures of the scene.” The President rubbed his big hand down the front of his face. “All right,” he said. “O.K., Mac. If we must have them, then we might as well invite the other people to come in and witness the ceremony.”
The President summoned O’Donnell and O’Brien. The Roman consuls left Caesar on his shield and sat with Johnson, listening. The new President admired these men. He wasn’t certain that they were superior to his own team, but he knew that Ken and Larry had spent almost three years at the font of power in the White House, and they had an intimate working knowledge of the executive branch of government which he lacked. Johnson asked both men to remain in government. “I need you more than he did,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the back of the plane. Both men glanced at each other and said they would give it some thought.
Of the two, O’Donnell was the more unyielding. For him, it was Kennedy or nobody. He drew a grim joy from his intense personal loyalty to Kennedy. It was not a transferable commodity. He’d think about it. So would O’Brien, but O’Brien was an intelligent redhead who, in spite of his deep affection for Kennedy, could envision a world without him. He would like to continue in government, especially in the daily political herding of votes in Congress and the brawling atmosphere of the quadrennial campaign for the White House. Yes, he would give it some thought.
O’Donnell didn’t want to discuss this thing. His concern was to get this airplane out of Texas, and he hunched forward, listening to the President, hoping every moment he would hear the plane move off the blocks to waddle to the head of the runway. He was still convinced, even in the sanctity of United States government property, that official Dallas would be pounding at the doors any moment. He asked the President about taking off.
“I talked to Bobby,” Johnson said. “They think I should be sworn in right here. Judge Hughes is on her way—should be here any minute.” O’Donnell gave up all desire to burden the President with his personal problem. They sat watching Cecil Stoughton, the White House photographer, try to line up his cameras in a corner of the stateroom. “I would like you fellows to stay, to stand shoulder to shoulder with me,” Johnson said. The Kennedy assistants did not commit themselves. They watched the photographer without seeing him. The loyalty of the OOP group—O’Donnell, O’Brien, and Powers—was innocent of patriotism; it was personal fealty to a man. The man was gone. They had no leader, no direction, no future.
A. C. Johnson came up North Beckley, driving carefully. He made his swing into the driveway of his rooming house. His wife noticed the strange cars in front. It didn’t require much time to pinpoint the excitement. The Dallas detectives and two government men were in the living room, going over the roster of roomers with Earlene Roberts. The stout housekeeper said, “They’re looking for a Lee Oswald, but we don’t have anybody by that name.”
Mr. Johnson, a tall lean man who earned his dollars the hard way at the little restaurant and in the rooming house, asked the men who they were. They identified themselves and said that they were looking for a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. Johnson shook his head. His wife said she usually remembered the names, but they never had an Oswald. One of the policemen said: “We came out without a search warrant.” In a moment another one was phoning the nearest substation at 4020 West Illinois to get a warrant.
Earlene went back to the television set in the living room. She knew that there was no Oswald. The cops said he was young—under thirty—slender and brown-haired. Sometimes the Johnsons had as many as seventeen roomers, and some of the transients had rooms in the cellar. A policeman said he would like to go down there and look around. All of them went to the back of the house.
“Let ’em look,” said Mr. Johnson. He sat on a couch watching the fascinating story of the shooting of a President. Earlene Roberts thought it was terrible and kept saying: “Oh, my. Oh, my,” but her eyes remained fastened to the screen. They were still looking, ten minutes later, when the policeman returned with the search warrant. A. C. Johnson wasn’t interested in studying it. He would take the policeman’s word.
The camera moved from the emergency entrance at the hospital to the big silent bird standing on the airfield. The commentator spoke of the shooting of Officer Tippit, and the camera switched to the third floor of police headquarters and a bedlam of photographers, policemen, and reporters. In the middle was a suspect who was shouting for his rights. Earlene Roberts and Mr. A. C. Johnson studied the face, and both stiffened in their chairs.
“Hey!” yelled Johnson over his shoulder. “It’s this fellow that lives in here!” He pointed to the little alcove bedroom. “That’s O. H. Lee,” Mrs. Roberts said. Mrs. Johnson, out back with the policemen, hurried into the house, but the television picture had changed to the empty tables at the Trade Mart. “Who?” one of the government men asked. “Who is it?” They said, “O. H. Lee,” and Mrs. Johnson said: “Well, that’s why we didn’t know who you were looking for.” She displayed the register. “Here he is. O. H. Lee.” Mrs. Roberts was excited and she said that he had come home, right in the middle of the day, and he had gone into the little room and changed to a zipper jacket or something.
