The Day Kennedy Was Shot

by Jim Bishop

  No one asked the prisoner if he was willing to participate. He had been told by Will Fritz that he need not respond to questions from the press nor pose for pictures. Whether Fritz was overruled by Curry or agreed to the press conference, the fact was that Lee Harvey Oswald had been promised to the press. He would be delivered when the newspapermen were ready. If the thought had occurred to the conferees, they might have guessed that any restrictions placed upon the press would be violated, once Oswald got into that room. It bordered on the ridiculous to ask the press to stand mutely and look at the prisoner. Conversely the prisoner could be expected to use the press conference as a propaganda platform for himself and his political notions. It is possible that Oswald looked forward to this confrontation with satisfaction. It was the keyhole through which he could squeeze from jail to the outside world.

  The press scattered like the pigeons on the roof of the School Book Depository and, for a time, it became possible to walk through the third-floor corridor. The elevator door near the press room opened and three men stepped off. The flankers wore big red press badges on their lapels: “President’s Visit to Dallas—PRESS.” The man between them had none. He crouched low, pencil applied to pad, writing industriously as they strode past the policeman who was asking for credentials. They were not stopped, and Jack Ruby, the harmless aficionado of law and order, was once again on the edge of excitement. In the corridor he was not challenged. Now and then he heard a friendly call: “Hey, Jack. What are you doing here?” The rumpled figure smiled apologetically and pointed to the notes and said he was translating for the press of Israel.

  No one believed it. He inspired no rancor. To the police he was Jack Ruby, the suppliant Jew who bought police goodwill with free passes, free drinks, good sandwiches, and hot coffee. Sometimes, when a policeman sat in the charcoal darkness of the musty nightclub, Ruby would try to set him up with one of the strippers. Like the sandwiches, it was a service.

  The friends in the living room began to melt off. No one suggested that they leave. The clock on the mantle had two gold hands which began the slow climb toward twelve. The people said it was late. If they thought that the President and Mrs. Johnson might sit among them and discuss the grave events, they misjudged their hosts. Mrs. Johnson, in nightgown and dressing robe, slid into the big bed in the master bedroom on the second floor. With the blankets over the small body, Liz Carpenter could see the intermittent spasms of shivering. They hit and went away. They hit again.

  Mrs. Carpenter had hurried home to get some nightclothes in case she was asked to stay at The Elms. The new First Lady didn’t think it was necessary. She was “freezing,” but she would be all right. She wished that Lyndon would get some rest, but she knew he wouldn’t. Across the room, the television set repeated the assassination over and over, as though, by infantile logic, it might become more understandable or come out differently. Every few minutes the bright, good voice of John F. Kennedy could be heard, telling the crowd that no one cared how he and Lyndon dressed but that, when Mrs. Kennedy arrived late, she looked better than “we do.” Mrs. Johnson pulled the quilted blanket over her head. Liz Carpenter departed.

  The President stepped away from the dining room table, and his young friends came to their feet. There was a sharp thud outside the window. Mr. Johnson stopped. “What was that?” he said. From the doorway, Rufus Youngblood said: “They’re out there changing the house lines over to the White House number. I expect they’re having a little trouble.” The tall Texan shook his head. He could not believe that he was living in an era when someone would have to explain a noise in the dark. He had not time to think that he was the only President ever to have witnessed an assassination, and, no matter how high his courageous resolves, an unexpected noise from any quarter would trigger tension the rest of his life.

  There were other factors. In the United States, a Vice-President lives in the silent womb of history. He is not expected to hear or feel or understand—only to grow. A sudden propulsion from darkness to light, from sufferance to power, from ridicule to majesty is too much for the intellect and the neurological aspects of a man. “We really have a big job to do now,” Johnson said. He started upstairs and waved Valenti and Moyers and Carter to follow. The soft protests that they had no clothes, not a toothbrush between them, did not impress the President. His response to all such excuses remained the same: “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

  They were led into the bedroom, hearing the voice on television. The President began to remove his jacket and tie. He hung them on a wooden clothes tree in the center of the room. The three men noticed a small mass huddled on the right side of the big bed. They began to retreat. Mr. Johnson called them back. “We won’t bother Mrs. Johnson,” he said. His tone was pleading. “There is so much to do, so much to talk about. Sit with me for awhile.”

