Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation Read online

  Bringing the world’s most famous painting to Washington, D.C., has been Jackie’s dream. About a year ago, she made a discreet request to Malraux, who then arranged the loan.

  Now millions of Americans will line up to view the painting before its return to France in March—and all because of Jackie Kennedy.

  John Walker, director of the National Gallery, was against the loan, fearful that his career would be ruined if he failed to protect the Mona Lisa from theft or the damage that might accompany moving a fragile, 460-year-old painting across an ocean in the dead of winter.

  The Mona Lisa has just arrived from France. It will remain in a vault deep below the National Gallery until it goes on view. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  Walker’s task of protecting the painting at the gallery was made much easier when JFK ordered the world’s most elite bodyguards to watch over the precious work of art—none other than the men who would willingly take a bullet to protect the president himself: the Secret Service.

  John and Jackie stand before the Mona Lisa. With them are French Minister of Culture André Malraux; his wife, Marie-Madeleine; and Vice President Johnson. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  * * *

  Of course the Secret Service’s primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of the president, vice president, and other important government officials and dignitaries. Secret Service officers have a special language, including code names for people and places. The president’s Secret Service code name is Lancer. The first lady’s is Lace. Caroline and John are Lyric and Lark, respectively. Almost everything and everyone in the first family’s lives has a code name: LBJ is Volunteer; the presidential car, a Lincoln, is SS-100-X; and the White House itself is Castle. Most subsets of names and places begin with the same first letter: L for the first family, W for the White House staff, and D for Secret Service agents.

  Jackie beams with pleasure at the opening of the exhibit, with Hervé Alphand, the French ambassador to the U.S., and his wife, Nicole. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  John Kennedy’s bodyguards carry .38 revolvers that bulge beneath their suit coats. The Secret Service’s motto is “Worthy of trust and confidence,” and the agents reinforce that message through their poise and professionalism. They are athletic men, many of them with college degrees and military backgrounds. There are eight agents on each of the three eight-hour shifts, and every agent is trained to handle a variety of deadly weapons. The Secret Service headquarters in the White House is a small windowless office at the north entrance to the West Wing, where an armory of riot guns and Thompson submachine guns provides additional firepower. There are several layers of security between JFK and a potential assassin, beginning at the White House gates and continuing right up to the black-and-white-tiled hallway outside the Oval Office, where an agent remains on duty whenever the president is working. Should Kennedy need to summon that agent at a moment’s notice, the president can push a special emergency button beneath his desk.

  A Secret Service agent is only steps behind even when the first lady is shopping. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  Sometimes Secret Service agents spend time on the playground. Robert Foster plays with John Jr. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The easiest place to attack the president is outside the White House. Anytime he leaves, eight Secret Service agents travel ahead of the president to survey his upcoming location. They form a human shield around him as he moves.

  Kennedy throws out the first ball of the 1962 baseball season on opening day at D.C. Stadium. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  For those protecting the president, JFK’s almost manic activity is the toughest part of the job. He likes to appear vigorous in public and often risks his life by wading deep into crowds to shake hands. These moments terrify his security detail. Any crazed lunatic with a gun and an agenda could easily take a shot during times like those. Should that happen, each agent is prepared to place his body between the bullet and the president, sacrificing his own life for the good of the country.

  The first lady arrives for a luncheon in her honor. The head of her Secret Service detail, Clint Hill, is on the far right. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  It helps that the agents truly like JFK. He knows them by name and is fond of bantering with them. Despite this familiarity, the men of the Secret Service never forget that John Kennedy is the president of the United States. Their sense of decorum is evident in the respectful way they address Kennedy. Face-to-face, they call him Mr. President. When two agents talk about him, he is known as “the boss.” And when speaking to visitors or guests, they refer to him as President Kennedy.

  These Secret Service agents are also very fond of Jackie. The agent in charge of her detail, six-foot-tall Clint Hill (code name Dazzle), has become her close friend and confidant.

  Thus, it is almost natural that Secret Service protection be extended to the Mona Lisa. The passionate crowds who will surround da Vinci’s painting are similar to the throngs who scream for JFK and Jackie on their travels around the world.

  That is why the Secret Service never lets down its guard.

  Not yet, at least.

  * * *

  If the Secret Service is aware of Lee Harvey Oswald, that fact is nowhere in any record.

  Their ignorance is not unusual. Why would the powerful Secret Service be watching a low-level former marine living in Dallas, Texas?

  Oswald’s life continues to be defined by a balance of passion and rage. Marina has moved back in with him. On January 27, 1963, as crowds 10 abreast line the streets of Washington to view the Mona Lisa, Oswald orders a .38 Special revolver through the mail. It costs him $29.95. Oswald slides a $10 bill into the envelope, with the balance to be paid on delivery. He keeps the purchase a secret from Marina by having the gun sent to a post office box.