The police were in the small room, edging past each other to get around the bed. They appropriated almost everything Oswald had—his skimpy array of clothing, a wall map of Dallas with the Texas School Book Depository building marked off, a couple of books. They felt the walls, the surbases, rifled the little closet and turned the mattress and pillow over. They even took two pillowcases and a face cloth.
The picture of Oswald came on the television set and all hands shouted: “That’s him! That’s him! O. H. Lee!” Earlene shook her head. “I said to him, ‘What’s your hurry?’ and he never said a word. Just skipped out fast. I even saw him standing down the street at the bus stop.”
An apologetic breeze stirred at Love Field. Jesse Curry sat in his car, thinking his private thoughts, squinting up the road toward Mockingbird Lane. He kept half an ear on Channel Two, but the air traffic was dying off except for reports from the Book Depository and one or two from a house at North Beckley. He saw one car careening down the airport road toward his position and the chief of police knew, without asking, that this was Judge Sarah Hughes.
He met her at the gate and ran with her across the concrete to the plane. The door at the top was opened, and he went inside with her. At the door to the President’s stateroom, Mr. Johnson grasped the hand of Judge Hughes. He couldn’t summon a smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for coming, judge. We’ll be ready in a minute.”
It is difficult, even in the most adverse circumstances, to repress the surging joy which must be a concomitant to being sworn in as the Chief Executive of the most powerful nation on earth, but Johnson didn’t smile. His eyes were rheumy and searching. He stared a moment at Charles Roberts of Newsweek, as though trying to place the face. “If there is anybody else aboard who wants to see this,” the President said, “tell them to come in.” On the flight deck, General Godfrey McHugh demanded to know why the plane had not taken off, as he had ordered. The pilot, Colonel Swindal, had received orders and counterorders; he had asked for taxi instructions several times and had not taxied anywhere. The general made it plain that, as a brigadier general, he ranked the colonel, and he demanded that Air Force One start at once. Malcolm Kilduff, passing the communications shack, heard the voices and told Swindal not to take off. The colonel hit the starter switch for the number three engine. It caught fire and emitted a dismal whine. With number three going, he could dismiss the generator truck below the nose and start the remaining three engines on power from number three. Then, if these government officials in the back could agree on one premise—to leave or not to leave—the colonel was prepared to obey.
Someone told Kilduff that the plane must leave at once. With extended patience he said, “Why?” He was told that Kenneth O’Donnell had ordered the plane to leave. Holding his temper in check, Kilduff said: “He may want to take off, but he isn’t in charge anymore. Johnson is now President.” The word filtered quickly to the aft section and it was interpreted as another indication of Lyndon Johnson’s merciless grab for power. It was O’Donnell who kept goading McHugh to go forward and “get this plane out of here,” although O’Donnell had heard from the President that he was going to be sworn in before takeoff.
The stateroom began to fill. Mr. Johnson told Lawrence O’Brien that someone should ask Mrs. Kennedy if she would stand beside him during the ceremony. He said he would like her to stand at his side and the oath-taking would be of short duration. The President said he would also need a Bible. There must be one somewhere on the plane. David Powers came up into the stateroom. So did Admiral Burkley and Major-General Clifton. They were followed by O’Brien and the busy Malcolm Kilduff. The Texas congressmen were already present. So were the three newspapermen.
O’Donnell came in. Photographer Stoughton was leaning against a bulkhead. “Mr. President,” he said, “if you are squeezed any closer, I won’t be able to make the picture.” He tried one shot and the flash didn’t go off. There was a second try, and the small room was struck by the silent lightning. Mrs. Johnson, still wearing the half-frozen smile of shock, looked small beside her husband. The president fidgeted with his shirt cuffs, and Judge Hughes, sixty-seven years old and cheerful, smiled patiently.
