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

  “I am going home to get some curtain rods,” Oswald replies.

  Oswald then steals a length of brown wrapping paper from the depository’s shipping department. He spends the rest of his workday making a bag in which to conceal his rifle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Fort Worth, Texas 7:30 A.M.

  “IT’S RAINING,” SAYS GEORGE THOMAS, stepping inside John Kennedy’s Fort Worth hotel suite. The president’s valet wakes him up at 7:30 A.M. A crowd is already gathering in the parking lot eight floors below, waiting to hear Kennedy speak to them from the back of a flatbed truck. The audience of nearly 5,000 is mostly male union workers. Many have been standing in the rain for hours.

  “That’s too bad,” Kennedy replies to his valet. Rain means that the bubble-top roof will be buckled onto his limousine for the Dallas motorcade. Not only will the local citizens be upset by having to wait in the cold and rain for hours until he passes by, but their inability to get a clear glimpse of the president and first lady inside the bubble will do little to secure their votes next November.

  The president wraps himself in his back brace, tightly adjusting the straps. He then dresses in a blue suit, a dark blue tie, and a white shirt with gray stripes. He reads the CIA situation reports and scans several newspapers. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Jackie just might be the pivotal factor in helping him get reelected in 1964. That’s the best news of this trip so far: Everyone loves the first lady. The people of Texas screamed and cheered for JFK on the first day of the Texas trip. But as big as his ovations are, and as intently as the audiences hang on every word of his speeches, the receptions John Kennedy receives are nothing like what his wife is experiencing. Jackie is the talk of Texas, and bringing her along may just be the smartest political move the president has ever made.

  Kennedy speaks to the crowd from a decorated truck flatbed outside his hotel. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  By 9:00 A.M., John Kennedy is standing on the back of the flatbed truck, looking upbeat and triumphant. “There are no faint hearts in Forth Worth,” he says approvingly to the crowd. He has a well-deserved reputation for not giving in to the elements. The union workers knew their waiting in the rain would be rewarded and that the speech would not be canceled.

  “Where’s Jackie?” someone shouts.

  “Where’s Jackie?” yells another voice.

  John Kennedy smiles and points up to her hotel room. “Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself,” he jokes. “It takes longer,” the president adds. “But, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it.”

  The crowd roars in laughter.

  Kennedy pushes into the crowd in Fort Worth, Texas, November 22, 1963. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The energy in the Fort Worth parking lot fuels the president, who delivers a powerful and impassioned speech. “We are going forward!” he exclaims in closing, reminding his audience that he is keeping the promises he made in his inaugural address less than three years earlier.

  The earsplitting cries of approval from those thousands of hardened union men is all the proof John Kennedy needs that Texas really isn’t such a bad place after all.

  The president rides a wave of adrenaline off the stage and back into the hotel. Campaigning revitalizes him, even in an early-morning Texas drizzle.

  But as good as he feels, the president knows that the rest of Friday, November 22, is not going to be easy. From both a political and a personal standpoint, he must be at the top of his game if he is going to win over the hardened people of Dallas.

  President Kennedy and Jackie leave their Fort Worth hotel on the way to the airport for the short flight to Dallas. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas 7:55 A.M.

  OSWALD AND WESLEY FRAZIER ARE PULLING UP for work at the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald, leaping out of the car as Frazier cuts the engine, grabs his brown package and races inside the building before Frazier can catch up and ask him why he’s in such a hurry.

  9:45 A.M.

  Crowds of eager Dallas residents stand on the curb in front of the Texas School Book Depository. The president won’t pass by for three hours, but they’ve come early to get a good spot. Best of all, it looks like the sun might come out. Maybe they’ll get a good glimpse of John F. Kennedy and Jackie after all.

  Lee Harvey Oswald peers out a first-floor window of the depository building, assessing the president’s route by where the crowds stand. He can clearly see the corner of Elm and Houston, where John Kennedy’s limousine will make a slow left turn. This is important to Oswald. He’s selected a spot on the depository’s sixth floor as his sniper’s roost. Stacks of book boxes near the window overlooking Elm and Houston form a natural hiding place, allowing Oswald to poke his rifle outside and sight the motorcade as it makes that deliberate turn. The marksman in Lee Harvey Oswald knows that he’ll have time for two shots, maybe even three if he works quickly enough.

  A modern photograph looking out the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. The tall building in the background is Reunion Tower. [LOC, HS 503-3330]

  But one should be all he needs.

  11:35 A.M.

  Colonel Jim Swindal eases Air Force One down onto the runway at Love Field. John Kennedy is optimistic. Peering out the windows of his airplane, he sees that the weather has turned sunny and warm and another large Texas crowd is waiting to greet him. “This trip is turning out to be terrific,” he happily confides to Kenny O’Donnell. “Here we are in Dallas, and it looks like everything in Texas will turn out to be fine for us!”

