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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<title>art-06</title>
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<h1 id="title-index">Politics-Conspiracies-Project</h1>
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<h2>art-06</h2>
|
||||
<p>Volume : SIRS 1991 History, Article 02
|
||||
Subject: Keyword(s) : KENNEDY and ASSASSINATION
|
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Title : The Day John Kennedy Died
|
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Author : Bryan Woolley
|
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Source : Dallas Times Herald (Dallas, Texas)
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Publication Date : Nov. 20, 1983
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Page Number(s) : Sec. Sec. 2-3
|
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</p>
|
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<p>
|
||||
DALLAS TIMES HERALD
|
||||
(Dallas, Texas)
|
||||
Nov. 20, 1983, Special Section, pp. 2-3
|
||||
Reprinted with permission from the author.
|
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</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
THE DAY JOHN KENNEDY DIED
|
||||
<span class="LOC">Sun</span> cleared dawn's drizzle, but gloom clouded Dallas
|
||||
by Bryan Woolley
|
||||
Staff Writer
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The valet walked past the Secret Service guard and entered
|
||||
Suite 850 of Fort Worth's Texas Hotel. He knocked on the door of
|
||||
the master bedroom. It was 7:30 a.m. "Mr. President," he said,
|
||||
"it's raining out."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
President John F. Kennedy, coming out of sleep, replied,
|
||||
"That's too bad."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
While he was dressing, he heard the murmur of the crowd
|
||||
outside and went to the window. Below him, 5000 people were
|
||||
standing patiently in the soft drizzle, some wearing raincoats,
|
||||
some holding umbrellas, most simply ignoring the weather. They
|
||||
were office and factory workers. They had begun gathering before
|
||||
dawn to hear the speech the President would make in the parking
|
||||
lot where they stood. Mounted police officers wearing yellow
|
||||
slickers moved among them. "Gosh, look at the crowd!" the
|
||||
President said to his wife. "Just look! Isn't that terrific."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
In the lobby, he was joined by Vice President Lyndon
|
||||
Johnson, Gov. John Connally, Sen. Ralph Yarborough, several
|
||||
members of Congress and the president of the Fort Worth Chamber
|
||||
of Commerce. They crossed Eighth Street and plunged into the
|
||||
crowd, shaking hands, smiling. They mounted the truck that was to
|
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serve as the speaker's platform. Kennedy grabbed the microphone
|
||||
and shouted: "There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth!"
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p>
|
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The crowd cheered. Somebody yelled, "Where's Jackie?"
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p>
|
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Kennedy pointed toward his eighth-floor window. "Mrs.
|
||||
Kennedy is organizing herself," he replied. "It takes her a
|
||||
little longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when
|
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she does it."
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p>
|
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Fort Worth was the third stop on the President's five-city
|
||||
Texas tour. He had ridden through Houston and San Antonio like a
|
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triumphant emperor, and Fort Worth had stayed up past midnight to
|
||||
welcome the handsome 46-year-old President and his beautiful
|
||||
34-year-old wife, lining their route from Carswell Air Force base
|
||||
to the hotel.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
After an informal speech in the parking lot, he would go to
|
||||
the hotel, deliver a breakfast speech, fly from Carswell to Love
|
||||
Field, ride in a motorcade through Dallas, deliver a speech at a
|
||||
$100-a-plate luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart, fly to Austin for
|
||||
a banquet and a reception at the Governor's Mansion, and then go
|
||||
to the LBJ ranch for a weekend of rest.
|
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</p>
|
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<p>
|
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Back inside the Texas Hotel, Kennedy accepted the ceremonial
|
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cowboy hat from his hosts, but refused to wear it for
|
||||
photographers and TV cameramen. He would model it later, he said,
|
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at the White House. His breakfast speech was the standard
|
||||
fence-mending one-- about the greatness of Texas and Fort Worth
|
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and the Democratic Party--and it drew a thunderous ovation.