O’Brien found that Mrs. Kennedy was not in the breakfast nook beside the casket. He knocked on the bedroom door, and, getting no response, turned the knob and entered. The room was empty. He tried the knob to the lavatory and found it locked. Mrs. Kennedy was inside, alone. Whether she knew what was expected of her and was trying to avoid it, or whether the depression of spirit led to nausea, no one knows. O’Brien left and asked Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy’s personal secretary, to see if she could get Mrs. Kennedy’s attention. She said she would try.
Looking around the room, O’Brien found a small gift box. Inside was what he thought was a Bible. It was a missal—the prayers of the Roman Catholic Mass in both Latin and English. He carried it out and gave it to the judge. The abnormal heat of the President’s stateroom was worse. There were twenty-six humans jammed into a space no bigger than fifteen feet by seventeen. Each one’s body heat generated the power of a one hundred-watt bulb. They waited for Mrs. Kennedy.
Kilduff couldn’t find a tape recorder, so he used an electric dictating machine and put a cartridge in it. Then he placed the microphone between the judge and the President. Marie Fehmer handed the judge a sheet of Air Force One letterhead with the proper words typed. Mrs. Kennedy stepped timidly into the room. The President grasped both her hands in his and whispered, “Thank you.” He nodded for the ceremony to start. Mrs. Johnson was on one side of the President; Mrs. Kennedy, still in bloody gloves and garments, the face still stunned and expressionless, was on the other. Witnesses, tiptoeing to see her, seemed to stop breathing. The overwhelming emotional bath, endured by all two hours ago, was renewed. Some averted their gaze.
Kilduff switched the Dictaphone set on. Judge Hughes held out the missal. The President looked down at his wife and placed his left hand on the book. The right hand moved up slowly, almost reluctantly. The twangy Texas voice of the jurist said: “Now repeat after me . . .” The words required but twenty-eight seconds. Johnson said loudly: “. . . so help me God.” The thirty-sixth President, who now had the power to implement his decisions, turned to Lady Bird, grabbed her by both shoulders and kissed her. Then he turned to Mrs. Kennedy, put an arm around her, and pecked at her cheek.
Some rushed forward and tried to give him a hearty handshake and a congratulatory grin. President Johnson turned a stern expression on them, and the bud of conviviality was crushed. He was tall enough to look over the heads of the others, and his eyes sought Malcolm Kilduff. The press secretary was lifting the sound cartridge from the dictating machine. He gave it to Stoughton and told him to get off the plane and give the pictures to the press. The sound, too.
Mrs. Kennedy seemed unaware of what to do. She stood near the door with the President’s seal emblazoned on it, and looked blankly ahead. Mrs. Johnson grasped her hand and said: “The whole nation mourns your husband.” There was no response. Police Chief Curry tried to grasp Mrs. Kennedy’s hand. His voice cracked with sobs. “We did our best,” he croaked. “We tried hard, Mrs. Kennedy.” She glanced at him, a small man with cross-hatched wrinkles on his chin, the spectacles gleaming in the dull cabin light. She nodded.
The chief shook his head. He took Judge Sarah Hughes by the arm. “God bless you, little lady,” he said to Mrs. Kennedy, “but you ought to go back and lie down.” Mrs. Kennedy summoned a smile. “No thanks,” she said. “I’m fine.” The President said: “Let’s get airborne,” and Chief Curry hurried forward with the judge to disembark. Sid Davis of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company completed his succinct notes on the ceremony and left. A congressman got off. Valenti and Moyers, the O’Donnells of the new administration, sat slumped deep in seats.
The President phoned the White House.
The one “at-large” Secret Service man, Forrest V. Sorrels, left the Depository building and returned to police headquarters. It didn’t require much acumen to find that the building seethed with excitement, that the Dallas Police Department felt that, in Lee Harvey Oswald, it had a good catch. Sorrels got to the third floor, determined to find out who the prisoner was and whether he had had the opportunity and motive to assassinate the President.
“Captain,” he said to Fritz, “I would like to talk to this man when there is an opportunity.” The police officer had completed his preliminary round of questions. “You can talk to him right now.” The party moved to an enclosure adjacent to the captain’s private office and when Sorrels opened by asking him who he was, Oswald switched to his arrogant mood. “I don’t know who you fellows are—a bunch of cops.”
