November 22 1963

by Braver, Adam

  And it’s easy to picture Nelson partially smiling, unsure of what gives, but his mouth slowly dropping open when he realized the policeman wasn’t playing. That his expression wasn’t breaking. And that the policeman’s voice was shaking when he looked at Nelson, and said, “I’m on the level.”

  Mrs. Kennedy had radioed Mr. West from the airplane. Already she’d given instructions on how the ushers should begin preparations for both the president’s return and his funeral. For the ushers it must have been a relief to be given a firm direction, clearly understanding that all their protocol and training and systems were now useless. Still, Mrs. Kennedy’s directives were as vague as they were specific. Or, as Nelson Pierce later recalled, the ushers were to look up the “details of the Lincoln funeral so that we could have things as near as possible to the way they were at the time Lincoln was assassinated.”

  So many people in charge. The president’s brother-in-law, Mr. Shriver; Mr. Miller, chief of ceremonies and special events for the Military District of Washington; and the president’s assistant, Mr. Dungan. Plus, behind the scenes, there’s General Wehle, commander of the Military District of Washington; the attorney general; Mr. West, of course; and people Nelson has never seen before.

  In keeping with the Kennedy White House, there is a strange confluence of honoring tradition while keeping an eye trained on the future.

  For many, it’s a matter of dusting off old books. Following established customs. Where the navy, coast guard, marine, army, and air force bands rehearse the familiar ceremonial scores. And the joint-service cordons are positioned in their proper places. Cannon salutes. Honor guards.

  But then there is Mrs. Kennedy.

  She understands that, like her White House redecorations, her husband epitomizes the bridge between tradition and progress. She must remember sitting next to him in the Monroe Room before a television audience as he talked about the role of history, reciting from the stone plaque in front of the National Archives that quotes The Tempest: “What is past is prologue.” He then elaborated, “This country has passed through very difficult days, but it has passed through them.” And during this Civil War centennial period, it is she who must realize that they really have passed through history. So fast that it maybe has gotten ahead of them. Staring them sadly in the face. And it’s from here that she’ll now have to take her husband forward, both into that past and beyond it.

  It’s her composure, Nelson thinks. Still in Air Force One. She is meticulously and logically orchestrating the funeral, when the idea of a funeral must seem equal parts blindsiding and bewildering. He imagines the shock—not only of losing her husband but especially of witnessing the sudden violence that took him. Nevertheless, it’s her composure that is holding this scrambling effort together, even amid the clout of all the leaders. And for that, there must be both shame and gratitude.

  Mr. West initially informed the ushers that Mrs. Kennedy would be arriving with the president’s body at about eleven o’clock that evening. It seems impossible for the funeral preparations to be accomplished by then. The physical work alone will take hours, much less the research, location of materials, coordination of efforts. It’s best not to look at the clock. It’s best not to watch something passing that one can’t slow down. Or just stop.

  The catafalque would be the easiest place to start. A basic bier, following Lincoln’s shooting it was designed quickly by Benjamin French for the president’s casket to rest on while he lay in state, built from just a few rough pine boards, framed and nailed together, and covered with a deep black drapery. It had been used fourteen times since it was built. Stored under glass in the Capitol basement, in the so-called Washington’s Tomb, the crypt where George and Martha had planned to be buried. So when the ushers are directed to start assembling the pieces of the Lincoln funeral, arranging for the catafalque seems the easiest place to start. There already is a procedure. One that is understood.

  It is a structure in which the materials lack the elegance of Washington pomp. Almost like a stage prop. Strips of ordinary wood hammered by a carpenter’s hand but covered in elegant cloth, as if to mask the simplicity and haste. But set up in the East Room, while the ushers decorate and the servants clean and the guards stand waiting for the casket to arrive, there is a sense of life that comes to the catafalque. It becomes more than just an object of significance. More than furniture. And while the tendency may be to admire it, to consider what it has seen and represented, having it placed in the East Room, awaiting the body of President Kennedy, strips it of the nostalgia. It is now part of this world. Severing history. Making us believe that we’ve made no progress over the past hundred years.

  Hours have passed. The White House barely seems any more prepared for receiving President Kennedy’s body than it was when they first started. They’ll never be ready by eleven. At least Nelson is thinking about that instead of about President Kennedy. Until he thinks that thought.

  The White House Library was part of Mrs. Kennedy’s 1961 restoration. With the assistance of Jeanette Lenygon, cochair of the American Institute of Interior Designers Committee on Historic Preservation, Mrs. Kennedy turned what had once been a nineteenth-century laundry room into a sitting room that was both elegant enough for entertaining and practical enough to serve an important function as a working library for the president, his family, and his staff. She and Lenygon were able to arrange a donation of the most intact collections of furnishings built by the great New York cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe. Elegant in deep mahogany, Phyfe’s work transformed the library into an early Federalist sanctuary, punctuated by a wood chandelier, gilded in gold, that had once belonged to the family of James Fenimore Cooper. But the books for the library were not just period-piece decorations. In planning for the redecoration, a committee was formed to select titles that would catalog the history of the United States. Over two thousand, either chronicling American history or showcasing important American writers. She knew each book that went on the shelves. What its viewpoint was. What it represented. Why it was shelved. So it makes perfect sense that she would have sent her staff to the library for the books on Lincoln. And maybe somewhere there was a satisfaction in knowing the library was being used. Serving its purpose beyond high teas and meetings.