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p>
|
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The President and the first lady retired to Suite 850 to
|
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prepare for the flight to Dallas. Kennedy placed a call to former
|
||||
Vice President John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner in Uvalde, Texas,
|
||||
to wish him a happy 95th birthday, and an aide showed him a
|
||||
black-bordered full-page ad with a sardonic headline in The
|
||||
Dallas Morning News. "Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas," it read. In
|
||||
13 rhetorical questions, something called the "American
|
||||
Fact-Finding Committee" accused the administration of selling out
|
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the world to communism.
|
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</p>
|
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<p>
|
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"Oh, you know, we're heading into nut country today," the
|
||||
President said. Mrs. Kennedy later told author William Manchester
|
||||
that he paced the floor and then stopped in front of her. "You
|
||||
know, last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate
|
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a president," he said. "There was the rain and the night, and we
|
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were all getting jostled. Suppose a man had a pistol in a
|
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briefcase." He pointed a finger at the wall and pretended to fire
|
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two shots.
|
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</p>
|
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<p>
|
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Not many in the presidential party were looking forward to
|
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Dallas. Several Texans--some from Dallas--had warned the
|
||||
President not to include Dallas on his Texas tour, that an ugly
|
||||
incident was likely to occur there. But Kennedy insisted that the
|
||||
state's second-largest city be placed on the itinerary.
|
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</p>
|
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<p>
|
||||
So the preparations had been made. Dallas civic leaders had
|
||||
launched a public relations campaign to try to ensure a friendly
|
||||
turnout for the President.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Seven hundred law officers--city police officers and
|
||||
firefighters, sheriff's deputies, Texas Rangers and state highway
|
||||
patrol officers--had been assembled to keep order. About the time
|
||||
that John Kennedy was waking up, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry
|
||||
had gone on TV to warn that his officers would take "immediate
|
||||
action to block any improper conduct." If the police were
|
||||
inadequate, he said, even citizen's arrests were authorized.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Others were preparing, too, in the early morning. Waiters
|
||||
were setting the places for the Trade Mart luncheon. A warehouse
|
||||
worker named Lee Harvey Oswald sneaked a rifle and a telescopic
|
||||
sight into the Texas School Book Depository. Because of forecasts
|
||||
showing that the rain probably would be past Dallas by the time
|
||||
the presidential party arrived, a Kennedy aide told the Secret
|
||||
Service not to put the bubble-top on the big blue limousine in
|
||||
which the President and Mrs. Kennedy would ride.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Air Force One had barely left the runway at Carswell before
|
||||
it began its descent toward Love Field. The flight took only 13
|
||||
minutes. The big plane touched down at 11:38 a.m. Police armed
|
||||
with rifles stood along the roof of the terminal building. A
|
||||
large crowd waited beyond a chain-link fence. Many in the crowd
|
||||
were jumping, screaming, waving placards: "We Love Jack," "Hooray
|
||||
for JFK." Others were less friendly. They held placards, too:
|
||||
"Help Kennedy Stamp Out Democracy," "In 1964 Goldwater and
|
||||
Freedom," "Yankees Go Home And Take Your Equals With You." They
|
||||
booed and hissed when the President and first lady emerged from
|
||||
the plane, smiled, waved and descended the stairs of Air Force
|
||||
One.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
For the fourth time in 24 hours, Lyndon and Lady Bird
|
||||
Johnson were waiting to welcome the Kennedys to a Texas city. The
|
||||
