End of Days

by James L. Swanson

  ON SUNDAY, November 24, at 12:34 P.M. (EST), Jackie Kennedy and her brother-in-law Robert entered the East Room and approached the closed, flag-draped coffin. At her request, the honor guard removed the American flag, and the casket was opened. For the last time, she looked upon her husband’s face. At 12:37 P.M., she placed two handwritten farewell letters in the coffin. Then it was sealed and draped again with the national colors.

  The president’s coffin at the East Front of the United States Capitol.

  (courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

  Military pallbearers in immaculate dress uniforms lifted the casket and carried the late president through the White House and outside to a waiting artillery caisson drawn by six gray horses. The soldiers secured the coffin with leather straps. Then, at 1:08 P.M., the cortege left the White House for memorial ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol. Military musicians, the usual crisp rat-tat-tat sound of their drums muffled by shrouds of black cloth wrapped around them, beat the mournful sound of the funeral cadence.

  Formations of troops marched behind the caisson. And tens of thousands of people lined the route along Pennsylvania Avenue. It was just like Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession to the Capitol on April 19, 1865.

  When the procession arrived at the East Front, the honor guard carried President Kennedy up the steps and past the very spot where, on January 20, 1961, he had taken the oath of office. They carried him into the rotunda and laid his coffin under the Great Dome, upon the very spot where Abraham Lincoln’s coffin had once rested. At 2:02 P.M., the congressional memorial service began.

  John Kennedy had begun his political career at this place, first as a congressman, then a senator. One of the speakers was Senator Mike Mansfield, one of the lions of the Senate. His eulogy, a tribute to both John and Jackie Kennedy, stunned listeners. Mansfield recalled the image of Jackie, at Parkland Hospital, removing her wedding ring and placing it in her husband’s hands:

  There was a sound of laughter; in a moment, it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

  There was a wit in a man neither young nor old, but a wit full of an old man’s wisdom and of a child’s wisdom, and then, in a moment it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

  There was a man marked with the scars of his love of country, a body active with the surge of a life far, far from spent and, in a moment, it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

  There was a father with a little boy, a little girl and a joy of each in the other. In a moment it was no more, and so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

  There was a husband who asked much and gave much, and out of the giving and the asking wove with a woman what could not be broken in life, and in a moment it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands, and kissed him and closed the lid of a coffin.

  Jackie was awed. Of all the words of tribute spoken and written about President Kennedy, she loved none more. She wanted a copy of the text. Before she could speak, Mansfield handed her his manuscript.

  Jacqueline Kennedy and her children descend the steps of the East Front of the Capitol.

  (courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

  “How,” Jackie asked him, “did you know?”

  At the conclusion of the ceremony, Jackie and her daughter, Caroline, kneeled by the coffin to say good-bye.

  THE SERVICE at the Capitol came to an end. Now the American people would have their turn to pay homage to the fallen president. The bronze doors of the East Front were thrown open to all comers who wanted to view the coffin. Tens of thousands of people were already in line. By 8:00 P.M., two hundred thousand stood in a line that stretched all the way down East Capitol Street and, twelve blocks away, past Lincoln Park, where a bronze sculpture of the Great Emancipator—Abraham Lincoln—beckoned a freed slave to rise.

  Beyond the park, the line seemed limitless. That night at 9:04 P.M., Jackie and Robert Kennedy made a surprise return visit to the rotunda. She approached the catafalque and then, in full view of everyone in the rotunda, dropped to her knees. After two minutes, she rose and left the Capitol. She did not want to get into the car waiting at the base of the East Front.

  “No, no, I just want to walk,” she said.

  Then she and her brother-in-law walked outside, among the crowd, to the north side of the Capitol, and then west along Constitution Avenue for a while, almost to the foot of Capitol Hill, before they got in their car and returned to the White House.

  In the darkness, almost no one recognized her. People did not notice her because they found it so improbable that she would walk in public among them. After a few people realized it was her, Jackie walked to the street, got into her car, and returned to the White House.

  IN A television interview on the evening of November 24, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, member of the Kennedy administration and future United States senator, reflected on the meaning of the last three days: “The French author Camus, where he came out at the end of his life, was that the world is absurd. A Christian shouldn’t think that, but the—the utter senselessness—the meaninglessness—it—you know, we all of us down here know that politics is a tough game, and I don’t think there is any point in being Irish if you don’t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought he had a little more time. So did he.”

  BY TWO A.M. on Monday, November 25, the line to get into the Capitol was three miles long, and by nine A.M., 250,000 people had filed past the coffin. There was no more time to admit everyone else still standing in the long line. People who had waited for hours were turned away.

