Jackie's Newport

by Raymond Sinibaldi

  emotion that consumed her. “What will I have?” she asked.

  “I’ll make you a scotch,” he said.

  “I’ve never had scotch in my life,” came her tentative reply before giving Kenny an affirmative nod. Turning to General McHugh, she said, “Now is

  as good a time as any to start.”

  Kenny brought her a tall glass, which, despite its acerbity, she finished and then drank another. 348 In the true tradition of an Irish wake, the liquor flowed and flowed freely; however, none of it seemed to have any effect. The deepest feelings of grief and loss simply could not be assuaged.

  The reminiscence continued as Powers recalled their trip to Ireland

  the previous June and how Jack had loved the Irish songs sung together. As Dave recalled “Danny Boy” and “Kelly, the Boy from Killane,” Jackie said wistfully, “He said it was the most enjoyable experience of his whole life,”

  and she wished she’d been there. Jackie recalled how impressed Jack was

  by the Irish cadets. “I must have those Irish cadets at his funeral,” she said, and her mind drifted to just last week when she had invited Scotland’s Black Watch to perform on the White House lawn. “He loved the Black Watch

  pipers,” she said. “They must be there, too.” The Black Watch of the Royal Highlanders Regiment followed Jackie in her march behind Jack’s caisson, and the Irish cadets greeted the caisson upon its arrival at Arlington.349

  Twenty-five years later, Powers recalled that wretched flight back from

  Dallas on that wretched day. At one point in the conversation, Jackie looked at Powers. “What will you do now, Dave? You were with him for all these years.”

  “I was so proud of her,” said Powers. “She was holding us together. I

  never felt so bad about anything in my life.” The pain of his loss was clearly visible on his face and audible in his voice. It was a loss that a quarter of a century had not mitigated. 350 She touched each member of Jack’s famous

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  Irish mafia. “You were with him at the start and you’re with him at the end,”

  she told them.

  Larry O’Brien recalled, “That frail girl…bringing to the surface some

  strength within her while we three slobs dissolved.” 351

  This was the second time she had done this. Just before she joined

  Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson for his swearing in, she had summoned

  Agent Clint Hill, her primary protector, who just two hours earlier had

  leaped on the back of the limousine, in all probability saving her life. Making his way to her, Hill was overcome with a sense of guilt and shame. “How

  could I let this happen to her?” he was thinking as he approached her352. “Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, what do you need?”

  She took his hands in hers, looked into his eyes, and asked, “What’s

  going to happen to you now, Mr. Hill?”

  Tears filled his eyes, and gaining control of his trembling lip he

  uttered, “I’ll be okay, Mrs. Kennedy, I’ll be okay.” “With all the sorrow and heartbreak,” Hill thought to himself, “to have concern for me at this time, she really is a remarkable lady.” 353

  Dave and Kenny again spoke of Jack’s last trip to Boston. They had gone

  to Harvard Stadium to watch his alum take on Columbia. The first half came to an end, and Jack grabbed Dave. “I want to go to Patrick’s grave,” he told him, “and I want to go alone with nobody from the newspapers following

  me.” 354 They rose to leave, and with the press in hot pursuit, Kenny went to the cop in charge of the parking lot. The officer saw to it that no press cars left the lot until the president’s car was far out of sight. Arriving at the new Kennedy family plot in Brookline, they made their way to the grave, where they stood silently. “He seems so alone here,” Jack said. 355

  “I’ll bring them together now,” Jackie said slowly, nodding her head. 356

  Overtures continued in an attempt to get Jackie to change her

  bloodstained suit. In the state room it was a topic of concern and conversation between agent Rufus Youngblood and President Johnson. General McHugh

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  approached her and simply asked, “Why not change?” Jackie gave her head

  a forceful shake. Mary Gallagher approached Kenny, offering to help Jackie

  “clean up.”

