The Kennedy Half-Century (91 page)

2004. President George W. Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy talk during the December 3, 2004, signing of a bill increasing educational opportunities for those with disabilities. Despite many political differences, Bush and Kennedy made common cause in educational policy.

2008. Caroline Kennedy joined her uncle Ted on January 28, 2008, at American University in giving the Kennedy blessing to Senator Barack Obama. They compared Obama with their father and brother, saying both JFK and Obama had inspired a younger generation to get involved. Given the closeness of the Obama-Clinton contest, the Kennedy imprimatur may well have made the difference.

Notes

INTRODUCTION: THE BIRTH OF A LEGACY

1
. “Etymology: Medieval Latin
legatio
, from Latin
legare
to bequeath,” Dictionary.com,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/legacy
 [accessed July 13, 2011].

2
. See Eyal J. Naveh,
Crown of Thorns: Political Martyrdom in America from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr
. (New York: New York University Press, 1990), 1.

3
. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon are both excellent examples. But JFK’s martyrdom has minimized the impact of revelations about his private life, while Nixon’s resignation in the midst of scandal has given his image no protection.

4
. Merrill D. Peterson,
The Jefferson Image in the American Mind
(Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation and University of Virginia, 1998), xiii.

5
. Few presidents have ever had as devoted a group of aides determined to shape his image long after his death as has John Kennedy. See John Hellmann,
The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

6
. Hart Research Associates, “Internet Survey of 2,009 Adults Nationally,” June 7–13, 2012,
http://survey-na.researchnow.com/wix/p337243575.aspx
 [accessed September 12, 2012] and “Focus Group Interviews in Richmond, Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California: Men and Women, 55 and Older, 40–54, 30–39, and 20–29,” July 11–18, 2012. Commissioned by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, all rights reserved.

1. “PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED AT 1 P.M. CENTRAL STANDARD TIME”

1
. Kenneth P. O’Donnell, David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy,
“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 26.

2
. Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–63
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 693; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 1023. Jackie’s chief secret service agent, Clint Hill, says that the Roosevelts tried to talk her out of making the trip to Dallas. See Clint Hill,
Mrs. Kennedy and Me
(New York: Gallery Books, 2012), 266–67. Hill does not specify which Roosevelts, but he is probably referring to FDR son James Roosevelt and his wife. Gerald Blaine, one of the other agents assigned to the Texas detail, told me that the “trip to Dallas was like any other trip the president took. There were no special concerns and the president loved his reception.” E-mail from Gerald Blaine, January 9, 2013. The split was between the liberal
wing of the Texas Democratic Party (led by Senator Ralph Yarborough) and the conservative wing (led by Governor John Connally). According to the PBS journalist Bill Moyers, this infighting weighed heavily on JFK’s mind in the weeks leading up to the Dallas trip, and he ordered Moyers to fly to Texas ahead of time to calm the waters. When Moyers resisted, citing his responsibilities at the Peace Corps, Kennedy said, “Well, Bill, I’ll tell you what: You go to Texas and think about politics and I’ll be here in Washington thinking about the Peace Corps. Okay?” Needless to say, Moyers went to Texas. Bill Moyers, letter to Jeb Byrne, April 13, 2010, forwarded by Harold Pachios via e-mail, December 6, 2011.

3
. Connally’s use of the word “murdered” presaged what the governor would cry out just after having been shot on 11/22/63: “My God, they’re going to kill us all!”

4
. “Phone Call Between President Kennedy and John Connally, November 7, 1962,” YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYZBePl4Lk&feature=channel&list=UL
 [accessed September 4, 2012].

5
. Vincent Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 24–25. JFK visited Dallas three times during his presidency. The other two trips were on October 9, 1961, when he visited House Speaker Sam Rayburn in the hospital, and a November 18 return trip for Rayburn’s funeral. E-mail from Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, January 17, 2012.

6
. You can see the Warren film for yourself at
http://www.jfk.org/go/collections/ward-warren-film
 [accessed January 15, 2013].

7
. The fiction writer Stephen King published a bestseller in 2011 with a similar story line. King’s protagonist, Jake Epping (a divorced high school teacher who is unhappy with life in the twenty-first century), discovers a time tunnel to 1958, which he uses in an attempt to stop the Kennedy assassination. See Stephen King,
11/22/63: A Novel
(New York: Scribner, 2011).

8
. Barbara A. Perry,
Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 176;
The Lost JFK Tapes: The Assassination
, DVD, directed by Tom Jennings (Washington, DC: National Geographic Video, 2010).

