The Death of a President

1 The Warren Commission reported that the luncheon site was selected by the Secret Service with O’Donnell’s approval. This is incorrect. The decision was a political decision, made by politicians. Bruno was among the witnesses whom the Commission did not summon.

3 In 1961 Michael W. Terina, Chief Inspector of the Secret Service, told this writer that wherever a Presidential motorcade must slow down for a turn, the entire intersection is checked in advance.

4 Airline pilots provide an excellent illustration. Each six months they must demonstrate their proficiency in all the physical and mental skills required by their profession. This testing is done both in the airplane in which they fly and in special electronic flight simulators where performance in situations which would be hazardous in an actual airplane can be evaluated. Both normal and emergency maneuvers are included. Second, the Federal Aviation Agency requires them to submit to strenuous physical examinations—also at six-month intervals—by designated aeromedical specialists. Finally, the airlines themselves give aircraft captains annual checkups.

5 T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men.”

6 Ibid.

1 Kennedy personally wrote the family of every American who died in uniform during his Presidency. The lines to Box 813, Kirbyville, Texas, are particularly eloquent, but there were between forty and fifty such letters each month. Whenever one of them produced a reply, he invited the widow and children to Washington for a talk in the Rose Garden.

2 In 1964 Wilkinson did run on the Republican ticket in Oklahoma. His slogan was “Put the best man in the game.” His opponent, a Kennedy Democrat, replied that the future of the world is no game, and Wilkinson vanished in the anti-Goldwater landslide.

3 That winter the digits took over, and it was changed to 456-1414.

4 From time to time names and groupings were changed. One man, who was Porter (P) in November 1963, later became Super (S), and then River (R). He has retired.

5 “Not,” the San Antonio News reported of the helicopter, “that there was any danger.” News coverage of that Thursday’s events was rather captious. One writer described Jacqueline Kennedy as “taciturn” and complained that she was aloof from the people. Another called security agents “nitpickers,” adding that “taxpayers foot the bill while the Secret Service heroes gumshoe around thinking up different kinds of new—and ruinously expensive—duties for themselves.” These comments appeared the following afternoon, November 22, 1963.

6 In fairness it should be noted that films of the following morning’s activities suggest that this man was—with Clint Hill—one of the most agile members of the detail. Therefore his name is not given here.

7 In the Shoreham audience was Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii. Next time they met he told Humphrey in awe, “You told us—you were telling us!” Humphrey replied, “But I didn’t know it.”

8 A subsequent controversy developed over whether or not the shots fired from the warehouse on November 22 had been difficult ones, and echoes of the dispute are heard today. Here the author must appear briefly as an expert witness. This writer has carefully examined the site in Dallas and once qualified as an Expert Rifleman on the U.S. Marine Corps range at Parris Island, S.C., firing the M-1 rifle, as Oswald did, from 500, 300, and 200 yards. From the sixth floor in the Book Depository Oswald would look down on a slowly drifting target less than ninety yards away, and his scope brought it within twenty-two yards. At that distance, with his training, he could scarcely have missed.

9 Everyone who has questioned Ruth Paine, this writer included, has been impressed by her exceptional forthrightness. After the assassination she talked to Jessamyn West, a fellow Quaker. Miss West noted that when she spoke of Ruth’s “kindness to the Oswalds” Ruth corrected her, “reminding me that she had gained as much in her association with Marina Oswald as she had given.”

1 The plaza is an acoustical freak, and this writer, like the Warren Commission, could not determine how many shots were fired by the assassin. Two found their mark. A majority of witnesses say they heard three detonations, and three spent shells were found in the sniper’s perch. Yet several witnesses closest to the scene—e.g., Mrs. Kennedy, Clint Hill, Zapruder—heard only two reports. And it would have been typical of Oswald’s laxity to have come to the warehouse with an expended cartridge in the breech, which would have required removal before he could commence firing.