  Kennedy shakes hands with Colonel Jim Swindal at his promotion in 1962. Swindal is the pilot of Air Force One. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  Police cars circle the field, and officers are stationed on rooftops. But these are the only ominous sights at the airport. The welcoming party of about 2,000 are overjoyed to see Air Force One touch down, marking the first time a president has visited Dallas since 1948. Texans Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Claudia, who is called Lady Bird, wait on the tarmac to greet the president. Jackie emerges from the rear door of the plane, radiant in her pink Chanel suit with the matching pillbox hat. Two steps behind comes John Kennedy.

  “I can see his suntan all the way from here!” the local TV reporter gushes.

  President Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy arrive in Dallas, Texas. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The official plan is for JFK to head straight for his limousine to join the motorcade, but instead he breaks off and heads into the crowd. Not content with merely shaking a few hands, the president pushes deep into the throng, dragging Jackie along with him. The two of them remain surrounded by this wall of people for more than a full minute, much to the crowd’s delight. Then the president and first lady reemerge, only to wade deep into another section of crowd.

  A large crowd was waiting at Love Field. The president once again spent time shaking hands and signing autographs. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  “Boy, this is something,” says the local reporter. “This is a bonus for the people who have waited out here!”

  The president and first lady shake hands for what seems like an eternity to their very nervous Secret Service detail. “Kennedy is showing he is not afraid,” Ronnie Dugger of the Texas Observer writes in his notebook.

  Finally, John and Jackie Kennedy make their way to the presidential limousine. Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, are waiting for them in the car. There are three rows of seats in the vehicle. Up front is the driver, 54-year-old Bill Greer. To his right sits Roy Kellerman—like Greer, a longtime Secret Service agent. Special Agent Kellerman has served on the White House detail since the early days of World War II and has protected presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and now Kennedy.

  JFK sits in the back seat. Jackie sits to his left. The
first lady was handed a bouquet of red roses upon landing in Dallas, and these now rest on the seat between her and the president.

  Governor Connally sits directly in front of the president, in the middle row, known as jump seats. Connally takes off his 10-gallon hat so that the crowds can see him. Nellie sits in front of Jackie and right behind the driver.

  The president with Jackie seated behind Texas governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie. [LOC, USZ62-134844]

  11:55 A.M.

  As the motorcade leaves Love Field, the presidential limousine—Secret Service code name SS-100-X—is the second car in line, flanked on either side by four motorcycle escorts. Up front is an advance car with local police and Secret Service, among them Dallas police chief Jesse Curry and Secret Service special agent Winston Lawson.

  Behind John Kennedy’s vehicle is a follow-up convertible code-named Halfback. Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell sit here, surrounded by Secret Service agents heavily armed with handguns and automatic weapons. Clint Hill, head of the first lady’s Secret Service detail, stands on the left running board of Halfback. Special agents Bill McIntyre, John Ready, and Paul Landis also man the running boards.

  Car four is a convertible limousine that has been rented locally for the vice president. Bringing up the rear is car five, code-named Varsity and occupied by a Texas state policeman and four Secret Service agents.

  Way up at the front of the motorcade, driving several car lengths in front of SS-100-X, Dallas police chief Jesse Curry is committed to making the president’s visit as incident-free as possible. Curry has been involved in almost every aspect of the planning for John Kennedy’s visit and is dedicating 350 men—a full third of his force—to lining the motorcade route, handling security for the president’s airport arrival, and policing the crowd at the Trade Mart speech.

  Curry has ordered his men to face toward the street, rather than toward the crowd, thinking it wouldn’t hurt for them to see the man they’re protecting as a reward for the long hours they will be on their feet. But this means that the policemen won’t be helping the Secret Service protect the president by scanning the city’s many windows for signs of a sniper’s rifle. And Curry has chosen not to position any men in the vicinity of Dealey Plaza, thinking that most of the crowds will gather before that spot.

  Crowds greet the presidential motorcade. The Secret Service ride in the car behind the president’s limousine. [© Associated Press]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas Noon

  IT’S LUNCHTIME AT THE Texas School Book Depository. Most of Lee Harvey Oswald’s coworkers have left the building, hoping to get a glimpse of the president, so the sixth floor is deserted.

  Just down the block, FBI special agent James Hosty has forgotten all about investigating Lee Harvey Oswald and is just trying to make sure he gets a look at his hero, President Kennedy.

  Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t bring a lunch to work today. And he doesn’t plan on eating. Instead, he gets into position at the window behind the boxes of books.

  At 12:24 P.M., nearly 30 minutes into the motorcade, the president’s car passes Special Agent James Hosty on the corner of Main Street and Field. Hosty gets his wish and sees Kennedy in the flesh, before turning back around and walking into the Alamo Grill for lunch.

  At 12:29 P.M., the motorcade makes the sharp right-hand turn onto Houston Street. From high above, in his sixth-floor sniper’s lair, Lee Harvey Oswald sees John F. Kennedy in person for the first time. He quickly sights his Italian carbine, taking aim through the scope as the motorcade skirts the edge of Dealey Plaza.

