Jackie's Newport

by Raymond Sinibaldi

  she said. Struck by her sagacity and determination, Burkley led her inside.

  They stood to the side and watched as the medical team grappled with

  history. Clark turned to Mrs. Kennedy, “Your husband has sustained a fatal wound,” he said.

  “I know,” came Jackie’s near-voiceless reply. Jenkins reached down and

  drew a sheet over her husband’s face.

  Burkley, not certain Jackie grasped what Clark had told her, reached

  over and checked for her husband’s pulse. There was none. Holding his face next to hers, he said, “The president is gone.” There was no response, and Burkley was now choking back emotion. He wanted to confirm that she

  understood, and he again leaned into her. “The president is dead.” His voice was thick with emotion. Jackie leaned forward, pressing her cheek against his, and Admiral Burkley wept openly. 326

  The room thinned quickly as the bulk of the Parkland staff disappeared.

  Jenkins remained, removing tubes and IVs and disconnecting the EKG

  leads. Jackie walked to the end of the table, took her husband’s foot in her hand, and kissed it. Moving gently, she moved up his body and softly kissed his leg, then his thigh, before moving to kiss his abdomen, and then his chest.

  She pulled back the sheet and was now looking upon his face. “His mouth

  was so beautiful, his eyes were open.” 327 She kissed his lips.

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  Father Huber unscrewed his vial of holy oil and made the sign of the

  cross on the forehead of the president. He began to pray in Latin, and Jackie took Jack’s hand. Softly Jackie responded to the prayers and prayed with the priest the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers of the Catholic rosary.

  The service complete, Father Huber spoke to Mrs. Kennedy, expressing his

  “sympathies and the sympathies of his parishioners.”

  “Thank you,” said Jackie in a soft but clear voice. “Thank you for taking care of the president…please pray for him.” 328

  “I am convinced that his soul had not left his body,” he told her. “This is a valid last sacrament.” Bowing her head, she was tilting forward, alarming the priest. “Do you want a doctor?” he asked. 329 An observant nurse brought a cold towel and pressed it against her head, chasing away her dizziness.

  Jackie returned to her seat outside the room while Jack’s body was

  prepared for travel. Clint Hill ordered a casket from the O’Neal Funeral Home. “The best damn casket you have,” he said, choking out the words.

  “It’s for the president, it’s for President Kennedy.” 330

  Father Huber and an associate, Father James Thompson, now in the

  corridor, realized that the gathering press corps awaited them in the parking lot. Across the corridor, Jackie sat. “I will never forget the…agony on her face,” 331 Huber would write, recalling how “she was very much composed…

  not crying…I couldn’t understand how she could hold up under the

  circumstances.” 332

  As Fathers Huber and Thomson crossed the parking lot, a horde of

  reporters pursued them. Among them was Dallas’s KBOX radio news director Bill Hampton, who asked Huber, “Is Mr. Kennedy dead?” Hampton reported,

  “In his quote, he’s dead alright.” And just as Huber’s quote was hitting the UPI wires, Malcolm Kilduff stood before the press at Parkland Hospital. He had already informed Lyndon Johnson, who had left Parkland bound for

  Love Field. Kilduff was in Dallas because Press Secretary Pierre Salinger was traveling with cabinet members to the Far East.

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  Wiping sweat from his brow, the thirty-six-year-old assistant presidential press secretary checked his watch and then firmly pressed his fingertips on the table before him. It was the only way he could stop his hands from shaking. His head bowed, he leaned forward, taking a deep breath. Finding his words, he made the horror official. “President John F. Kennedy died

  at approximately one o’clock Central Standard time today here in Dallas.

  He died of a gunshot wound in the brain.” The magnanimity of his words

  swept over him, and his bottom lip began to quiver. Seconds ticked as Kilduff struggled to gather himself. Another deep breath. “I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.”