  After a while they’re just words. In the library on the ground floor, Nelson reads page after page detailing all aspects of Lincoln’s funeral. And he knows he can take notes. Make sketches. Trace the routes. But still, there is no sense of truth to it. They’re only stories, and he doesn’t imagine Mrs. Kennedy wants to retell a story, but rather capture an essence. Still he searches and searches, and there is no essence. Just clinical accounts. Formal observations. But maybe that is what she wants. Maybe she does want to re-create the set. And it is just a matter of the right fabrics, reviving the caisson. Maybe it’s really about obliterating a moment and taking it back to that other place a hundred years ago, when it seemed as though the world had some sense of dignity and the edges weren’t so crass. There is still a place for the president there. Even in violence the world seems a little softer, and there already is certainty that his legacy will be one in which tragedy inspires hope.

  But Nelson doesn’t know.

  So in the meantime he’ll take notes. Gather procedures. Make lists. Not sure what he’s searching for anymore. Just trusting that the meaning is there for her.

  They’d worked through dinner, and by eight it seemed as though they’d still barely accomplished anything. They followed the directions of Mr. Shriver. Decorators and artists came and went. Various books arrived showing perspectives of Lincoln’s East Room. And at times Nelson again would be sent to the library to find another book, or out front to grab fabric swatches to show Mr. Shriver, or Mr. West, or whoever else would be taking charge. He’d be relaying messages to the servants about which rooms to prepare for which guests. Or up on a ladder, stringing crepe.

  Silk crepe is the fabric that most symbolizes mourning. By weaving the silk with
small, crosswise ribs, a lightweight and delicate fabric is made, both fragile and strong. As with all mourning materials, it is dyed black, representing the extinguishment of light. But in the nineteenth century, at the time when the East Room was being decorated for Lincoln’s body to lie in repose, the fabric was still extremely labile. A light rainstorm would cause the crepe to nearly disintegrate, shriveling it into a barely recognizable version of its once elegant form. In the twentieth century, a waterproof crepe was introduced. A man-made mutation, invented in order to improve the tradition. Turn a past frailty into another nostalgia that romanticizes simplicity, yet honors progress. But even with that, when the rains fell on the improved silk crepe, there was little difference. It still wasn’t able to maintain its form.

  Mrs. Kennedy wants a riderless horse. She remembers it from the Lincoln funeral. An imperative. Although Nelson knows that’s military, a full-honor tradition, there’s so much he doesn’t know about it. So he’s back to the library, thumbing through the books again, trying to gather the protocol, glean the meaning. Learning that although people say it’s a riderless horse, in fact the real term is a caparisoned horse. And it follows behind the caisson in military funerals reserved for highranking officers, with an empty saddle, and its rider’s boots faced backward in the stirrups, signifying that its fallen hero will no longer ride. The caparisoned horse was first used for a president in Lincoln’s procession, partly based on the idea that he was the commander in chief. It is symbolic of the heroism of the fallen soldier, but in Lincoln’s case the lone horse carried a deeper resonance, the slow trot of a nation that so suddenly lost its top commander. As Nelson reads this his chest goes hollow, because already he understands nothing will capture the tragedy of Dallas as much as the sight of that empty saddle on a proudly elegant march down Constitution Avenue.

  Nelson calls over to General Wehle’s office at the Military District of Washington and relays Mrs. Kennedy’s wish to an assistant whose name he can’t make out. He uses the proper terms, and it is all abstractly official. The assistant says General Wehle has already been informed of the request, and that the duty will fall to the Third U.S. Infantry Regiment’s Caisson Platoon at Fort Myer, where the horses are stabled. Nelson takes notes, asking for confirmation on all the spelling, explaining that although he realizes it’s being taken care of, he still wants to have all the information correct for Mr. West, should Mrs. Kennedy ask. Even though the assistant isn’t obligated to tell him, he does. Nelson learns that the caparisoned horse will be a Morgan quarter horse named Black Jack. A sixteen-year-old black gelding originally from Oklahoma. The assistant tells him that the term “Morgan” means Black Jack is a direct descendent of the colonial schoolteacher Justin Morgan’s first horse, Figure, an eighteenth-century stallion reared in Vermont that was legendary for both his strength and poise. He asks where in Vermont, and the assistant says Randolph, and Nelson writes it down, understanding that it really doesn’t matter, but it gives a slight feeling of control to have a handle on all the details in a day that otherwise seems out of control. Then he asks when he came to Fort Myer, and the assistant says, Justin Morgan? And Nelson says, No, no, I mean Black Jack, and the assistant laughs for a moment and says, I was going to say. Justin Morgan’s been dead since around 1800. And so Nelson says, Yes, Black Jack. When did he come to Fort Myer? There’s a pause. And Nelson hears papers shuffling. The assistant says, Well. Then he says, Okay, now. 1953. 1953 he joined the Old Guard at Fort Myer. Again he pauses, and then says, Oh my. Well, I’ll be. Black Jack came to Fort Myer on November 22. Arrived on November 22, 1953. And Nelson doesn’t say anything, and neither does the assistant.