  Oswald has no special plans for his new pistol. Nobody has been making threats on his life, and for now he has no intention of killing anyone. He merely likes the idea of owning a gun—just in case.

  Lee Harvey Oswald is growing more isolated. He has turned a closet in his home into an office. There he writes angrily about the world around him. He becomes increasingly agitated, and people are beginning to fear him.

  On March 12 in Dallas, Oswald decides to buy a second gun. This time it’s a rifle. He buys an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano gun that was made in 1940 and originally designed for Italian infantry use during World War II. This is not a gun designed for hunting animals, but for shooting men. As a former Marine Corps sharpshooter, Oswald knows how to clean, maintain, load, aim, and accurately fire such a weapon.

  The rifle arrives on March 25. Marina complains that they could have used the money for food. But Oswald is pleased with the purchase and gets in the habit of riding the bus to a dry riverbed for target practice.

  On March 31, while Marina is hanging diapers on the clothesline to dry, Oswald steps into the backyard dressed all in black. His new pistol is tucked into his belt. He waves the rifle in one hand and holds copies of two Communist newspapers in the other. He demands that an amused Marina take photographs of him. He plans to send them to the newspapers to show that he is prepared to do anything to support communism.

  On April 6, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald is fired from his job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. His communist rants have grown offensive to coworkers, and his bosses claim he has become undependable.

  On April 10, 1963, Oswald decides it’s time to kill someone.

  Lee Harvey Oswald in his yard, holding his rifle and newspapers. [© Corbis]

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  APRIL 1963

  Washington, D.C.

  THE MAN WITH SEVEN MONTHS TO LIVE is thinking about a faraway war that is gaining steam.

  Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to send American soldiers to Vietnam. He and his advisers were afraid that if Vietnam became communist, the countries around it would, too, and then all of Southeast Asia would turn its back on democracy. But it is
John Kennedy who orders a gradual escalation in the number of troops, hoping to ensure that Vietnam does not fall.

  Kennedy’s good intentions have gone awry, however. The original handful of American “advisers” in Vietnam has now swelled to almost 16,000 pilots and soldiers. They hope to destroy the rebel Viet Cong army that is fighting the U.S.-backed Vietnam government. Thousands of Viet Cong soldiers have been killed—as have thousands of innocent Vietnamese citizens.

  John Kennedy believes that America needs to end the Vietnam conflict, though he is not quite ready to go public with this. “We don’t have a prayer of staying in Vietnam,” he will tell Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charles Bartlett off the record. “Those people hate us. They are going to throw [us] out of there at almost any point. But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and then get the American people to reelect me.”

  Soon after taking office, Kennedy gave the press an update on Communist-held areas in Southeast Asia. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  To safeguard his chances for staying in office, the president cannot, and will not, pull U.S. troops out of Vietnam until after the 1964 election. The war is still popular with voters.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  APRIL 10, 1963

  Dallas, Texas

  ON A HOT APRIL NIGHT, Lee Harvey Oswald hides in the shadows of a Dallas alleyway. His new rifle is pointed at Major General Ted Walker. The 53-year-old West Point graduate is a famous opponent of communism. One of the communist newspapers Oswald subscribes to has targeted the general as dangerous to its beliefs because he publicly warns Americans about the threat of communism.

  Lee Harvey Oswald finds strength in the ideals of communism. He believes that the profit from everybody’s work should be shared equally by all. He thinks if the country were organized that way, then there would be no poor people and everyone would be equal. Perhaps he has forgotten his experiences in the factory in Russia where he was so unhappy.

  After almost a year back home in America, he has become enraged by what he perceives as the injustices he sees around him. He is angry enough to kill any man who speaks out against communism.

  This is why he is aiming his brand-new rifle with murderous intent at Ted Walker’s head.

  Former Major General Edwin A. “Ted” Walker speaks with reporters the morning after a bullet narrowly missed him. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  Walker sits in the study of his Dallas home looking at his 1962 tax returns. The desk lamp is the room’s only light. A small window looks out into the darkness.

  Lee Harvey Oswald’s hiding spot in the alley is just 40 yards away. He watches Walker’s every move through the telescopic sight of his rifle. The sight is so strong that Oswald can see every strand of hair on Walker’s head. He takes aim. He has never shot a man before, or even fired a gun in anger. But he spent hours on the firing range back in his Marine Corps days, and these last few weeks he has been diligently working on his accuracy down in the dry bed of the Trinity River.

  Oswald squeezes the trigger. He fires just one shot. Then he turns and runs as fast and as far as he can.

  * * *

  “I shot Walker,” Oswald breathlessly tells Marina. It’s 11:30 at night. She has been worried sick about his absence.

  A photo of General Walker’s house that was in Lee Harvey Oswald’s wallet when he was arrested. [© Corbis]

  “Did you kill him?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” he replies in Russian.

  “What did you do with the rifle?”

  “Buried it.”

  Oswald turns on the radio to see if he’s made the news yet.