9
. A local television reporter narrated the event live for Dallas area viewers: “President in obvious good spirits … and here they come. Right down toward us. And the people who have waited all morning in suspense are rewarded with a close look and a handshake with the president of the United States and his wife. Boy, this is something. The press is standing up high, getting a lot of shots of this. He’s broken away from his clan and gone right up to the fence to shake hands with people. This is great for the people and makes the eggshells even thinner for the Secret Service, whose job it is to guard the man … Back they go to the cars.”

10
. Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin,
The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence
(New York: Gallery Books, 2010), 200.

11
. Lehrer’s wasn’t the only journalistic career given an unexpected boost by the assassination. Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, who both went on to celebrated careers at CBS, were reporters in Dallas at the time, and both managed to get major scoops from the tragic events. See Ciera Lundgren, “Bob Schieffer Explains How JFK’s Assassination Shaped His Career,” CBS News, October 11, 2011,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20118863-503544.html
 [accessed October 13, 2011] and Alan Weisman,
Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006), 39–52. Interview with Jim Lehrer, April 20, 2011.

12
. Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 196–202.

13
. “Report of United States Secret Service on the Assassination of President Kennedy,” C. Douglas Dillon Papers, Box 43, Folder “The President’s Committee on the Warren Report,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts;
Guide to U.S. Elections
, vol. 1, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 789; Telephone interview with Ralph Dungan, May 24, 2011.

14
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 28–31; Jim Bishop,
The Day Kennedy Was Shot
(New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968), 116–17; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 204–5.

15
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 31; “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Chapter 3: The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository,” 68. JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-3.html#witnesses
 [accessed March 8, 2011].

16
. Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 206.

17
. 
The Lost JFK Tapes: The Assassination
. DVD, 2010; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 51, 196, 206; “United States Secret Service Lecture Outline on Protection of the President for Guidance of Special Agents Appearing Before Police Schools,” C. Douglas Dillon Papers, Box 42, Folder “The President’s Committee on the Warren Report,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Bob Greene, “The Man Who Did Not Kill JFK,”
CNN Opinion
, October 24, 2010,
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-24/opinion/greene.jfk.arrest_1_ken nedy-family-mansion-election-lee-harvey-oswald?_s=PM:OPINION
 [accessed March 18, 2011]; “Crime: The Man from Peyton Place,”
Time
, December 26, 1960,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895131,00.html
 [accessed March 18, 2011]; Philip Kerr, “JFK: The Assassin Who Failed,”
New Statesman
, November 27, 2000,
http://www.newstatesman.com/200011270016
 [accessed March 18, 2011].

18
. “Report of United States Secret Service on the Assassination of President Kennedy,” C. Douglas Dillon Papers, Box 43, Folder “The President’s Committee on the Warren Report,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

19
. Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 207–8.

20
. “Report of United States Secret Service,” Dillon Papers, Box 43, Kennedy Library.

21
. “Report of the President’s Commission, Chapter 3,” 68–71.

22
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Chapter 4: The Assassin,” 149–54. JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-4.html
 [accessed March 9, 2011]; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 47–48.

23
. “Report of the President’s Commission, chapter 4” 149–54; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 47–48.

24
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 55–65.

25
. Hugh Aynesworth, a journalist for the
Dallas Morning News
, interviewed Roberts on the day of the assassination; she did not mention the police car during this interview. Nor did she mention it during a second interview with Aynesworth. During two subsequent interviews with the reporter, however, she expanded upon her story, even recalling a number on the police car—though the number was different in two separate tellings. It is impossible to say what actually happened. The Dallas police have no record of a cruiser in her neighborhood at one P.M. on 11/22/63, but in the massive confusion of the day, a police car might have been there, for whatever reason—innocent or nefarious, as discussed in a later chapter.

26
. United Press International scooped the story. At 12:34 P.M., four minutes after the shooting, Merriman Smith, UPI’s Dallas correspondent, called in the incident from a radiophone in the White House press pool car; he held the lone phone away from another reporter, AP’s Jack Bell, and didn’t give it to Bell until they had arrived at Parkland Hospital. Smith’s report quickly spread across the globe. Smith is also the person who first called the strip of green on the right side of Dealey Plaza “the grassy knoll.” A myth exists among the public that breaking news reports in the 1960s were more accurate than modern ones. An honest review of the record, however, shows that reporters covering the Kennedy assassination made mistakes and spread misinformation in the same way their counterparts have done during recent crises such as the Boston Marathon bombing. CBS initially told viewers that “a man and a woman” had fired shots at President Kennedy and Governor Connally using a machine gun; that a Secret Service man had been killed in a hail of gunfire; that the Secret Service had arrested a suspect when the chief murder suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was still at large; and that “a witness saw a colored man fire three shots” from the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. See “Two Hours of Uncut 11/22/63 CBS-TV Coverage, Starting at 1:30 P.M.,” YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Ry9-bpixM
 [accessed April 23, 2013].