The Secret Service agent decided on the open approach. “I’ll tell you who I am,” he said. He reached into his pocket and brought out an identification card. “My name is Sorrels and I am with the United States Secret Service.” Oswald turned his face away. “I don’t want to look at it.” He glanced at the man from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service man, and the two Dallas detectives. “What am I going to be charged with?” he said. “Why am I being held here? Isn’t someone supposed to tell me what my rights are?”
The interrogated had begun to interrogate the interrogators. “I will tell you what your rights are,” Mr. Sorrels said. “Your rights are the same as any other American. You do not have to make a statement unless you want to. You have the right to get an attorney.”
“Aren’t you supposed to get me an attorney?” Sorrels shook his head negatively. “No, I am not supposed to get you an attorney.” Oswald could not believe it. He seemed to feel that the state owed him the services of counsel. “Aren’t you supposed to get me an attorney?” “No,” said Sorrels, “I am not supposed to get you an attorney because if I got you an attorney they would say that I was probably getting a rake-off on the fee.” Sorrels smiled at his man. He hoped the little joke would crack the stiffness. It didn’t. The pale agate eyes stared. Lee Oswald was in a mood to confuse, confound, and bend the law to his wishes. With the press out in the hall, he knew that he could play the martyr plaintively. If, at his side, he could have smart counsel like John Abt of New York, it is possible that he could have turned the law off as one might shut a leaky faucet.
“You can have the telephone book and you can call anybody you want,” Sorrels said. “I just want to ask some questions. I am in on this investigation and I just want to ask some questions.” Oswald studied his adversary. He could have refused to make any statement, but the fact that he responded to some questions proves that he thought he could handle Mr. Sorrels.
The Secret Service man took him over the same route he had just traversed with Captain Fritz. Name, place of employment, domicile, reason for living apart from wife, the daily routine of working on many floors, travel in Europe, and the Soviet Union. All of these and a few more had been answered. Suddenly Oswald tired of the game and said: “I don’t care to answer any more questions.”
Captain Fritz walked into the room. He had been on the phone. His manner was still heavy-footed and bland. “That room on Beckley,” he said. “Why were you registered under the name of O. H. Lee?” Oswald shrugged as though it was of no consequence. “The lady didn’t understand my name. She put it down the wrong way.” Fritz nodded and returned to his office. He might have asked the prisoner why he had signed the register “O. H. Lee.”
All the engines were shrieking. Swindal’s first officer filed a flight plan asking for 25,000 feet out of Love Field. The handoffs would occur at Fort Worth Center; Little Rock, Arkansas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Charleston, West Virginia. Estimated time of arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., would be 1803 local time. The plane received an “all clear” from Gate 24, and Swindal moved the throttle settings up a notch. The big plane moved forward, rocking a little on the concrete.
She made the crossovers and moved up to the head of Runway 31. Her back was to Mockingbird Lane, the scene of the final triumph. A commercial airliner, about to turn in on final, was requested by Jack Jove to turn away on a 180-degree course and then make another one and come into the airport. Swindal was given approval for takeoff. He spent another minute, running down the check list with his first officer and flight engineer. At 2:47 P.M. the throttle settings were boosted and the four fan-jet engines howled their grief as 26000 rumbled down the strip, jostling the casket as Mrs. Kennedy watched it, shaking the shoulders of the new President as he returned to the phone, Roberts and Smith—the press pool—trying to find seats, Kenny O’Donnell sitting opposite Mrs. Kennedy, feeling relieved to shake the dust of Dallas, typists like Marie Fehmer afraid to touch a key for fear of shattering the sacred silence.
The first officer called V-1 and rotating speed. Swindal pulled the yoke back gently and lifted off. He was well out between Walnut Hills and Letot before permission was granted to turn the plane northeast for Washington. The ugly rubber legs were tucked up. The big ship climbed as it always did, without strain. The colonel was not content with 25,000 feet. He asked for 41,000. The weather chart showed a high-flying jet stream moving slowly northeast. It was close to the absolute ceiling for a Boeing 707. The picture on the television set began to scatter. The communications shack was in touch with Andrews, in touch with Dallas, arranging phone calls, picking up incoming messages. AF-1 kept climbing for a half hour. The patchwork quilt of farms below assumed almost stationary figures. The sun on the portside became brazen, and the shades remained drawn. The color of the Texas sky changed from pale blue to baby blue to midnight blue. The sky became darker and darker and the plane seemed to be slower and slower. At 625 statute miles per hour, it looked like a piece of confetti pinned to the heavens.