presidential couple was introduced to the 12-man official
|
||||
welcoming committee. Mrs. Earle Cabell, wife of the Dallas mayor,
|
||||
presented Mrs. Kennedy with a bouquet of red roses. Then Kennedy
|
||||
broke from the official cluster and moved along the chain-link
|
||||
fence, smiling, shaking hands; letting people touch him.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At 11:55, two motorcycle police officers led the motorcade
|
||||
out of Love Field and turned left on <span class="LOC">Mockingbird</span> Lane. Police
|
||||
Chief Curry drove the lead car. With him rode Dallas County
|
||||
Sheriff Bill Decker and two Secret Service agents. Then came
|
||||
three more motorcycles. Then the blue limousine with two Secret
|
||||
Service agents in the front, John and Nellie Connally in the jump
|
||||
seats and the Kennedys in the back seat. Two motorcycles flanked
|
||||
the car on each side. Next was another convertible, full of
|
||||
Kennedy aides and Secret Service agents, and four more agents
|
||||
standing on its running boards.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Then came the vice presidential convertible, carrying two
|
||||
Secret Service agents, the Johnsons and Yarborough. A Texas
|
||||
highway patrol officer and four Secret Service agents rode in the
|
||||
next car. A press pool car, a press bus, convertibles bearing
|
||||
photographers, and cars carrying lesser dignitaries completed the
|
||||
procession.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The motorcade would move through a sizable portion of
|
||||
Dallas--along <span class="LOC">Mockingbird</span> to Lemmon Avenue, right on Lemmon to
|
||||
Turtle Creek Boulevard, along Turtle Creek and Cedar Springs Road
|
||||
to Harwood Street, down Harwood to Main Street, where, at City
|
||||
Hall, it would turn right and move westward along Main through
|
||||
the downtown business district.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At the west end of downtown, it would turn right onto
|
||||
Houston Street and then immediately left onto Elm Street and move
|
||||
through the Triple Underpass. A few yards beyond the underpass,
|
||||
it would turn right again onto Stemmons Expressway and move to
|
||||
the Trade Mart at the intersection of Stemmons and Harry Hines
|
||||
Boulevard. After the President's speech, it would proceed out
|
||||
Harry Hines to <span class="LOC">Mockingbird</span>, turn right, and return to Love Field.
|
||||
The sidewalk crowds were sparse at first. A few people in
|
||||
the factories and offices along <span class="LOC">Mockingbird</span> came out to have a
|
||||
look. The sun was bright now, and Mrs. Kennedy was regretting
|
||||
that she was wearing the pink wool suit. She had expected woolen
|
||||
weather. It was, after all, late November. She put on sunglasses,
|
||||
but her husband told her to take them off. The people wanted to
|
||||
see her, he said.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At the corner of Lemmon and Lomo Alto, a group of children
|
||||
held a long banner reading, "Please Stop and Shake Our Hands."
|
||||
Kennedy ordered his driver to stop. He got out and shook their
|
||||
hands. Farther along, he ordered another stop and got out to
|
||||
greet a group of nuns. At Lee Park on Turtle Creek, the crowd
|
||||
began to thicken. And at Harwood and Live Oak, still two blocks
|
||||
from the turn onto Main, the people in the motorcade heard the
|
||||
downtown crowd murmuring like a distant tide.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
When the caravan made the turn, it faced pandemonium. People
|
||||
were standing 10 and 12 deep on the sidewalks. Red, white and
|
||||
blue bunting fluttered from the buildings. People leaned out
|
||||
windows, waving and screaming. There were no picket signs, no
|
||||
sour faces. The feared Dallas crowd was friendly--even adoring.
|
||||
The nuts had stayed home. It was 12:21 p.m.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At the Trade Mart, the luncheon guests were showing their
|
||||
tickets to the door guards and filing to their seats. The huge
|
||||
building was surrounded by Dallas and Texas police, standing at
|
||||
parade rest, holding riot sticks, glaring at a handful of
|
||||
protesters. Inside the atrium hall, parakeets flew freely from
|
||||
tree to tree. A fountain splashed. An organist was practicing
|
||||
"Hail to the Chief." Dozens of yellow roses adorned the head
|
||||
table. The presidential seal had been mounted on the rostrum.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
As the motorcade neared Houston Street, the size of the
|
||||
crowd diminished, but the cheers and applause were still hearty.