  As it neared eleven, it became clear that they could not finish in time. And though he tried to kick into another gear, Nelson was tired, beat up, and wanted to just fold into himself, defeated. Then Mr. West gathered his ushers together. He had a slight smile. There was a delay at the hospital in Bethesda. The president was not expected back for several more hours, more like 4:00 AM. With that announcement, Nelson remembers, they were happy. He doesn’t use the word relieved. He states very clearly that he was happy. And it’s easy to imagine. Maybe it was a second wind. A loss of sense. But the president’s body arrived at the White House at 4:20 AM, with the final piece of crepe hung just ten minutes before. And though they probably didn’t share a word when the last tack was hammered, in the intervening ten minutes they surely would have felt pleased with themselves. Glanced around the room in pride, admiring their work. Happy to have had the extra time.

  The assassination of Abraham Lincoln gave birth to the modern American state funeral. The scope of his funeral is often attributed to the technical revolution in the form of the telegraph and the railroad networks, shrinking the country in a way that allowed for a much more collective grief. It was a funeral for a king—something the founding fathers had eschewed in their fervent rejection of anything that smacked of the monarchy. As the culmination to the series of firsts that defined Lincoln’s presidency, his body lay in state in the Capitol rotunda on the hastily constructed catafalque, while thousands of mourners waited in lines for hours to pay their respects. One imagines how the easy spreading of the news would have heightened the grief. The tragedy being relayed in real time through telegraph offices all over the country. If two generals at Appomattox shaking hands hadn’t been the first step toward making the individual states feel like one country again, perhaps Lincoln’s death had—for better or worse, a common experience that everybody shared in near real-time.

  A fact: Within two hours, 90 percent of Americans had learned about Kennedy’s death. It was the true coming out of television, which allowed for an instantaneous dissemination of information but, more important, also allowed for a community of witnesses to grieve and process in common, watching events unfold in their living rooms in New York, yet experiencing the exact same moment as their relatives in Sacramento. It oneupped the telegraph of the Lincoln funeral. And by creating a collective consciousness, the television coverage tangentially created nostalgia in real time, a memory without a future or a past.

  GO TO SLEEP

  SEVEN REASONS WHY SHE KNOWS SHE’LL NEVER

  GO BACK TO THE WHITE HOUSE

  1. Paid Holidays

  On November 28, 1963, the New York Times will report that John F. Kennedy’s name was removed from “the payroll as President, effective Friday, Nov. 22, at 2:00 PM Eastern standard time.” However, the action was not taken until Tuesday, November 26, when the General Accounting Office reopened, after closing on Monday for the official day of mourning. But also effective Friday, November 22, at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time was when the GAO added (or as the Times says, “substituted”) the name of Lyndon B. Johnson. His vice-presidential salary of $35,000 nearly tripled at that moment. With Monday being his first paid holiday.

  2. The Phone Call: Part One

  December 2, 1963. President Johnson will be sitting in the White House, kicking his feet up, staring out the window with his back to the door, cradling the telephone in the crook between his shoulder and chin. He’ll call her sweetie. He’ll tell her she’s got some things to learn, and that one of them is that she doesn’t bother him. He’ll say, “You give me strength,” and he’ll tell her he doesn’t want letters from her. “Just come on over and put your arm around me. That’s all you do. When you haven’t got anything else to do, let’s take a walk. Let’s walk around the backyard and just let me tell you how much you mean to all of us and how we can carry on if you give us a little strength.” And he’ll tell her that females have a courage that men don’t have, and so everybody is relying on her, that in fact she has the President of the United States relying on her, and he’s not her first president, at that. “There’re not many women,” he’ll say, “you know, running around with a good many presidents.” And she’ll laugh, and turn her voice almost girlish, and reply, “She ran around with two presidents. That’s what they’ll say about me.”

  Maybe that will
be the point when she knows she’s never going back?

  3. The Politics of Grief (some facts)

  A memo from Assistant Attorney General Norbert Schlei to Pierre Salinger, Johnson’s press secretary, dated November 26, 1963, will show the men trying to work out the rights of Jackie Kennedy. There is very little precedent for what is owed to a first lady in this situation, other than to note that there is some precedent for franking privileges for the widows of former presidents, but not by legislation, only by “private acts.” Even if there is that entitlement for paid postage, Schlei is quick to point out, “It should be noted that the franking privilege is limited to domestic mail.”

  There are questions about office space and staff, as though there is a general reluctance to relieve her into civilian life. It seems they’re not quite ready to let her go. Schlei rationalizes that because Jackie will undoubtedly be sent untold letters of condolence, and because they will be sent to her as the president’s widow, not as a private citizen, the “task of answering this correspondence is a continuation of her duties as First Lady.” In light of that, Scheli believes it makes sense that Jackie officially be given office space, supplies, and staff on a limited basis to perform “this last official function.” There is no indication of how long that limited period will last. At what point they expect the letters will stop coming. Or that she will stop answering.