One of the stewards thought: “How strange. For the first time in history, we have two Presidents aboard.” On the radio, the first officer heard an announcement from a plane still at Love Field: “This is Air Force Two. Our designation has been changed to SAM nine seven zero. We will depart for Washington, under present instructions, at 1514 local time.”
The “poor dumb cop” wore a tag on his big toe. Dr. Paul Moellenhoff of the Methodist Hospital took a bullet from the body and showed it to Patrolman R. A. Davenport, who guarded the dead officer. Davenport marked it and put it in his pocket. The body was about ready. Blood had been washed away from the wounds of J. D. Tippit. There was a sizeable hole in the forehead and a smaller one in the temple; one of the chest wounds was small. The other, the one which had hit a uniform button and had carried it into the chest, was big and ugly.
Dr. Moellenhoff could do no more. He looked at the nude, well-nourished male on the slab and shrugged his shoulders. The goods guys do not always win the gun battles. The solemn words “in line of duty” have never exhilarated a widow nor fed a child. The doctor covered him and called for an ambulance. “The body will be taken to Parkland Memorial for an autopsy,” he said. “Doctor Earl Rose will be waiting.” So would Mrs. Tippit.
The wellsprings of sorrow and guilt, shock and confusion, the aimless litany of repeating: “The President of the United States was shot in Dallas today” made November 22, 1963, seem to go on forever. Psychologically, the entire nation was trying to face it and admit it. But the brain teetered on the edge of truth and pulled back. In Dallas shops, clerks and customers discussing merchandise stared at each other once too often and burst into tears. An emotional cripple named Jack Ruby, who didn’t really care at all, unexpectedly phoned a boyhood friend named Alex Gruber, who now lived in Los Angeles. Ruby prattled about a dog he had promised to send Alex, a car wash business, and the assassination. The nightclub owner lapsed into uncontrollable sobs and hung up.
Nor was it less emotional in the basement of the police department. In the vast underground parking lot, policemen got into cars and couldn’t remember where they were to go or what they were to do. Others, arriving, stood beside police cars talking with other officers about the assassination, as though by conversational repetition it would become understandable. Lieutenant Jack Revill returned from the Depository with three policemen. He saw FBI Special Agent James Hosty and they discussed the case with disbelief.
Hosty ran over to Revill and exclaimed: “Jack, a Communist killed President Kennedy!” Revill, a tough face under a cowboy hat, said, “What?” “Lee Oswald killed President Kennedy.” “Who is Lee Oswald?” “He is in our Communist file. We knew he was here in Dallas.” They walked into the basement elevator with other police officers, and Hosty said he knew that Oswald was “possibly capable of this.” Revill was excited. He felt that “the town died today.” He shouted invective at Hosty, and they got off the elevator at the third floor, in the midst of mass media. Revill repeated the conversation to his boss, Captain W. P. Gannaway. He was ordered to make a written report on it at once, to be drawn to the attention of Chief Curry. Hosty had no idea that the use of the words “possibly” or “probably” could, in an angry police report, hang him. He had never believed that Oswald, the friendless pedant, would be capable of violence.
The Dallas Police Department, which had cooperated fully with the Secret Service, was in no way to blame for the tragedy. It had extended itself to the limit to protect the President. Still there was a feeling akin to guilt in the department. Men asked each other blankly: “What could we have done that we didn’t do?” At 2:50 P.M. FBI Agent James Hosty became the accidental goat.
The blame was quickly nailed down:
Captain W. P. Gannaway
Special Service Bureau
Subject: Lee Harvey Oswald
605 Elsbeth Street
Sir:
On November 22, 1963, at approximately 2:50 P.M., the undersigned officer met Special Agent James Hosty of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the basement of the City Hall.
At that time Special Agent Hosty related to this officer that the Subject was a member of the Communist Party, and that he was residing in Dallas.
The Subject was arrested for the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit and is a prime suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy.
The information regarding the Subject’s affiliation with the Communist Party is the first information this officer has received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding same.