|
||||
Nellie Connally turned in her seat and said, "You can't say
|
||||
Dallas doesn't love you, Mr. President."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Kennedy replied, "No, you can't."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Workers from the Texas School Book Depository, the Dal-Tex
|
||||
Building and the Dallas County buildings lined the sidewalks at
|
||||
Houston and Elm as the head of the motorcade turned toward the
|
||||
Triple Underpass. Others stood on the grass of Dealey Plaza. Many
|
||||
had brought their children to see the President. Several
|
||||
spectators noticed a man standing very still in a sixth-floor
|
||||
corner window of the depository. One man saw the rifle he was
|
||||
holding and assumed he was a Secret Service agent.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
As the blue limousine made the sharp left turn from Houston
|
||||
onto Elm, the Hertz rental car time-and-temperature sign on the
|
||||
roof of the depository red 12:30. A Secret Service man in the
|
||||
motorcade radioed the Trade Mart: "Halfback to Base. Five minutes
|
||||
to destination." He wrote in his shift log: "12:35 p.m. President
|
||||
Kennedy arrived at Trade Mart."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Some thought the noises were firecrackers. Others thought a
|
||||
motorcycle was backfiring. Some recognized them as rifle shots.
|
||||
Pigeons flew from the roof of the depository. Kennedy lurched
|
||||
forward and grabbed his neck.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Sen. Yarborough, in the vice president's car, cried, "My
|
||||
God! They've shot the President!" Secret Service agent Rufus
|
||||
Youngblood climbed from the front seat to the back, threw Johnson
|
||||
to the floorboard and covered him with his own body.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
In the blue limousine, Gov. Connally had been hit, too. He
|
||||
pitched forward and fell toward his wife. "No, no, no, no, no!"
|
||||
he screamed.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Then another shot. The President's head exploded. Blood
|
||||
spattered the occupants of the blue car. The first lady, in
|
||||
shock, tried to climb out over the trunk. A Secret Service agent
|
||||
pushed her back. The car slowed and then lurched out of the
|
||||
motorcade line and sped past the Triple Underpass, with Chief
|
||||
Curry's car and the Secret Service car in pursuit.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
UPI White House correspondent Merriman Smith was sitting in
|
||||
the middle of the front seat of the press pool car. He grabbed
|
||||
the mobile phone. He called the wire service's Dallas bureau and
|
||||
dictated the first bulletin: "Three shots were fired at President
|
||||
Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The cheers of greeting in Dealey Plaza rose to screams of
|
||||
horror and fear. "They killed him! They killed him! They killed
|
||||
him!" Parents grabbed children and ran. Men and women lay
|
||||
prostrate on the grass and sidewalks, as if dead. The motorcade
|
||||
was disintegrating, the cars veering hither and yon, trying to
|
||||
get through the crowd and follow the limousine. Helmeted police
|
||||
officers leaped from motorcycles, pulled guns, looked wildly
|
||||
about. The Hertz clock still read 12:30.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The staff at Parkland Memorial Hospital had only five
|
||||
minutes notice of the massive emergency rushing upon them, and
|
||||
many thought the message was a joke. When the blue car arrived,
|
||||
they weren't ready. No one was waiting at the emergency entrance.
|
||||
A Secret Service agent dashed inside to order stretchers.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Connally--whose wounds were serious but not fatal--was
|
||||
wheeled to Trauma Room No. 2, Kennedy to Trauma Room No. 1. Teams
|
||||
of surgeons and nurses went to work. The Secret Service regrouped
|
||||
around the Johnsons and hustled them to seclusion in another part
|
||||
of the hospital. Reporters dashed around the halls and offices,
|
||||
searching for phones. Parkland patients heard the news and rushed
|
||||
to have a look.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"Gentlemen," a weeping Yarborough told reporters, "this has
|
||||
been a deed of horror. Excalibur has sunk beneath the waves."