  “If she wants to stay this way for five days,” said Kenny, “it’ll show the world what’s been done to Jack.” 357

  Dr. Burkley noticed that Jackie’s gold bracelet still wore remnants of the carnage of the limousine, and one more time he tried. Kneeling in front of her, he held out his trembling hand. “Another dress?” he modestly suggested.

  Jackie responded in a whisper that was emphatic, firm, decisive, and clear.

  “No, let them see what they’ve done to Jack!” The ferocity Lady Bird had seen in her grew in its intensity with each suggestion that she change.

  That matter clearly settled, Kilduff tried another approach, suggesting

  to Jackie that they deplane on the opposite side. The coffin and those

  surrounding it would be blocked from view by the plane itself. Most important to Kilduff was keeping photographers from capturing Jackie, smeared with her husband’s blood. She politely listened and then said, “We’ll go out the regular way…I want them to see what they’ve done.” 358 The course of action firmly established, Kilduff and Jackie’s conversation continued as, through tears, he told her of the recent death of his four-year-old son, Kevin, who had drowned while Kilduff was traveling with the president in Europe. Another man of power was comforted in her company.

  The chaos of Dallas continued aboard Air Force I. Through garbled,

  oft-repeated, and unintelligible radio transmissions, generals, admirals, and captains arranged the logistics for the continuity of government and President Kennedy’s autopsy. While some were arranging a helicopter to

  Bethesda Naval Hospital, others were calling for a hearse to Walter Reed Army Hospital. Seated next to her husband’s coffin, Jackie had already

  decided “Bethesda,” in a Navy ambulance. Jack was after all a Navy man.

  The conversation moved, for the first time, to the place of burial.

  Virtually everyone assumed it would be in Boston. It was, after all, home, 154

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  and Jackie had mentioned she would bring her son and husband together

  now. She heard their voices, but she was lost in the memory of a conversation she’d had with him two years prior, after she returned to the White House following the funeral of a friend. “He must be buried in Boston,” said Kenny,

  “and don’t you let them change it.”

  Absorbed in her own agony and dazed in grief, she nodded, remembering

  their conversation. “Where will we be buried…Jack?” she had asked him.

  “Hyannis, I guess,” he replied. “We’ll all be there.”

  “I think you should be buried in Arlington,” she said. “You…belong to

  all of the country.”

  Jack made a characteristic self-deprecating comment about pharaohs’

  tombs. He did belong to all the country, which, forty thousand feet below him, was now focused on their murdered president, his widow, and when

  they would land in Washington. 359

  The day’s darkness gave way to night as Air Force I approached Andrews

  Air Force Base. Still scrambling through the logistics of deplaning, uncertainty reigned. Who would walk down which ramp? What was protocol? President

  Johnson would speak, as exhibiting government continuity was a paramount concern. This was why Jackie, through the numbness of her personal agony, chose to stand with Johnson when he took the oath. The world would witness the unwavering United States government in the hands of the new president.

&nbs
p; However, it was equally clear that the deportment of Jacqueline Kennedy would leave its own indelible mark. The presidency belonged to Lyndon Johnson, but it was the thirty-four-year-old widow who held the hearts of his people.

  Chaos and confusion now spilled over to those on the ground at Andrews.

  An honor guard had gathered to receive the body of their commander-in-

  chief. TV reporters were telling their viewers that the body would be flown by helicopter to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

  Approaching Andrews, Dave Powers sought out Agent Roy Kellerman.

  His eyes filled with tears. “Roy,” he began, “Mrs. Kennedy wanted me to tell 155

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  you she would like the agents who worked for President Kennedy, along

  with those of us on his staff, to carry the casket off the aircraft.” Struggling to maintain his composure, he continued, “And she wants Bill Greer to

  drive the vehicle…to transport the president to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

  She said how much Jack loved…all of you and she knows how much you’re

  suffering.” 360

  Colonel Swindal brought Air Force I to rest, and the ramp was wheeled

  into place at the front of the plane. As staff members disembarked, a

  shadowy figure battled his way up the stairs to get on the plane. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had but one thing on his mind: get to Jackie. Tears streaming down his face, passing by people he never really saw, he worked his way to the rear of the plane and found her. “Jackie,” he said, placing his arm around her. “I’m here.” 361 They embraced and wept in each other’s arms.