Agent Hosty further stated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of the Subject and that they had information that this Subject was capable of committing the assassination of President Kennedy.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Revill, Lieutenant
Criminal Intelligence Section
In the hysteria of the hour, it was an ideal report for taking the responsibility from the Dallas Police Department (which it didn’t deserve) and tossing it into the lap of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where it didn’t belong. The long and cool shadow of time shows that if the motorcade was staged again with the same personalities, the same diligence to duty and the protection of the President, and the same knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, the President would be killed as before.
Hosty could mask his feelings, but not to himself. All great tragedies depend upon an assortment of miniscule events, each of which must be executed in an orderly manner. The chain is easily broken, as it was on the day Oswald told his wife he wanted to kill the Vice-President. She locked him in a bathroom. He pounded on the door and threatened to beat her. Within a short time, Oswald agreed to remain in the bathroom if she would give him something to read. The chain of events was broken. On the night Oswald tried to kill General Walker, the first miss with the rifle frightened him, and he ran, hiding the gun on a railroad embankment under gravel.
The FBI wasn’t aware of these things. No government agency saw Lee Harvey Oswald as a danger. He was on the records of the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Marxist defector. His disappointment in the Soviet Union was so profound that he had borrowed money from the U.S. Department of State to return to Texas—and had paid the money back, a little at a time.
On April 24th, 1963, Oswald left for New Orleans, and Special Agent Hosty transferred his authority over Oswald to the New Orleans office of the FBI. Oswald headed for Mexico on September 25, 1963 and rented a room at the YMCA. By November 1, 1963, Mrs. Paine had informed the FBI that Oswald was employed at the Texas School Depository Building and was rooming somewhere in Dallas. To any law enforcement agency, Oswald would have been much more of a pest than a menace; much more of a petty disputant than a threat.
Captain Fritz waved Hosty into his office. The FBI man opened his commission card and displayed it to Oswald. There was no comment. Jim Hosty backed up and sat beside Bookhout. “Have you been in Russia?” Hosty said. The prisoner rested his manacled hands on the captain’s desk. “Yes, I was in Russia three years.” “Did you ever write to the Russian embassy?” Oswald gave it some thought. Then he said: “Yes, I wrote.” “Have you ever been to Mexico City?” The sensitive nerve had been touched. The reaction was instantaneous. Oswald was not aware that anyone knew about his bus trip to Mexico. “No,” he said loudly.
“When were you in Mexico City?” the FBI man said. Oswald stood. He sat. He pounded his shackles on top of the desk. “I know you!” he shouted. “I know you! You’re the one who accosted my wife twice!” The captain grabbed the handcuffs. “Take it easy. Sit down.” Oswald nodded venomously. “Oh, I know you.” “What do you mean, he accosted your wife?” Fritz said. The mood of high indignation began to dissipate. “Well, he threatened her.” “How?” “He practically told her she would have to go back to Russia.” This, apparently, was not the kind of accosting the captain had in mind. “He accosted her on two different occasions,” Oswald said.
The visits to the Paine house in Irving had been routine. They were “follow-up” pilgrimages, designed to learn Oswald’s current status. Hosty wanted to know if Oswald was working; if so, where. The FBI was disinterested unless the man was working in a sensitive industry, such as the manufacture of bombers or missiles. The defector was fond of excusing his successive firings from jobs by blaming it on the FBI. He never worked as anything but a laborer or minor flunky. The only thing he ever learned in a job was, while working for a photocopying service, to superimpose photographs and to fake military service cards and I.D. cards.
On the visits when Oswald was not at home, Hosty sat in the living room with Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine and, notebook in hand, directed his questions in English to Mrs. Paine. Marina had glanced at Hosty’s car at the curb and copied the license number. She, too, felt hostile to the FBI. In a free country, it didn’t seem just to be harassed by secret police. Besides, if the agents realized how ineffectual her husband was in almost everything he attempted, they would not check on him. No one knew better than Marina that her husband was chronically unhappy no matter where he went or how hard he tried. There was reason to believe that he despised his mother; was frustrated in his desire to dominate his wife; fought the Navy Department for giving him a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps; despaired in his role as dollar-an-hour nonentity in the business world; was shocked that the Soviet Union had no use for him; couldn’t believe that the Cuban consul in Mexico City would decline his offer to enlist as an officer in the Castro army; cringed when his wife made fun of him as a lover; became embittered when Russian expatriates gave his wife and babies gifts of garments; perhaps, subconsciously, hated the Lee Harvey Oswald he knew.