  The trousers were draped over the valet. The big form disappeared into the bathroom. The waiting men were apprehensive. They watched the carousel of catastrophe on the television set. The President came out in loose striped pajamas and slippers. “Let’s get one thing settled,” he said. At the door he pointed. “Bill,” he said to Moyers, “you may use the bedroom on the third floor. Cliff, there’s a second bedroom down this hall. It’s Lynda’s room.” This brought a smile to Moyers and Valenti, who envisioned this huge Texan reclining under a frilly canopy, with pandas and dolls on the counterpane and Carter’s ham-sized feet hanging in midair at the foot of the bed. “Jack, you take the bedroom next to mine.”

  Having secured the night arrangements, the President slipped into the left side of the bed. Adjacent to it was a night table with a lamp and a telephone. Valenti found a chair and placed it near the phone. He sat, continuing his notes as the others talked. Bill Moyers stood. Cliff Carter was on the edge of the right side of the bed at the foot. The President placed a pillow halfway up the head of the bed and composed himself with both hands clasped behind his head. Sometimes he listened to the television; at others he exchanged ideas and refined them. He asked Jack to please make a note to remind him tomorrow to get in touch with the Governors of the states, perhaps suggest a conference in Washington.

  The address to the Congress would be important. Someone suggested that the emergency had such anarchistic possibilities that perhaps Mr. Johnson should make the talk before the Kennedy funeral. This, he thought, could be interpreted as unseemly haste, even panic. However, it was another note for Valenti’s pages to be cleared with congressional leaders in the morning. He would accede to their decision on this.

  None of the Johnson group was sure when the funeral would be held, even though Johnson had phoned his condolences to Sargent Shriver. Moyers had been Johnson’s liaison all evening between the Executive Office Building and the White House, and it was Moyers’ impression that the services would be held on Monday. If that were so, the new President could not address both houses of Congress until Tuesday or Wednesday, a long time to keep the nation waiting. Moyers thought that a press conference tomorrow, or a presidential statement, might cover the intervening days and build confidence among the people.

  The bedclothes on the right side were turned back and Mrs. Johnson, still huddled in robes, stood with a pillow in her hand and murmured: “Good night, all” and left the room. Before she did, the President leaned across the bed for his nightly kiss, murmuring: “God bless you, honey” and returned to the conversation. “The important things now,” he said, emphasizing with a finger hitting an opposite palm, “are a Cabinet meeting, a Security Council meeting, a White House staff meeting—maybe we ought to call those boys together at nine tomorrow morning, before the Cabinet meeting—and the address to both Houses.”

  “. . . and now,” the voice of television said, “we bring you some biographical film clips of the new President of the United States—Lyndon Baines Johnson.” Conversation stopped. The men studied the film material, dissected the commentary. The man watching from the pillow had a huge face, lined vertically so that the features ten
ded to melt toward the chin. A stranger, unconscious of the true state of affairs, might assess the scene as a middle-aged man getting bad news from a consultation of young doctors.

  On screen, they saw a skinny Texan with a big grin mounting the steps of the Capitol, a Congressman with a message. They saw him campaign at home for a seat in the United States Senate and go down to defeat by a fistful of votes; he made speeches in the Senate well; he posed with Franklin D. Roosevelt, his idol; he was with bald Sam Rayburn, the teacher; he worked in an office with his dark and modest young wife beside him; he took a dangerous step for a Texan by espousing civil rights legislation; he became a majority leader, the youngest in history; a myocardial infarction brought him down, and he was shown in Bethesda Naval Hospital; the mean and vicious fight between Kennedy and Johnson for the Democratic Party nomination; the need of each for the other on a winning election ticket.