2 In the summer of 1966 a former Cornell graduate student published a book which suggested that this first bullet followed a different trajectory. The implication was that a second assassin had aided Oswald. The issue is resolved by the X-rays and photographs which were taken from every conceivable angle during the autopsy on the President’s body. Because this material is unsightly it will be unavailable until 1971. However, the author has discussed it with three men who examined it before it was placed under seal. All three carried special professional qualifications. Each was a stranger to the other two. Nevertheless their accounts were identical. The X-rays show no entry wound “below the shoulder,” as argued by the graduate student. Admittedly X-rays of active projectiles passing through soft tissue are difficult to read. Yet, the photographs support them in this case—and reveal that the wound was in the neck. Finally, the recollections of all doctors present during the autopsy, including the President’s personal physician, agree unanimously with this overwhelming evidence. Thus the account in the above text is correct.

1 Colonel Jim Swindal, monitoring the radio in 26000’s communications shack, thought he heard Kellerman say, “Lancer is hurt. It looks bad. We have to get to a hospital.”

It is Kellerman’s recollection that he ordered Greer to leave the scene and radioed the alarm to Lawson just before Oswald’s final shot. In his words to the author, “Greer then looked in the back of the car. Maybe he didn’t believe me.” Kellerman is mistaken. Although Greer’s memory is vague, the Zapruder film and the recollections of Lawson, Mrs. Kennedy, and the Connallys contradict Kellerman’s version. Moreover, had he alerted Lawson, the agents in Halfback—Kinney among them—would have heard him over their Charlie set.

2 Indeed, Mrs. Kennedy has no recollection of being on the trunk at all. She was in deep shock. Later she looked at still frames developed from the Zapruder sequence. They brought nothing back to her. It was as though she were looking at photographs of another woman.

3 A Time caption (November 29, 1963, page 23) incorrectly identified the foot as Kennedy’s. The President’s body, invisible to all photographers, was sprawled across the back seat.

4 There were larger variations on this theme. The uses of personal pronouns are infinite. Some Americans blamed all Texas; some foreigners, all America. In Washington an Englishwoman said to this writer, “You get a good President and what do you do? You shoot him.” The absurdity of this does not, of course, preclude a plural responsibility for the tragedy.

5 That was only the beginning. All afternoon the Associated Press was a source of misleading and inaccurate reports. Two highlights came at 1:18 P.M. CST, when the AP circulated an unconfirmed report that Lyndon Johnson had been “wounded slightly,” and at 2:14, when AP teletypes chattered that “A Secret Service agent and a Dallas policeman were shot and killed today some distance from the area where President Kennedy was assassinated.” This seemed to support theories of an elaborate plot. It wasn’t corrected until 3:33 P.M. Inevitably, word-of-mouth transmissions embellished errors. In a Nevada motion picture theater the lights went up and the manager took the stage. He announced, “We have just learned that the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Governor of Texas, and a Secret Service man have been murdered. We now continue with our matinee feature.” The lights went down. No one in the audience stirred. One wonders whether they could have been thinking.

6 Hill says he heard “no verbal reply.” There was one, though. The source is her own recollection. It is the best possible source, for at this point her recovery was instantaneous and complete. From this moment forward her retention—which has been checked against the memories of everyone who was with her during this period—is astonishingly accurate.

7 Partly because not all Presidential aides knew it. As late as 2:15 P.M. the tape of Dallas police dispatcher No. 2 recorded a message from Patrolman J. E. Jennings at Parkland, who reported that certain members of the White House staff were asking “if it would be possible for your office to make a collect call to deliver a message for them.” Dispatcher Gerald Henslee replied, “I’m sorry, all my phones are tied up.”

It should be added that both police channels were frequently clogged with unnecessary traffic: demands for police dogs, confusion over wrong arrests and incorrect addresses, and—this from Inspector Sawyer—speculation over whether overtime pay would be authorized for forty patrolmen who would normally have been relieved by now.

8 There weren’t enough useless jobs for everyone; some were duplicated. A few moments later Lem Johns appeared and issued the same instructions to the two drivers. Chuck Roberts, watching the top go up, said bitterly, “Why now?” One of the drivers said numbly, “You can’t look.” An inaccurate story reported that they washed out the back seat with a bucket of water. Actually, this was contemplated. Nurse’s aide Shirley Randall was asked whether she would “come and wash the blood out of the car.” Miss Randall agreed, but in the excitement she forgot.