  Lyndon Johnson was safe aboard Air Force I, and he declared he was not

  leaving Texas without Mrs. Kennedy. Fear, speculation, and chaos ran

  rampant, with thoughts that an outside force might be attempting to topple the United States government. Every official of the Kennedy administration was now an official of the Johnson administration. Every secretary, every agent, every assistant, and every member of the presidential party held on to their respective titles. Save one.

  Just twenty-four hours earlier, Jacqueline Kennedy, the first lady of the United States, had stepped out of Air Force I to a cheering throng at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. She had captivated crowds at every stop in a manner that had been deemed improbable by most and impossible by some.

  Four hours earlier, she had listened to her husband tell the world that he was

  “the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy…to Texas.”

  She now sat alone in a dingy hospital hall, waiting for Jack’s body to

  be placed in a coffin. She no longer formally existed. She was no longer the first lady, and there was no government assignment for the wife of a dead president. The passage of power, which simply shifted every government

  employee to the administration of Lyndon Johnson, had no provision for a widowed first lady.

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  “I’m not leaving here without Jack,” she whispered to Kenny

  O’Donnell, while hospital personnel cleaned Jack’s corpse. This normally perfunctory routine was anything but perfunctory, for the magnitude of

  what had transpired began to penetrate all the actors who had played a role in the ghastly, ghoulish play. Each of them was struck by the presence of the shattered leading lady standing lost in their presence. Each wanted to find some way to comfort her, to console her, to soothe her unmitigated anguish.

  With the calamity over, the futile fight ended, Jack’s men turned to

  Jackie, seeking to do something. A cup of coffee? A sedative? A place to lie down? All offers she politely and quietly declined. The Parkland personnel reached out as well. A nurse who was washing the body asked if she could get her a towel or help remove her gloves, now stiffening with blood and the remnants of her husband’s brains. “No, thank you,” came her gentle reply.

  “I’m all right.”

  Other actors came to her; powerful men seeking to console and bring

  comfort literally shattered at her feet. Bill Greer, the driver of the death car, took her face in his hands and, in tears, lamented his role. “Oh Mrs. Kennedy, oh my God, oh my God, I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t hear. I should have swerved the car. I couldn’t help it…If only I had seen in time.” He then put his arms around her and wept on her shoulder. Congressman Henry

  Gonzalez, a staunch political ally of her husband, came to bring solace, and he, too, crumbled before her. Seeing her fractured core revealed in her eyes, his words vanished, choked off and melted into tears. “Mrs. Kennedy,” he stammered, “is there anything I can do for you?” She bowed her head, slowly shaking it no, and it was then he noticed her dress and her gloves covered with the vestiges of her husband. He fell to his knees before her and prayed.

  Kenny O’Donnell, awash in his own incalculable anguish, found a

  mission in the midst of overwhelming despair. For more than a decade, he had served and protected his boss with intense loyalty, which now belonged entirely to the former first lady. Positioning himself in front of her, he 137

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  shielded her from
others’ offerings of condolences, and with a ferocity of purpose he diverted them all.

  Jackie sat erect, dignified in her frailty. She was feeling faint and in fact had wobbled slightly a number of times. However, those physical

  manifestations had not diminished her clarity of thought and keen sense of awareness. “Kenny,” she said softly to O’Donnell, “get me in there before they close that coffin.” And he nodded in affirmation.

  Agent Andy Berger signaled to O’Donnell, who bent over and whispered

  to Jackie, “I want to speak to you,” and she followed him. As they attempted to reenter the room, Dr. Kemp Clark appeared. “Please,” she said, reaching for the door, “can I go in?” Clark, another powerful man seeking to protect her, shook his head no. Jackie leaned into him. “Doctor,” she said, “do you think seeing the coffin can upset me? I’ve seen my husband die, shot in my arms. His blood is all over me. How can I see something worse than I’ve

  seen?” Clark stepped aside.