  All of it evoked memories. The man on the pillow was silent. The cameras were now at Hyannis Port, in Massachusetts, a hedge and some homes on the edge of a surly sea. Had the President’s father been told? No one knew. His mother knew. She said she would attend early Mass tomorrow. The camera switched to that cold day in January when the young man announced, at his inauguration, that the torch had been passed to a new generation. With confidence, he prepared to lead mankind to the stars.

  The recollections had run out. The conversations were desultory. At this hour no one could think of anyone to call on a telephone. The Attorney General was relieved when word reached the seventeenth floor that the autopsy was over. He asked about the medical findings but was told that they were tentative, mostly involving a big head wound and a shot in the back of the neck. The White House already had the news.

  Shriver reminded Robert Kennedy that the family had to go to Gawler’s and select a casket and bring an embalmer to Bethesda. This was an integral step which had been overlooked. Mrs. Kennedy saw her brother-in-law approach, and she must have known that another decision would have to be made. He began by reminding her that the Secret Service had damaged a handle on the Oneal casket. She said that she had no intention of using that casket anyway. Mrs. Kennedy did not want to be reminded of Dallas. She would not use that casket; she could still see herself running after it, holding her fingertips on the top, as official Dallas shouted that the President’s body would have to remain for an autopsy. The terror had been lodged within her from the sound of the first shot, and nothing since had lessened the pain.

  Kennedy told her that Shriver had asked about funeral directors, and three names had been submitted as establishments of good taste. Sarge had selected Gawler’s, and, if she agreed, someone would have to go there and select a casket. Did she have any ideas? She did not. Did she want any special person to select it? Before she could answer, the Attorney General said: “Kenny and Larry and Dave were very close to him. Why not send them?” Mrs. Kennedy agreed.

  The three men were ready to leave. All they asked was some guidance on what kind of casket the family would like. And how about that embalmer? They were told not to worry; the embalmer should be waiting. He had been on notice for a couple of hours. They asked Clint Hill to have a car ready at the front entrance and have the driver find out how to get to Gawler’s.

  11 p.m.

  Time always saps the excitement of the game in the mind of the winner. It was one hour past Lee Harvey Oswald’s bedtime. In his opinion, he had won whatever contest the law had projected in this glassy office. Wit had been honed with sparks against wit for nine hours. They had sent their best—Fritz and Hosty and Kelley and Clements, postal inspectors and FBI and Secret Service and Dallas detectives. Their best had failed to crack his contention that he was guilty of nothing more than carrying a revolver into a motion picture theater. They had battered at the wall of his will and hurt their hands.

  Most of the time the office had been filled with the authority of the law, standing, sitting, smiling, frowning at him. Lee Harvey Oswald had taken them on one at a time and all together. He had been smart enough to concede that he deserved the punch in the eye for resisting policemen; he had been bright enough to protest that, in spite of all their protestations, he had no lawyer, no trained opinion to counsel him, nothing but his own magnificent intellect to keep the hounds baying at the foot of the tree.

  Long since the questions had become repetitious and Mr. Oswald tired of foiling them. Detective Adamcik walked into the little office and studied the skinny body, the thinning hair of indeterminate color, the lean face melting toward the long neck, and he said: “Where were you at the time this assassination occurred?” The prisoner did not deign to look up at the new opponent. He stared straight ahead, moving his wrists in concert with the handcuffs. Adamcik waited for a response. All he heard was the clamor of the press in the hall. The detective sat to guard the prisoner.

  Will Fritz, having arranged a press conference without the consent of the prisoner, returned to ask a question. The captain had rank; he deserved a response. “You took notes,” Oswald said insolently. “Just read them for yourself if you want to refresh your memory. . . . Now you know as much about it as I do.” The captain could accept an affront. He blinked with big hyperthyroid eyes and proceeded with the details of the show to be staged in the assembly room. Neither the question nor the answer were, at this hour, of importance. He would like to have cracked this young man, but it was not a requirement to the prosecution of the case.