9 In the Texas State Journal of Medicine (January 1964, p. 61) it was stated, “Blood was drawn for typing and crossmatching. Type O RH negative blood was obtained immediately.” In fact, the President was given O RH negative because there could be no reaction to it, whatever his type. The article, which was prepared by Parkland’s medical staff, contains another minor inaccuracy and a startling omission. One of the senior doctors declared that he believes it “evidence of the clear thinking of the resuscitative team that the patient received 300 mg. hydrocortisone intravenously in the first few minutes.” This medication (Solu-Cortef) was necessary because the President suffered from Addison’s disease, but it was provided by his personal physician, Dr. Burkley, who also passed along word of his blood type. Dr. Burkley is mentioned nowhere in the article. Doctors, too, may become victims of irrationalism.

10 The investigation was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) of the University of Chicago. NORC had the facilities for a nationwide flash survey. By Monday, November 25, the questionnaire was ready, and by the following Saturday 97 percent of the 1,384 interviews had been completed.

11 The number of long-distance calls climbed again on Saturday, reached a peak on Sunday, when Oswald was shot, and plunged 30 percent below normal on Monday, the day of the President’s funeral.

12 At 1:23 UPI identified Father Huber and reported that he had “administered the last sacrament of the Church to the President.” His actual words followed. At 1:32 the AP carried the flash, “Two priests who were with Kennedy say he is dead of bullet wounds.” Father Thompson had said nothing, and bullet wounds had not been mentioned.

1 Opinions of the Attorneys General, XLII, No. 5 (August 2, 1961), 9–10. Most of Kennedy’s scholarly research on this matter was the work of Nick Katzenbach.

2 The implication is that a Vice President’s loyalty may diminish during his service in the Vice Presidency. It is possible. But then, a President’s loyalty might shrink during his Presidency. If the country cannot assume that a man elected to national office will honor his sworn word, the foundations of the government are reduced to sludge.

3 During the Eisenhower administration there had been two bagmen, and in January 1961 Captain E. Peter Aurand, USN, Naval Aide to the outgoing President, briefed Captain Tazewell Shepard on the nature of the satchel which had accompanied Richard Nixon. Shepard packed a bag and sent it to the office of the new Vice President by courier. An aide returned it with the explanation that Johnson did not want it.

4 In both her statement to the author and again to Chief Justice Warren, Mrs. Johnson vividly describes ascending and descending flights of stairs en route to Major Medicine. This is a striking example of how shock can distort memory. There were no stairs.

5 From their point of view it was an excellent time. A week later the average had rebounded 39.02 points. The fact remains, however, that the instincts of Spalding, himself a man of wealth, were correct. Kennedy’s father had been a shrewd dealer in stocks, but he had never cashed in on the martyrdom of a President.

6 Here as elsewhere, the author is relying on his own research, not hearsay. The source for the remark is another officer who was present at the meeting.

7 Kennedy thought the caller was Clint Hill. It was Taz Shepard. This was another telephonic phenomenon of November 22. Men who had known one another for years had difficulty recognizing each other’s voices.

8 Robert Kennedy had worried about John Kennedy. Like the President, however, he brushed aside threats against himself. Therefore, Guthman, without consulting him, arranged sundown-to-dawn surveillance of Hickory Hill that afternoon. The Fairfax police guarded the estate until Monday, when they were relieved by U.S. marshals from the District of Columbia. The District had ninety such marshals. Ninety volunteered for the duty.

9 According to Johnson’s recollection—nine months older than Goldberg’s—the lawyer “advised” that he should be “sworn in at once, and undertook to locate Judge Sarah Hughes to administer the oath.”

10 Shanklin of the FBI was especially helpful in aborting Alexander’s folly. Alexander himself subsequently played a key role in the trial of Jack Ruby, Oswald’s killer.

11 This strains credulity, but there it is, on page 10 of the National Broadcasting Company’s program log of November 22–25, 1963.

1 Approximately ten minutes later a uniformed patrolman, C. E. Jackson, went ahead anyhow. At 1:44 P.M. he radioed dispatcher No. 2, “We need a justice of the peace at Parkland Hospital, Code 3.” Code 3—emergency, red lights and sirens—might have been of immense help, but here, as in so many other crucial moments, Dallas police communications broke down. The next message on the dispatcher’s tape is hopelessly garbled.