  The crowds here are still large and enthusiastic, despite Chief Curry’s prediction that they would have thinned out by this point. The people shout for Jackie and the president to look their way. As they have agreed, JFK waves at the people standing in front of buildings on the right side of the road, while Jackie waves at those standing along grassy Dealey Plaza, to their left. This ensures that no voter goes without a wave.

  The motorcade is just five minutes from the Trade Mart, where Kennedy will make his speech. Almost there.

  Inside the presidential limousine, Nellie Connally stops waving long enough to look over her right shoulder and smile at John Kennedy. “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”

  For most of the trip, Kennedy and Jackie shared smiles on their side of the road. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  At that very moment, if JFK had looked up to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, he would have seen a rifle barrel sticking out of an open window, pointed directly at his head.

  But Kennedy doesn’t look up.

  Nor does the Secret Service.

  It is 12:30 P.M. The time has come for Special Agent Bill Greer to steer the limousine through the sweeping 120-degree left turn from Houston and onto Elm.

  * * *

  Lee Harvey Oswald leans hard against the left window and presses the butt of the Mannlicher-Carcano against his right shoulder. The scratched wooden stock of the gun rests against his cheek. His right index finger is curled around the trigger.

  He peers into his telescopic sight. John Kennedy’s head looks as if it is two feet away. Oswald knows time is short. He’ll be able to shoot two shots for sure. Three if he’s quick. He probably has only nine seconds.

  Seeing his target clearly, Oswald exhales, gently squeezes the trigger, and even as he feels the recoil kick the rifle hard against his shoulder, he smoothly pulls back the bolt to chamber another round. He can’t tell whether the first bullet has done much damage. But that doesn’t matter. Oswald must immediately fire again.

  Because if the first shot somehow misses, just like that shot missed General Walker back in April, and the president lives, Oswald will look like a fool again. And that’s the last thing he wants. No, the plan is to kill John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And Lee Harvey Oswald will see that plan through.

  He doesn’t think twice. Oswald fires again.

  The sound of the second shot is so loud that pieces of the plaster ceiling inside the Texas School Book Depository fall and the panes of the windows Lee Harvey Oswald stands next to rattle.

  Approximately 8.4 seconds after firing his first shot, Lee Harvey Oswald pulls the trigger a third time. And then Oswald bolts. He drops the gun, steps out from the tower of boxes, and runs down the stairs.

  Upon hearing the first shot, Dallas motorcycle officer Marrion Baker raced into the building and up the stairs. He stops Oswald at gunpoint on the second floor but lets him go when it becomes clear that Oswald is an employee.

  Sixty seconds later, the 24-year-old assassin walks out into the sunshine.

  Photograph of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository taken on November 22, 1963. Oswald stood at the window on the right, behind the stacks of boxes. [NARA/JFK Assassination Records]

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963

  Dallas, Texas 12:30 P.M.

  EARWITNESS TESTIMONY IN DEALEY PLAZA will later confirm that three shots were fired from the depository. One of the shots misses the president’s car completely, and decades later, people still wonder whether it was the first or third shot. But the fact remains that two of the shots did not miss.

  People take cover after they hear gunshots. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  The first impact strikes the president in the back of his lower neck. Traveling at 1,904 feet per second, the 6.5-millimeter round tears through the president’s trachea and then exits his body through the tight knot of his dark blue tie. No bones are struck, and though his right lung is bruised, JFK’s heart and lungs still function perfectly.

  The president is badly hurt, but very much alive. He has trouble breathing and talking as blood floods into his windpipe. Otherwise, the rifle shot will most likely not kill him.

  The same cannot be said for Texas governor John Connally. His jump seat, immediately in front of the president, is three inches lower than where the president
is currently sitting. Ballistic studies performed later show that the bullet passed through Kennedy, then entered Connally’s back.

  The governor had turned his body just before Oswald fired the shot. He was twisting around, trying to speak face-to-face with the president. The bullet pierces Connally’s skin and travels through his body, exiting below the right side of his chest. But it isn’t finished. It then pierces the governor’s wrist and deflects off the bones and into his left thigh, where it finally comes to rest.

  The blow knocks Governor Connally forward, bending him double. His chest is immediately drenched in blood. “No, no, no, no,” he cries, “they’re going to kill us all.”

  Roy Kellerman thinks he hears the president yell, “My God, I’m hit,” and turns to look over his left shoulder at the man whose Boston accent he knows so well.

  Kellerman sees that JFK has been shot.

  The torso of a normal man would have been shoved farther forward by the force of a bullet striking his body at nearly twice the speed of sound. This is precisely what happened to Governor Connally. If John F. Kennedy had been knocked forward, he might have lived a long life.

  Clint Hill climbs onto the trunk of the presidential limousine. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  But now the president’s painful struggle with back problems returns to torture him one last time. The back brace that he is wearing holds his body straight up. If not for the brace, the next bullet, fired less than five seconds later, would have traveled harmlessly over his head.

  But it does not. The next bullet explodes his skull.