  The viewing could not continue because now it was time for the president’s funeral. Jacqueline Kennedy could have waited at the White House while her husband’s coffin was removed from the Capitol and brought to the mansion. But instead she went to get him. Since 12:30 P.M. (CST) on Friday, November 22, she had accompanied her husband wherever he went: on the high-speed race from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital, on the slow ride with the coffin from Parkland to Love Field, aboard Air Force One for the somber flight home to Washington, in the hearse motorcade to Bethesda Naval Hospital, from there the predawn parade home to the East Room of the White House, in the Pennsylvania Avenue procession to the U.S. Capitol, and now for President Kennedy’s parting from the Congress he loved.

  Wherever he went, she would follow, until she would take him to the place where she could follow no more.

  Her limousine arrived at the Capitol at around 10:40 A.M. Jackie, escorted by the president’s two brothers, ascended the East Front steps and walked into the rotunda. She knelt before the coffin and prayed. Then the military casket team lifted the coffin from the catafalque, carried it out of the rotunda, and descended the stairs to the East Front. Once at ground level, they strapped the casket to the caisson. At 11:00 A.M. the cortege departed the Capitol for the White House.

  Mrs. Kennedy and her husband’s brothers Robert and Edward lead the procession from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

  (Abbie Row, courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation)

  From there, starting at 11:35 A.M., Jacqueline Kennedy led a procession on foot to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, eight blocks away. Many heads of state from around the world—kings, presidents, prime ministers, and more—plus distinguished diplomats had traveled to Washington for the event. Mourners included French president Charles de Gaulle, British prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Irish president Éamon de Valera, and Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. More than 220 officials from ninety-two countries, including nineteen heads of state, traveled to Washington. The last time so many had gathered in one place was in 1910, for the funeral of British king Edward VII. Most, unless they were too old or too frail, walked to the cathedral. The Secret Service begged Lyndon Johnson to ride in a car and not march in the processi
on—it was too dangerous, they warned, and they did not want to lose another president. But Johnson refused: “I would rather give my life than be afraid to give it.”

  The caisson leaves the White House for St. Matthew’s.

  (courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

  At 12:15 P.M., the pallbearers carried the flag-draped coffin into St. Matthew’s. More than one thousand people attended the service, a low mass conducted by the famous Catholic priest Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston. The hour-long service confused John Jr. He fidgeted and asked his mother, “Where’s my Daddy?”

  The sacred music, the religious incantations, and the somber setting proved too much for Jackie. After enduring the pain for four days, she could no longer hold it in. She began to cry uncontrollably. Her sobbing body heaved and shook.

  At the end of the mass, Cushing said words that broke her heart: “May the angels, dear Jack, lead you into Paradise. May the martyrs receive you at your coming. May the spirit of God embrace you, and mayest thou, with all those who made the supreme sacrifice of dying for others, receive eternal rest and peace.”

  Jackie thought his voice sounded like “a plea, almost a wail.” That phrase, “May the angels, dear Jack . . .” unleashed in her fresh spasms of emotion, and she began to sob and shake again. Her daughter, Caroline, took her hand and said, “You’ll be all right, Mummy. Don’t cry. I’ll take care of you.”

  After the service, Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, standing outside the cathedral, watched the honor guard carry the coffin down the steps. A military band played “Hail to the Chief.” Jackie bent down and whispered in her little boy’s ear, “John, you can salute Daddy now and say good-bye to him.”

  John Kennedy Jr. saluted his father’s coffin just as he had seen soldiers in uniform do. It was a heartbreaking gesture that became one of the most unforgettable images of the funeral.

  THAT NIGHT Jacqueline had expected to preside over a White House dinner for West German chancellor Ludwig Erhard. She had scheduled the event weeks ago and had mailed the invitations before the trip to Dallas. By all rights, she should be supervising last-minute preparations for a delightful social event, not her husband’s funeral. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was one of the invited dinner guests. He had expected to pass through the Southwest Gate of the White House that day, not the gates of Arlington Cemetery.

  At 1:30 P.M., the horse-drawn caisson bearing President Kennedy departed St. Matthew’s for Arlington across the Potomac River. It took one hour and fifteen minutes to get there.

  At a brief graveside service, a bugler played taps. He was so emotional, he played a wrong note. It sounded as though the instrument itself were weeping, which heightened the drama of the scene. A formation of fifty fighter jets screamed overhead. In a stunning tribute, the presidential jet, Air Force One, descended to an alarming altitude of just five hundred feet above the cemetery and dipped its wings in tribute while it whooshed past at 600 miles per hour. From the ground, the airplane looked enormous.

  The coffin is carried to the grave site at Arlington National Cemetery.

  (courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

  A panoramic view of the scene at Arlington Cemetery.

  (Abbie Row, courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation)

  Artillery pieces fired a twenty-one-gun salute. Riflemen fired three volleys overhead, an eerie echo of the three shots fired in Dallas. Soldiers removed the flag from the coffin, folded it into a triangle, and presented it to Jackie.