  If the situation could be related to a card game, Fritz had the winning hand. He realized that nothing his adversary had could trump the cards held by the police. If Fritz felt disappointment, it was in the cautious play of Oswald. The game would close with the prisoner holding onto a few chips, and Fritz would like to have seen them all on the table as stakes. Oswald would have enough in reserve to play again tomorrow, and maybe another day. He might be turned over to Sheriff Decker with sufficient resources to continue the game in court.

  The questions became fewer. The hour was late; Homicide and Robbery had been on duty since 8 A.M. It was becoming difficult for the men to concentrate. Some of the conversation between detectives was punctuated by “I don’t know . . .” Men asked each other; “Did you take that statement?” and heard “Could be” or “I forget.” Most of them had lost a concept of time. In penning reports, they had trouble trying to recall if something happened at 2 P.M. or 4 P.M. There was the additional difficulty of trying to recall the names of other detectives who may have been present. They lost patience with each other, the final fatigue.

  Lee Harvey Oswald shook his head slowly, as though he was dealing with children. “How could I afford to order a rifle on my salary of a dollar and a quarter an hour,” he shouted, “when I can’t hardly feed myself on what I make?” He bent forward and his elbows perched on his knees. A detective asked the prisoner to explain the difference between a communist who is a Lenin-Marxist and one who is a pure Marxist. “It’s a long story,” he said sullenly, “and if you don’t know, it will take too long to tell.”

  It was late for a phone call, but the ring at 1316 Timberlake in Richardson was monotonously insistent. Gregory Lee Olds decided that it was easier to succumb to the demand than to count the rings. The man on the other end of the wire was a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He asked if Mr. Olds knew whether the civil rights of Oswald had been protected. Olds said he knew nothing about the case. He was, as a businessman, editor of a Richardson weekly newspaper; as a militant citizen he was president of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union.

  Well, the caller said, the president of the Austin affiliate had phoned long distance. He said that the ACLU should be concerned about the prisoner. In Austin there had been some television pictures of Oswald in a hallway somewhere, in a crowd of intense faces, holding his handcuffs up and shouting hoarsely that he wanted a lawyer and had not been given the opportunity to get one. He knew his rights, he said, but he wasn’t getting them. Olds, who was ready to retire for the night, said that he would
check into the matter at once. He admitted that he knew no more than that the President had been shot and a policeman killed. Some young fellow from Irving had been arrested.

  Olds was a patient man. He was also persistent. He could be deflected but not stopped. He phoned the Dallas Police Department and asked to speak to the chief of police. The chief was busy. He would speak to a deputy. No one knew where they were. Would he want to speak to a detective? No, he would not. Mr. Olds said he was president of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union and he would speak to the man in charge of the assassination case and no one else. He was given one or two men who informed him politely: “Captain Fritz isn’t available, but you can tell me . . .” Gregory Olds slammed his teeth tight and said that he would wait.

  Will Fritz got on the phone. He was asked if he was in charge of the Kennedy case, and he said yes. Olds explained his position and said that the Civil Liberties Union was anxious to see that Oswald had whatever legal representation he desired. The captain was a figure of bland unction. The question had come up, he said, and the police department had been at pains to detail Oswald’s rights, but he had declined assistance. Fritz himself had given Oswald the right to phone counsel of his choosing, had ordered the jailers not to hinder the prisoner, and, in fact, Oswald had made a couple of phone calls. The best that the captain could tell Mr. Olds was that Lee Harvey Oswald had not made any requests to him.

  Olds hung up. He knew that there are prisoners in every city who refuse the services of an attorney on the assumption that one is not needed. The ACLU had considerable experience in this field; some defendants decided to represent themselves in court; a few, tragically, equated innocence with acquittal. These often paid in prison. The easy way for Olds would have been to retire, safe in the knowledge that he had the word of the Dallas Police Department that all the legal safeguards had been offered to Oswald and he had spurned them.