|
||||
Mrs. Kennedy insisted on being in the trauma room with her
|
||||
husband. A nurse protested, but she was admitted.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Outside, more of the motorcade vehicles were arriving. Their
|
||||
passengers tumbled out and stared in horror at the blood-soaked
|
||||
convertible.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At 1 p.m., Dr. Kemp Clark, the senior physician working on
|
||||
the President, pronounced him dead. A priest administered last
|
||||
rites. At 1:13, the news was carried to the vice president. At
|
||||
1:26, the Secret Service, fearing the assassination was part of a
|
||||
massive plot against the government, spirited the Johnsons away
|
||||
to unmarked cars and sped to Love Field. They boarded Air Force
|
||||
One at 1:33, while Kennedy press aide Malcolm Kilduff was
|
||||
announcing the President's death to the press.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Police were still combing the Dealey Plaza area for
|
||||
Kennedy's murderer. Indeed, only a minute after the fatal shot
|
||||
was fired, Marrion Baker, a Dallas motorcycle officer, had
|
||||
pointed his pistol at Lee Harvey Oswald. Baker had been riding by
|
||||
the Texas School Book Depository when the killing occurred, and
|
||||
he jumped off his motorcycle and dashed inside with Roy Truly,
|
||||
the building's superintendent. They encountered Oswald in the
|
||||
second-floor lunchroom. Baker drew his gun. "Do you know this
|
||||
man?" he asked Truly. "Does he work here?" Truly said he did, and
|
||||
Baker let him go. A minute later, Oswald walked out the front
|
||||
door of the depository, where he encountered NBC reporter Robert
|
||||
MacNeil, who was looking for a phone. Oswald told him he could
|
||||
find one inside. Five minutes later, police sealed off the door.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At 12:44, Oswald boarded a bus at Elm and Murphy streets,
|
||||
seven blocks from the depository, but got off a few minutes later
|
||||
when the bus was caught in a traffic snarl. By 12:45, Dallas
|
||||
police had questioned the witness who had seen the man standing
|
||||
in the depository window with the rifle and had broadcast his
|
||||
description from a radio car in front of the depository. Two
|
||||
minutes later, Oswald caught a taxicab at the Greyhound bus
|
||||
station and rode to <span class="GPE">Beckley</span> and Neely, a corner near his Oak
|
||||
Cliff rooming house. He went to his room, got a pistol and left
|
||||
again.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Meanwhile, Roy Truly had drawn up a list of depository
|
||||
employees and told police that Oswald was missing. At 1:12,
|
||||
sheriff's deputies found three empty cartridge cases near the
|
||||
sixth floor corner window. Ten minutes later, they would find the
|
||||
rifle, hidden between boxes of textbooks in the room.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At 1:15, Dallas officer J.D. Tippett was cruising by a drug
|
||||
store at 10th and Patton, less than a mile from the Oak Cliff
|
||||
rooming house, and spotted Oswald walking along the sidewalk.
|
||||
Tippett, for reasons never determined, pulled over and stopped
|
||||
him. Oswald jerked his pistol from under his jacket, shot four
|
||||
times and ran away. Nine people saw the shooting. A pickup truck
|
||||
driver took the dead officer's radio mike and said, "Hello,
|
||||
police operator. We've had a shooting out here."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
On Air Force One, stewards were removing some of the seats
|
||||
in the tail compartment to make room for President Kennedy's
|
||||
coffin. In the plane's stateroom, Lyndon Johnson was watching
|
||||
Walter Cronkite on television and was asking aides and
|
||||
congressmen whether he should be sworn in immediately or wait
|
||||
until they had returned to Washington. Some thought he should
|
||||
wait. Others thought it might be dangerous for the country to be
|
||||
without a President while he was en route. Johnson decided he
|
||||
would assume the office in Dallas. "Now," he said, "What about
|
||||
the oath?"