  At 3:13 P.M., Jacqueline Kennedy used a taper to light an “eternal flame” beside the grave. Two days ago, she had made a last-minute request. She said she wanted to light a flame at the climax of the service in Arlington that would burn forever in memory of her husband. She recalled the day when she and the president had toured the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg. There, at the Eternal Light Peace Memorial dedicated by President Roosevelt in 1938, she had seen an eternal flame—a gas-powered fire that burned day and night, around the clock—that illuminated the top of the tall monument. At Arlington, army engineers had one built at ground level next to President Ken­nedy’s grave site in less than twenty-four hours, and it was ready in time for Jackie to light it on Monday afternoon.

  Jacqueline Kennedy watches as the flag from her husband’s coffin is folded.

  (Abbie Row, courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation)

  When the service was over, she got into her limousine to return to the White House to greet the funeral guests. “It would be most ungracious of me,” she said, “not to have all those people in our house.”

  After leaving Arlington, her car pulled away from the rest of the motorcade. It drove on alone to the Lincoln Memorial, where Jackie looked through the window and gazed up at the sculpture of Father Abraham, who had perished from an assassin’s bullet ninety-eight years earlier. Then she returned to the White House, where she stood in a receiving line and greeted guests from around the world.

  FAR FROM Washington, there were other funerals this day.

  In Texas, Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit was buried with full honors; more than one thousand people attended the service. And that afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald was buried in Texas in a cheap, cloth-covered pine casket. The timing was shocking—the same day as the funerals for the two men he was accused of murdering, President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. At Oswald’s hurried, ten-minute graveside ceremony, the more than seventy-five reporters, photographers, and law enforcement officials far outnumbered the handful of mourners.

  Aside from his family, no one who knew him wanted to be seen at his funeral. No friends came forward to serve as pallbearers. News reporters volunteered to carry the assassin’s lonely casket to its resting place. At first, Associated Press correspondent Mike Cochran said no. “I was among the first that they asked to be a pallbearer. I refused, and then Preston McGraw of UPI stepped up and said, ‘Certainly, I’ll be a pallbearer.’ So then, if there’s one thing I knew . . . if UPI was going to be a pallbearer, I was damn sure going to be a pallbearer.”

  The minister who promised to officiate failed to show up. Only Oswald’s family—his wife, Marina, and their two daughters, his mother, Marguerite, and his brother Robert—came to mourn him. Life magazine published photographs of the funeral, including a large, double-page image taken at dusk that made it appear that heaven itself—with dark, gloomy, and threatening skies—had cursed Oswald in the grave. That night, watchmen stood guard over the assassin’s final resting place to prevent distraught citizens from, under the cover of darkness, desecrating the grave.

  But Oswald did not rest in peace. After his burial, bootleg copies of gruesome photographs of his body—taken at the autopsy—leaked out and were published widely. In the days ahead, morbid curiosity seekers would flock to his grave, and someone stole his tombstone. Years later, in a bizarre attempt to verify that Oswald was really in the coffin (and not an imposter switched with the true Oswald, an outlandish claim pressed by extremist conspiracy buffs), his remains were exhumed and the corpse photographed again. It was, of course, Lee Harvey Oswald.

  The Lee mansion at Arlington Cemetery after the funeral.

  (Abbie Row, courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation)

  THAT NIGHT at the White House at 7:00 P.M., Jacqueline Kennedy hosted a little birthday party for her son. He was now three years old. She decided to hold a bigger party in a few days.

  Later in the evening, Robert Kennedy asked Jackie, “Should we go visit our friend?”

  Two of the many types of mourning buttons manufactured after the assassination.

  (from the author’s collection)

  A memorial banner printed in Chicago within a few days of the assassination.

  (from the author’s collection)

  Another of the many memorial banners.

  (from the author’s collection)

  Oh yes, she said.

  At midnight, after everyone had gone, she ret
urned to Arlington Cemetery to bid her husband a private and final farewell. By now the casket had been lowered into the grave and covered with a mound of earth. It was quiet now. The eternal flame flickered and danced in the dark. The glow cast streaks of light and shadow across Jackie’s face.

  THE NEXT morning Lyndon Johnson found a handwritten letter from Jacqueline Kennedy on his desk. It was an affectionate farewell. Four days earlier she would have called him “Lyndon.” Today she addressed the letter, “Dear Mr. President.”

  She thanked him for walking behind President Kennedy’s coffin in the previous day’s procession from the White House to St. Matthews. “You did not have to do that—I am sure that many people forbid you to take such a risk—but you did it anyway.” LBJ’s gesture of writing to her children had moved her: “What those letters to them will mean later—you can imagine . . . they have always loved you so much.” Of all the Kennedys, Jackie had liked Lyndon Johnson the most. Of course Bobby hated him and, while JFK respected him, the former rivals from Harvard and the Texas Hill Country were always men from different worlds. Now Jackie wanted to thank LBJ for his many courtesies to her: “And most of all, Mr. President, thank you for the way you have always treated me . . . before, when Jack was alive, and now as President.”

  The notorious Dealey Plaza desk set.

  (from the author’s collection)

  The electric Eternal Flame night-light.