  The room was near empty and smelled of disinfectant. The tumult

  had dissipated, and so had the assemblage. It was quiet. Kenny O’Donnell stood at the doorway as Dallas police sergeant Robert Dugger walked with Jackie to the president’s side. She looked at him, offering her left wrist. The sergeant, vision blurred through tear-filled eyes, finally found the snap of her glove, now stiff with her husband’s blood. He slid the glove off her hand.

  She removed her wedding ring and with Dugger’s assistance slipped it on

  her husband’s finger. Satisfied she looked upon him lovingly and returned to Kenny. “Did I do the right thing?” she asked.

  “You leave it right where it is,” he said.

  Vernon O’Neal took command, and with two nurses and an orderly they

  prepared the president’s body for placement in the coffin. Jackie returned to her seat outside in the considerably quieter hall. Jack’s friends, agents, and military aides had sealed off the area, affording Jackie as much privacy as the 138

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  situation would allow. A military aide approached. “You could go back to the plane now,” he suggested.

  “I’m not going back till I leave with Jack,” came her adamant reply. She seated herself and began her vigil, one that would disintegrate into fatuous folly, as another lurid act was still to be staged in the dingy halls of the dreary Dallas hospital.

  It began with the arrival of Father Thomas Cain, from the Roman

  Catholic University of Dallas. No one questioned his presence as he wheeled his car to a stop in the chaos of the parking lot and walked into the hospital.

  Jackie looked up and there he was. “When did he die?” Father Cain wanted to know.

  Startled and careworn, Jackie caught an unsettling look in his eyes. “In the car, I think,” she told him.

  He reached inside a bag he held in his hand. “I have a relic of the True Cross,” he said, and he held it before her. “Venerate it,” came his instruction.

  Somewhat confused, Jackie kissed the cross, and he told her he wanted to take it to the president. “How touching,” she thought. “This must mean a lot to him.” O’Donnell nodded approval.

  The president’s body was wrapped and ready to be placed in the coffin

  when Cain entered and began waving the cross as he walked about the room.

  Exiting, he said to Jackie, “I have applied a relic of the True Cross to your husband.” Jackie noticed he was still holding it. “You didn’t even give it to him?” she thought to herself as Kenny O’Donnell, unsettled, moved toward him. The priest reached for Jackie’s hand and put his arm around her, calling her Jackie and showering her with terms of endearment. O’Donnell, Dave

  Powers, and Larry O’Brien were moving toward him as he promised to

  write her a letter. Noticing the Irish mafia closing in, Cain darted back into the trauma room. He circled O’Neal one more time before exiting to find a group of hospital personnel, whom he led in the Lord’s Prayer. Concluding, 139

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  he returned to Jackie, again reaching for her hand. “Please, Father, leave me alone,” she said, pulling away. O’Donnell was now in steady pursuit, and Cain slipped behind a cubicle wall, out of sight, but his voice could be heard frantically reciting prayers.

  As Jackie endured the bizarre behavior of the overwrought, unstable

  cleric, another melodrama was unfolding. Down the hallway and behind

  closed doors, Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County medical examiner, had arrived.

  He was engaged in what became an intensely heated exchange that began

  with Agent Roy Kellerman and ultimately included Dr. Burkley, General

  Godfrey McHugh, Dave Powers, Larry O’Brien, and Ken O’Donnell.

  The remains of John F. Kennedy were now in the legal custody of the

  State of Texas, and Texas statute called for a postmortem. Rose was present to see that it was carried out. Kellerman approached first. “My friend,” he said to Rose, “this is the body of the president of the United States, and we are going to take it back to Washington.”

  Rose would have none of it. “That’s not the way things are…There’s been

  a homicide…we must have an autopsy,” he emphatically stated, wagging his finger for emphasis.

  Taken aback, the agent countered, “He is the president. He’s going

  with us.”

  “The body stays,” came Rose’s curt retort, sparking Kellerman’s ire.

  Maintaining his composure, Kellerman attempted again to reach the

  dispassionate Rose. “My friend,” he began again, “my name is Roy Kellerman.