2 The judge believes he was more compassionate, but it is three to one; Ted Clifton also heard the exchange.

3 Conceivably this had been Vice President Johnson’s convertible.

4 It was closer to 2:15, though not as early as the new President thought. In his statement to the Warren Commission President Johnson estimated that Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin arrived “just after 2 o’clock.” The President was mistaken. At 2 P.M. he had been on the telephone with Attorney General Kennedy, and the calls to Bullion’s office and to Goldberg, Katzenbach, and Sarah Hughes were still to come.

5 The myth of “the Catholic Bible” endures in Protestant America. Although such editions do exist, neither the obsolete (Douay) version nor the current (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) rendition differs to any discernible extent from the one familiar to non-Catholics. Ecclesiastical scholars could distinguish between them, but Sarah Hughes couldn’t. Neither, in the opinion of Bishop Philip M. Hannan, could John Kennedy, and it is unlikely that the question had ever crossed the President’s mind.

1 There was no fine. The District of Columbia did prohibit the moving of bodies in ambulances without coroner’s permits, but the D.C. Police Department acted as the coroner’s representative in the District and surrounding Maryland and Virginia counties, and the matter could have been cleared up without troubling anyone on the plane. As it turned out, the law was disregarded entirely. McHugh’s conversation merely demonstrates that there was more than one Earl Rose abroad that afternoon.

2 This is unclear. According to the pilot’s log, they departed Hickam at 11:05 Hawaii time (2105 Zulu). The likeliest explanation is that Freeman had become confused by the zones.

3 Scali, as ABC’s State Department correspondent, had quietly served as the President’s personal representative thirteen months earlier, persuading an official at the Soviet Embassy that Russian missiles must be removed from Cuba.

4 Protocol for the big four is State, Treasury, Defense, Justice.

5 Emergency planners have yet to learn the lessons of November 22. A study of that afternoon suggests that in any disaster on a workday commercial telephones would become highly unreliable. The public could be reached by television and radio, but the homes of all vital officials should be knitted into a government system similar to the White House Communications Agency. The Signal Corps has the equipment and the expertise to do this; it lacks only a green light.

6 Two weeks later, on December 6, the House Republican Policy Committee denied that “hate was the assassin that struck down the President.” Instead, it charged, the true criminal was “the teachings of Communism.” Expanding this theme, Senator Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming took the floor that day to attack people seeking “political advantage from warping the uncontestable truth” and blaming “rightists and conservatives.” The murderer, the Senator said, “was a single kill-crazy Communist.”

7 In Europe anti-American journalists seized upon the obvious readiness of the soldiers who were to parade in Monday’s funeral to charge that Secretary McNamara had been rehearsing troops for the funeral before the assassination.

8 And he didn’t. When Johnson reached Washington McCormack insisted that the Secret Service must discontinue all interest in him at once. Because of the Speaker’s political power his extraordinary demand was honored that Friday. Thus the man next in line was without security protection for fourteen months. It was one of the best-kept secrets in the government. Those who knew of it did not even mention it to one another until Hubert Humphrey had been sworn in.

9 That Friday Lyndon Johnson did not know that John Kennedy had ordered the taping of all Angel conversations while the plane was in flight. On April 21, 1964, this writer learned that the Love-to-Andrews tape still existed. Since security was not involved, it was first thought that a complete transcript of it would serve as a useful appendix to this book. Presidential consent was withheld, however. On May 5, 1965, the author was permitted to read an edited transcript at the White House. Doubtless the tape will be available to future historians.

10 All the five-star generals and admirals have been so designated and notified. Some, like the late Douglas MacArthur, displayed a keen interest in the arrangements. Only two have declined a state funeral, Omar Bradley and Chester Nimitz.

11 A slippery analogy. One criminal doesn’t make a penitentiary either. Madhouses and prisons are the places to which men are committed after the fact.

1 The author invited President Johnson to comment on this misapprehension. He replied that he had nothing to add to his statement to the Warren Commission.

2 The chronology here is interesting. Comparing the shift reports of the Presidential agents who were in the ambulance with those of the Vice Presidential detail, it is evident that the body of the slain President passed the mansion within minutes of the new President’s landing. The two events were almost simultaneous. Establishing which occurred first is, however, impossible.