The people on the plane gravitated into two groups. The Johnson people sat forward, the Kennedys aft. The Johnsons pretended that the situation did not exist. The Kennedys—which is to say Mrs. Kennedy, O’Donnell, O’Brien, Powers, McHugh—sulked in the rear compartment as though Johnson had boorishly appropriated the President’s stateroom, evicting them all. They were desirous of making the President look bad. Mrs. Kennedy, having surprised the President in her bedroom, sat in the tiny breakfast nook near the casket, trembling with the vibration of the tail section.
For two hours and twelve minutes, the two camps remained apart. They employed messengers to walk the corridor with whispered wishes. The alchemy of the hours had transmuted the grief of the Kennedy group to rancor; the assassination was a deep personal loss, but it was also a fall from power. The Ins were Out; the majestic were servile; the policy makers were beholden to a new man for a plane ride; a lucky shot had killed the President, but it had also paralyzed the Cabinet and the White House guard. Men who are appointed to high offices must please the man who appoints them. When he goes, they go; or they wait for the man they held in contempt to say: “I need you more than he did.”
Mrs. Kennedy retreated from the private bedroom to the aft galley. There were only two seats in that part of the plane. She sat on one. Mr. O’Donnell sat on the other. Admiral Burkley stood, swaying with the turbulence in the deep blue sky. Lawrence O’Brien stood near the casket. To each of them, it seemed to grow in size as the trip progressed. General Godfrey McHugh stood. This morning he had had a career; this afternoon he saw sudden retirement. O’Brien, frustrated by his thoughts, tried to patch a silver handle on the casket which had been jammed against the door of the plane on the way in. The bolts hung loose. He was not handy.
The Gaelic antidote to grief is whiskey. O’Donnell stood: “I’m going to have a hell of a stiff drink,” he said. “I think you should, too.” Mrs. Kennedy said: “What will I have?” O’Donnell said he’d make her a Scotch. She thought about it. “I’ve never had a Scotch in my life.” O’Donnell moved on to call a steward. The forlorn face looked up at General McHugh. “Now is as good a time to start as any,” she said.
The moody passengers had listened to the subdued whine of the jets; the landscape, far below, held no checkerboard interest. Conversations began and stopped abruptly. The people turned to whiskey. In some, it loosened additional tears; in others, it shored the dam of emotions. The President supped two bowls of steaming vegetable soup. Mrs. Johnson saw the small packages of salted crackers and, knowing that her husband was on a salt-free diet, munched them herself.
The short fat glasses of scotch and rye and bourbon jiggled their ice as Air Force One swept northeast. The empty glasses were replenished. As the busy stewards swept by, the word became: “Do it again, please.” It did not dull the shock and sorrow; alcohol made it bearable. Some had many drinks; many had a few; a few had none. Still, it could not heal a breach. There were two separate and distinct camps aboard because Mrs. Kennedy wished it so. At one time, she looked up at Clint Hill, “her” secret service agent, “what will happen to you, now?” she said, and burst into tears. He looked down, the law officer always in control of his emotions, and the tears came.
The Johnsons, anxious to show a smooth continuity in the transfer of government, desired the two families to appear as one. At least, the Johnsons felt, the former rapport between the two groups could be maintained. They were wrong. After the swearing in, Mrs. Kennedy did not return to the private stateroom of the First Lady. She returned to the casket, and those of the Kennedy camp who wished to sit the vigil, remained at her side.
No mean word was uttered; no gauntlet was thrown. Glancing at the bronze box, Mrs. Kennedy began to think of Abraham Lincoln. The buoyant, youthful, sophisticated John F. Kennedy became fused in the shadow of death with the weary, cavernous man who had sealed the fractures in the union with the blood of its best boys. He, too, had had his Johnson; he, too, had died on a Friday; he, too, had been sitting with his wife; he, too, had been shot in the back of the head; in death he, too, had turned over the affairs of the nation to a man who was earthy, a vindictive Southerner who was politically alienated from his area.
Mrs. Kennedy ordered another drink.