  I am special agent in charge of the White House detail of the Secret Service.

  We are taking President Kennedy back to the capital.”

  Unmoved, Rose’s resolve stiffened. “You’re not taking the body

  anywhere,” he fired back. “There’s a law here. We’re going to enforce it.”

  Dr. Burkley interjected, appealing to Rose from one physician to

  another, pleading with him to reconsider. “Mrs. Kennedy is going to stay exactly where she is until the body is moved,” he implored. “We can’t have 140

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  that.” Rose made it evident that Mrs. Kennedy was free to come and go as she pleased. That was not of his concern. His concern was the corpse of a homicide. “The remains stay.”

  Burkley’s emotions got the best of him, and in his frustration he cried

  out, “It’s the president of the United States!”

  This elicited from Rose a pragmatic, “Doesn’t matter…can’t lose the

  chain of evidence.”

  Dave Powers was next, and he simply asked that an exception be made,

  only to hear, “Regulations.” General McHugh stepped in and was told, “There are state laws…you people from Washington can’t make your own law.”

  An appeal was made to the mayor of Dallas, to no avail, leading Burkley

  to suggest that Rose accompany them back to the nation’s capital. This also fell on deaf ears. Outside trauma room one, which still held the body of her husband, now in a coffin, Jackie asked Sergeant Dugger, “Why can’t I get my husband back to Washington?” Kellerman had gathered his men, as Dr.

  Kemp Clark was now exchanging heated, loud words with Rose. Parkland’s

  administrator Charles Price had joined the fray, and Clark was discussing with him the likelihood that Dr. Earl Rose would have to be restrained to allow the body of John F. Kennedy to leave.

  Leaving the nurse’s station where he was attempting to reach District

  Attorney Henry Wade, O’Donnell saw Sergeant Dugger positioned near

  the casket. The Dallas law enforcement officer attempted to call Chief Jesse Curry to implore his intercession in the brewing conflict. Unsuccessful, Dugger was later told that Curry knew it was him and chose not to take

  his call. The
burly sergeant had been “protecting” Jackie since her arrival at Parkland, shooing the horde of Parkland staffers who had gathered to

  gawk through the window of trauma room one. So moved by the first lady’s deportment throughout her ordeal, he understood the anguished, driven

  desire of Jackie to simply take Jack home, and he wanted to help her. So fierce was his desire that O’Donnell noted his fists were clenched, and he thought to 141

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  himself, “He’s going to belt him.” Earl Rose, now in a tantrum, looked ready to hit someone. Powers had secluded Jackie in a cubicle, attempting to shield her from this ultimate indignity. The decision had been made. Kellerman, O’Donnell, and the rest were ready for a physical confrontation, if necessary, to bring their chief home.

  A Texas showdown was taking place as the federal contingency,

  accompanied by Dallas police sergeant Dugger, surrounded the coffin of

  their chief. Blocking their path, a steadfast Rose, his hand in the air looking like a traffic cop, said again, “You can’t leave now! You can’t move it!” A Dallas policeman stood beside him, his hand resting on the handle of his holstered pistol.

  Approximately forty people now cluttered the hallway as Larry

  O’Brien and O’Donnell led the casket toward the exit. Dr. Burkley and

  General McHugh intercepted them. Justice of the Peace Theron Ward was

  now on the scene, and Burkley and McHugh suggested appealing to him,

  as he could override the medical examiner. Ward informed them that it

  was his duty to order an autopsy, which would not take more than three

  hours. O’Donnell asked if under the circumstances an exception could

  be made. “It’s just another homicide case, as far as I’m concerned,” came Ward’s reply.

  O’Donnell erupted, exploding in a confluence of sadness, frustration,

  and rage. “Fuck you,” he said, now nose to nose with Ward. “We’re leaving.”

  The policeman standing beside Rose intervened. “These two guys [Rose

  and Ward] say you can’t go.”