3 After the funeral a black band was added to Special Forces berets, signifying perpetual mourning for President Kennedy.

4 The author recalls a colloquy between three lawyers of the Warren Commission staff on June 27, 1964, when the Commission’s report was being drafted. Here are notes of it: “X: ‘How critical of the Dallas police should we be?’ Y: ‘We can’t be critical enough.’ Z (senior man): ‘That’s just the problem. If we write what we really think, nobody will believe anything else we say. They’ll accuse us of attacking Dallas’ image. The whole report will be discredited as controversial. We’ve just got to tone it way down.’ ” There was a spirited discussion, after which X and Y consented.

5 This writer once spent a year observing those easygoing procedures in the Oklahoma City Police Station. During that time the policemen there handled the most minor offender more carefully than Dallas treated the most notorious American criminal of the century.

6 Nor did he. After she moved from the capital he was the one Irishman who remained with her and the children.

7 Only Peking was consistent. The scrutable Red Chinese broadcast assassination news briefly and gleefully. Kungjen Jih Pao, their newspaper, published a cartoon of America’s murdered President lying on his face. The caption read, “Kennedy biting the dust.”

1 The President was invited to contribute his recollections of his Saturday morning conversations with Mrs. Lincoln and Robert Kennedy, and of the Attorney General’s subsequent arrival at the Cabinet meeting. He replied that he did not have any comment upon them.

2 Like Godfrey McHugh, the unfortunate officer was soon transferred.

3 It vanished almost as quickly. Two days later it was gone.

4 Rideau vs. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723.

5 Katzenbach took an exceptionally strong line on this issue, and like Fortas he played an unknown but vital role in the Commission’s investigation.

6 Reed recalls the time as 10:50. Beginning Saturday morning, shock and fatigue produced wild distortions in the impressions of many of the principals. A considerable number believe that the ten o’clock religious service was held at eleven, and for some all the days till Tuesday were to blur together. Agents’ shift reports and military after-action reports are useful here.

7 The President was not permitted to speak to the Governor, who lay all day in a convalescent’s semicoma. Instead, he talked to Nellie, who in reply to her husband’s groggy inquiries finally conceded to him that his suspicions were correct, that the President was dead.

8 Kennedy denies this. When the President’s interpretation was described to him, he expressed first amazement, then amusement.

9 In Greece a Gallup affiliate reported that by Saturday noon 99 percent of all Athenians knew of the slaying. When de Gaulle visited Athens, 25 percent weren’t even able to identify him.

10 It should be noted that the manner of the President’s death had permanently altered his countrymen’s concept of him. In 1960 he had been elected by 49.7 percent of the popular vote. Voters are constantly editing their memories, however. In June 1963 surveyors discovered that 59 percent claimed Kennedy had been their 1960 preference. After the assassination this figure leaped to 65 percent.

11 G. L. Engel, citing Freud and others, concluded that grief includes a phase “in which the sufferer attempts to deny the loss and to insulate himself against… reality.” Psychosomatic Medicine, XXXIII, No. 18, 1961.

12 Mrs. Kennedy had noted the dates, and as it later turned out, President Kennedy’s forecasts of October 1963 were correct to the month. He had anticipated a Tax Law in February, a Civil Rights Law in July. President Johnson signed the first on February 27, 1964; the second on July 2, 1964.

1 Technically, Lee Oswald had been charged with “Inv. Murder”—investigation for murder, a common catch-all. There were no entries on the form in the spaces provided for information about how the arrest was made, the location of the offense, the complainant, or witnesses. This is not odd. Policemen are not CPA’s. The arresting officers were M. N. McDonald, K. E. Lyons, and Paul Bentley. Under “other details” the essence of the report was scrawled: “This man shot and killed President John F. Kennedy and Police Officer J. D. Tippit. He also shot and wounded Governor John Connally.”

2 On September 23, 1964, this writer stood where Oswald had stood at the moment he was shot while a Dallas police inspector explained what had happened. The inspector concluded, “It was sheer luck.” He was asked, “Couldn’t there have been two sentries there?” He flashed, “That’s hindsight on your part.” Possibly, but under the circumstances doubling the guard would seem to have been a reasonable precaution.