  The Walker assassination attempt is in the newspapers and on the radio the next morning. Oswald hangs on every word, though he is appalled to learn that he missed his target completely. Eyewitnesses claim they saw two men fleeing the scene in a car, and Dallas police are looking for a gun that takes a completely different sort of ammunition from the kind Oswald fired. Oswald is crestfallen. He shot at Walker because he wanted to be a hero in the eyes of the Communist Party; he wanted to be special. Now not only has he botched the shot, but he is worse than a failure—he is anonymous.

  On April 21, Marina sees Oswald getting ready to leave the house with a pistol tucked in his waistband. It’s a Sunday. He’s wearing a suit. Marina furiously demands to know where he’s going. “Nixon is coming,” Oswald tells her. “I’m going to go check it out.”

  The former vice president has just made headlines in the morning paper by demanding the removal of all Communists from Cuba. Like General Walker, Richard Nixon has been making a political name for himself by denouncing Communists.

  “I know how you look,” Marina says. Her husband’s idea of checking out a situation is to fire a shot at a human being. Marina Oswald shoves her husband into their tiny bathroom and forces him to remain there for the rest of the day. By the time she sets him free, Marina hopes that Nixon has left Dallas.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Washington, D.C.

  DESPITE THE CRISES AND LONG HOURS, John Kennedy truly enjoys his job, and it shows. Friends note how much he has grown as a leader during his time in office and the energy with which he tackles his work.

  But there is a flip side to the president’s popularity polls: 70 percent of the nation may love JFK, but the other 30 percent hate him. In Miami, many in the Cuban exile community are bitter about the Bay of Pigs debacle and want revenge. In the South, rage at the president’s push for racial equality is widespread.

  The public lives of the president and his wife required many dinners, parties, and ceremonial occasions. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  JFK is aware of his enemies but is also conscious of the positive news people read each day in the headlines: Gordon Cooper completes America’s longest space flight, orbiting Earth 22 times; the U.S. crop harvest exceeds expectations; Peace Corps volunteers reach 7,000; and the world hails Kennedy’s prodemocracy speech at the Berlin Wall.

  Private time and vacations were few and much cherished by the family. Kennedy loved being on the water. Here he is aboard a U.S. Coast Guard boat off the coast of Maine. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The family at their Cape Cod vacation home, August 4, 1962. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  Despite all the good news, as the year goes on, John Kennedy will be forced to use every bit of his presidential skill to manage a situation that is getting to the boiling point: the civil rights struggle.

  Kennedy was the first president to conduct televised live press conferences that were not edited or delayed. By November 1963 he would hold sixty-four press conferences. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MAY 3, 1963

  Birmingham, Alabama 1:00 P.M.

  “WE’RE GOING TO WALK, WALK, WALK. Freedom … Freedom … Freedom,” the protesters chant as they march out through the great oak doors of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. It is a Friday, and these young black students should be in school. Instead, they have gathered to march for civil rights. Some are less than 10 years old. Most are teenagers. They are football players, homecoming queens, track stars, and cheerleaders.

  The marchers number more than 1,000 strong. All have skipped class to be here. Their goal is to experience something their parents have never known for a single day of their lives: an integrated Birmingham, where lunch counters, department stores, public restrooms, and water fountains are open to all. The protesters plan to march into the white business district and peacefully enter stores and restaurants.

  The Children’s Crusade, as Newsweek magazine will call it, fans out across acre-wide Kelly Ingram Park. “We’re going to walk, walk, walk,” they continue to chant.

  Restrooms, drinking fountains, buses, and movie theaters were segregated in many places in the South in the 1960s. [© Bob Adelman/Corbis]

  They know that this march is not just about publ
ic toilets; this march is an act of defiance. Just four months ago, George Wallace became governor of Alabama. At his inaugural, he proclaimed, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Those words were a call to arms for blacks and whites alike who disagreed with Wallace.

  The Children’s Crusade has now reached the shade of Kelly Ingram Park’s elm trees. The temperature is a humid 80 degrees. Ahead, the marchers see barricades and rows of fire trucks. German shepherds, trained by the police to attack, bark and snarl at the approach of the young students, and an enormous crowd of black and white spectators lines the east side of the park, waiting to see what will happen next.

  Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to the protesters before they set out from the church, reminding them that jail is a small price to pay for a good cause. They know not to fight back against the police or otherwise provoke confrontation when challenged. Their efforts will be in vain if the march turns into a riot.

  Eugene “Bull” Connor is Birmingham’s public safety commissioner. A former Ku Klux Klan member, he is a strict segregationist. He can’t afford to let these kids get to the white shopping district. He has ordered Birmingham firefighters to attach their hoses to hydrants and be ready to open those nozzles and spray water on the marchers at full force—a power so great that it can remove the bark from trees or mortar from a brick building. If the protesters reach the shopping district, using the hoses might damage expensive storefronts. The marchers need to be stopped now.