  The door swung open, and a yellow truck, equipped with a hydraulic lift, nestled under the rear door, the same door Jack and Jackie had exited merely hours before.

  “There’s a helicopter here to take you to the White House,” Bobby

  informed her. “Don’t you want to do that?”

  “No, no,” she softly replied. “I just want to go to Bethesda.” And catching a glimpse of the gray ambulance, she said, “We’ll just go in that.” 362

  A six-member honor guard, representing each group of the U.S.

  military, waited to bear the body of their fallen leader. Powers, O’Brien, and O’Donnell led the contingent as they struggled to move their boss. As gently as the coffin’s weight allowed, they rested it in the hydraulic box and waited to be lowered. The lowering complete, Powers and O’Brien lifted

  each corner to the edge of the lift. As Powers jumped, fifteen men scurried towards them, reaching for the coffin. Among them was the honor guard,

  without ceremony and absent of formation; some assisted in the coffin’s

  removal and then deferred to the men in suits, who eased the coffin into the back of the U.S. Navy ambulance. Jackie appeared, hand in hand with

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  Bobby, covered with the dark stains of Jack’s blood. The world witnessed

  “what they had done to Jack.”

  Angier Biddle Duke, the White House chief of protocol, recalled the

  scene twenty-five years later. “It was a stark scene…devoid of ceremony…

  almost ugly in its reality…no speeches, no words. It was purely functional, mechanical…To see the coffin go into a vehicle…Mrs. Kennedy put in a

  car. Not a word was said by anybody…It was one of the lowest points…in

  anybody’s lives.” 363

  With assistance from Bobby and Clint Hill, Jackie half jumped and was

  half lifted to the ground. She gracefully walked to the ambulance, grasping the rear door handle, which was locked. Several men sprang into action

  opening the door, allowing her and Bobby to enter the back. A helicopter was waiting to take her to the White House, but Jackie was still not ready to leave Jack.

  As requested, Bill Greer got behind the wheel of the ambulance as those

  whom “Jack loved and who were suffering” slid their chief to rest in the back of the ambulance. Although teeming with mind-numbing grief, Jackie

  orchestrated Jack’s final egress. The ugly, misshapen exit, though awash in chaos, was engulfed in symbolism, choreographed by Jackie. The gray

  Navy ambulance rolled away from: the lights, the cameras, the assembled

  congressional delegation, and the first public statement of the nation’s thirty-sixth president. “This is a sad time for all people,” Lyndon Johnson droned into the microphones. “We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me it is a deep personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs.

  Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best that is all I can do. I ask for your help, and God’s.”

  They sat inches from Jack. Jackie, haunted with the day’s mental images and Bobby choked with anguish, both racked with grief. Transfixed and looking past her brother-in-law, Jackie recounted the horrors of Dealey Plaza and 157

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  Parkland Hospital. Bobby, keenly aware of her need to purge, sat quietly listening as, for twenty minutes, she vividly spilled the gruesome details of her odious ordeal. The ride through Washington for him was a trip through the fifteen-year journey he had shared with his brother from the halls of Congress to the White House.

  They arrived at Bethesda’s front entrance, and for the first time since

  she entered the rear of the limousine at Love Field, Jackie left Jack. He was bound for the morgue and she to a suite on the seventeenth floor, where

  family and intimates were gathering. Already waiting were Jean Kennedy

  Smith, Ben and Toni Bradlee, Jackie’s mom and Hughdie, and Nancy

  Tuckerman. Jean was looking out the window when someone said, “She’s

  here.” Ben Bradlee turned, and “there was a totally doomed child, with

  that God-awful skirt, not saying anything, looking burned alive.” Jackie fell sobbing into his arms. Toni and her mom came forward, each offering a word or a touch. Jackie embraced Nancy Tuckerman, relaying how sad

  it was that she had left her home in New York “to take this job…and now

  it’s all over.” “Tucky,” as Jackie called her, was awestruck that in the midst of it all Jackie was thinking of her.