3 Thomas J. Kelley, a Secret Service inspector who had been flown down from Washington, also saw “a man leaning over Oswald,” but Kelley thought he must be applying a stethoscope to the prisoner’s chest.

4 Note the repetition from the earlier crime. “They” were responsible for the shooting.

5 Minutes earlier Pat had concluded a brief WTOP-TV interview which, for millions in the national audience, became one of the weekend’s most memorable moments. He had opened by observing that at the end of Camus’ life Camus had decided the world was absurd, which, to a Christian, was unthinkable. Then he had mused of Kennedy, “We all of us know down here that politics is a tough game. And I don’t think there’s any point in being Irish if you don’t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought we had a little more time.” His voice drifted off. Almost inaudibly he added, “So did he.”

6 Every professional opinion surveyor agrees that only under exceptional circumstances are more than 80 percent ever aware of any event. For example, only 88 percent of Americans listened to any broadcast during FDR’s three-day funeral. Contrast this with the 99 percent of Athens—not even an American city—in late November 1963.

7 Though not as upset as those for whom Oswald’s death came to overshadow everything else. That evening Schlesinger received a long-distance call from one of the country’s most distinguished women novelists. She proposed the formation of a national committee to prove that Oswald had been framed. He acidly observed that he hadn’t heard from her on Friday, and that if she and others gave the impression that they were more concerned about Sunday’s murder than Friday’s it would be “an incalculable disservice to the American Left.” (Actually, he later learned, she had wept when she first heard of Kennedy’s assassination.)

9 A bullet came awhining.
Was it meant for him or me?
Away from me it snatched him,
And at my feet it stretched him,
As though a part of me.

10 “We Shall Overcome,” new words and music arranged by Zilphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger, copyright © 1960 and 1963 Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, New York. Used by permission.

1 “If it had happened in Podunk,” Newsweek asked, “would any of the schoolchildren there have cheered?”

2 The quotation is included here at Harriman’s suggestion. De Gaulle had promised to meet Kennedy in the capital the following February or March. The funeral became his Washington “visit”; he refused to follow through with Johnson. Harriman also believes that if Kennedy had lived France wouldn’t have recognized Red China, though this, he adds, is not a criticism of Johnson.

3 All funeral plans had specified that after the Arlington services Mrs. Kennedy would be escorted to her car by President Johnson, and some had assumed that he would also ride to the rotunda with her Monday morning. Several broadcasters reported this as fact, but there was no contact between the two on Monday.

4 Tuesday evening in the oval office Johnson told Sorensen, “That’s great. I wouldn’t change a word of it.” Immediately afterward Rusk and McNamara reviewed the speech in Mac Bundy’s office. Johnson entered with Jenkins and Abe Fortas in time to hear Bundy object that it sounded “too much like JFK,” and despite Sorensen’s protests changes were made. Riding to the Hill next day to deliver it, the President sat with him and Salinger. Pierre remarked, “That’s a hell of a speech, Mr. President.” Johnson replied, “It’s Sorensen’s.” Ted said, “No.” “Well, 90 percent,” said Johnson. “Fifty percent,” said Ted. The President ventured, “The best 50 percent,” and found his consensus; Sorensen answered, “I agree.”

5 From the song “The Gang That Sang ‘Heart of My Heart,’ ” words and music by Ben Ryan, copyright © 1926 Robbins Music Corporation, copyright © renewal 1954 Robbins Music Corporation, New York, New York. Used by permission.

1 In the February 1966 issue of Outdoor Life a mail-order firm advertised a scope-mounted cheap foreign rifle—“the Kennedy gun,” as it had become known to riflemen. Next to it was an advertisement for a Kennedy memorial stamp. To see how far mail-order houses would go, an enterprising reporter in Paterson, New Jersey, sent away to one and signed his check “L. H. Oswald.” He got the gun.

* This handwritten letter was forwarded to Nikita Khrushchev by McGeorge Bundy after clearance at the State Department by U. Alexis Johnson. No reply was received through channels.

* At President Johnson’s request, the author submitted his questions in writing; the President ’s answers were also in writing.