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The aides and congressmen were embarrassed. They could
|
||||
remember neither the words nor where to find them. They couldn't
|
||||
remember who, besides Supreme Court justices, was authorized to
|
||||
administer the oath. Everyone was in such shock and confusion
|
||||
that phone calls were made to several Justice Department
|
||||
officials in Washington and Dallas before someone remembered that
|
||||
a President may be sworn in by any judge and that the oath is in
|
||||
the Constitution. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach
|
||||
dictated it by phone from Washington, and U.S. District Judge
|
||||
Sarah Hughes, an old friend of Johnson who had been appointed to
|
||||
the <span class="PERSON">North</span> Texas federal bench by Kennedy, was dispatched to Love
|
||||
Field.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At 1:40, Lee Oswald ran into the Texas Theater on West
|
||||
Jefferson--eight blocks from officer Tippit's body--without
|
||||
buying a ticket. The box office attendant called the police.
|
||||
Cruisers began converging on the theater. At 1:50, the house
|
||||
lights went up, and officers moved up and down the aisles, looked
|
||||
into the faces of the few patrons. Officer M.N. <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span> stopped
|
||||
at the 10th row and said to a man sitting alone: "Get up."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"Well, it's all over now," Oswald said, according to
|
||||
witnesses and he stood up. But when <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span> moved closer, Oswald
|
||||
struck him in the face and went for his pistol. <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span> struck
|
||||
back and grabbed for the gun. Oswald pulled the trigger, but the
|
||||
web of skin between McDonald's thumb and forefinger was caught
|
||||
under the hammer. The gun didn't fire. Other officers joined the
|
||||
fight. They subdued Oswald and hustled him out of the theater. "I
|
||||
protest this police brutality!" Oswald shouted.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Twenty-five minutes later, Capt. Will Fritz, chief of
|
||||
homicide, returned to the Police Department and ordered that the
|
||||
missing Texas School Book Depository worker named Lee Harvey
|
||||
Oswald be arrested as a suspect in the presidential killing. An
|
||||
officer pointed to a small young man with a bruised eye who was
|
||||
sitting in a chair. "There he sits," he said.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
At Parkland, a Secret Service agent called Oneal's Funeral
|
||||
Home in Oak Lawn to order a casket. The funeral director, Vernon
|
||||
Oneal, arrived with it at 1:30. After the President's body had
|
||||
been placed in the casket, Mrs. Kennedy entered Trauma Room No.
|
||||
1, took off her wedding ring and placed it on her husband's
|
||||
finger. The casket was closed and placed on a funeral home cart
|
||||
to be moved to the hearse.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County medical examiner,
|
||||
protested. Kennedy was a homicide victim, he said, and the body
|
||||
couldn't be released legally until after an autopsy had been
|
||||
performed. A quarrel developed between him and the Secret
|
||||
Service. Kennedy aides and the Secret Service agents forced the
|
||||
casket through the crowd that had gathered at the hospital door
|
||||
and loaded it into the hearse. Mrs. Kennedy rode in the back with
|
||||
it. At 2:20, the dead President was carried up the stairs into
|
||||
Air Force One. Mrs. Kennedy retired to the bedroom.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Judge Hughes boarded the plane at 2:35 and was handed a
|
||||
small white card with the oath scrawled on it. Capt. Cecil
|
||||
Stoughton, an Army Signal Corps photographer, tried to arrange
|
||||
the crowd in the cramped stateroom so that he could take a
|
||||
picture of the ceremony. "We'll wait for Mrs. Kennedy," Johnson
|
||||
said. "I want her here."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Mrs. Kennedy came out of the bedroom still wearing the
|
||||
blood-soaked pink suit. Johnson pressed her hand and said, "This
|
||||
is the saddest moment of my life." The photographer placed her on
|
||||
Johnson's left, Lady Bird on his right. Judge Hughes, the first
|
||||
woman to administer the presidential oath, was shaking.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"What about a Bible?" asked one of the witnesses. Someone
|
||||
remembered that President Kennedy had kept a Bible in the bedroom
|
||||
and went to get it.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
"I do solemnly swear..."
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The oath lasted 28 seconds. At 2:38 p.m., Lyndon B. Johnson
|
||||
became the 36th President of the United States. The big jet's
|
||||
engines already were screaming. "Now, let's get airborne," he
|
||||
said.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
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