  Once again she endured the onslaught of suggestions that she change

  and/or take a sedative, and once again she remained steadfast in her desire to do neither. All she wanted to do was talk. Dr. John Walsh urged that they

  “leave her alone” and “let her talk herself out.” Talk she did, and once again the nightmare unfolded. She told Walsh of the limousine, Toni and Ben

  Bradlee of her wedding ring, and then she spoke of Patrick’s death. Listening from a distance, Ethel Kennedy whispered to Ben, “How does she do it?” to which Bradlee replied, “She’s purging herself.”

  “It’s the best way,” suggested Dr. John Walsh. “Let her get rid of it, if she can.”

  Defense Secretary Robert McNamara arrived after meeting with

  President Johnson, and he became yet another vessel for Jackie to fill with 158

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  the minutia of her nightmare in Dallas. “She was in that suit,” McNamara recalled, “with the bloody skirt and blood all over her stockings…she just wanted someone to talk to…We were in the kitchen, Jackie sitting on a

  stool and me on the floor…I was concentrating entirely upon her because

  she needed me.” Leaving Jackie, the secretary joined the conversation

  regarding Jack’s burial. Powers, O’Donnell, and O’Brien were now

  steadfast in their desire for a Massachusetts burial, and Jean concurred.

  Bradlee, a native Bostonian, was not on board, nor was McNamara, who

  said so to Bobby. At Bobby’s urging he returned to Jackie in the kitchen and offered her his thoughts on the president’s final resting place. “A president, particularly this president, who has done so much for the nation�
�s spiritual growth and enlarged our horizons and who was martyred this way, belongs

  in a national environment.” 364 This was and had always been Jackie’s

  inclination, and although she was leaning that way, her mind was on the

  more immediate tasks at hand: getting Jack home to the White House and

  the services for Saturday.

  William Walton was at the White House assisting Sargent Shriver with

  funeral plans. He received a message from Jackie: “Just make it as much like Lincoln’s as possible.” Walton called the Library of Congress, requesting “all visual material that’s possible.” They delivered the material right away, and Walton then called several local department stores, procuring “hundreds of yards of black material.” The coup de grace for Walton came “when we

  found Lincoln’s catafalque…that his coffin had rested on…and put it up.” 365

  At about 10:00 p.m., Charlie and Martha Bartlett, who had introduced

  Jack and Jackie, arrived, and Jackie repeated the terrible tale of the motorcade to Charlie. “I gathered she had been talking about it a long time,” he said, and he was taken by the depth of her poise, as her “tears were just a breath away, but they never came.” 366

  Kenny O’Donnell could not get the ring off his mind. Throughout the

  flight it gnawed at him, and he couldn’t shake the thought that she should 159

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  have it. On the day in which the glowing light of hope had been stolen by repugnant wickedness, he wanted to restore some tenderness. He approached Jackie. “I’m going to get that ring back for you,” he told her, and he left the suite, descending to the morgue below where he found Dr. Burkley and expressed his wish. Following the autopsy and before Jack was embalmed,

  Burkley removed the ring. Upstairs, he requested of Bobby that he be allowed to return it to her personally, and with Bobby’s blessing, he entered the small bedroom. He handed Jackie the ring. She expressed her gratitude and that of her husband for all he had done for the president, and then reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she removed a rose he had given her when they were riding in the hearse from the hospital to Love Field. Taken, once again, by the depth and measure of her thoughtfulness and compassion, he struggled to speak. Through his tear-filled heart, he said, “This is the greatest treasure of my life.” 367