The Kennedy Half-Century (93 page)

Read The Kennedy Half-Century Online

Authors: Larry J. Sabato

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Modern, #20th Century

58
. “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? 10: Jack Ruby and the Murder of Oswald,”
Frontline
, PBS website,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/view/
 [accessed March 21, 2011]; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 188.
59
. Various advertisements for the Carousel Club, Richard “Chick” Ramirez Collection, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas; “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby,” page 801. JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-16.html
 [accessed March 21, 2011]; “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? 10,” Frontline, PBS website [accessed March 21, 2011]; Hugh Aynesworth with Stephen G. Michaud,
JFK: Breaking the News
(Richardson, TX: International Focus Press, 2003), 166.
60
. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks upon Arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, November 22, 1963,” John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters,
American Presidency Project
[online], Santa Barbara, CA,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25976#axzz1HFMxZC9n
 [accessed March 21, 2011].
61
. These were almost the precise words of my own father.
62
. Interview with James I. Robertson, Jr., May 7, 2013.
63
. Ibid.
64
. Undated interview with James I. Robertson, Jr., “Storytelling with James I. Robertson, Jr.—John F. Kennedy,” Virginia Tech website, University Relations,
http://www.unirel.vt.edu/audio_video/2011/01/2011-01-14-robertson-JFK.html
 [accessed March 24, 2011].
65
. Perhaps Mrs. Kennedy’s decision also spurred the widely seen 1963–64 circular that connected Lincoln to Kennedy. The parallels included elections a hundred years apart, vice presidents named Johnson, and Southern assassins who were known by three names. See “Linkin’ Kennedy,”
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/lincoln-kennedy.asp
 [accessed August 8, 2011].
66
. Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President 1964
(New York: Atheneum, 1965), 9.
67
. Texas law requires autopsies in homicide cases. The district attorney for Dallas County, Henry Wade, very reluctantly allowed the autopsy to be performed in Washington, D.C. The Secret Service agents, angry and in no mood for interference, had insisted. This conflict is discussed in a later chapter.
68
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 299.
69
. Wesley Buell Frazier, who drove Oswald to work on Friday, November 22, said, “I will tell you this, he did not carry lunch with him on Friday. And I noticed that. And I said, ‘You don’t have your lunch with you today?’ because when he rode back with me on Monday he always had lunch. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m going to buy my lunch today.’ ” Telephone interview with Wesley Buell Frazier, April 16, 2013.
70
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 213–18.
71
. Gladwin Hill, “Evidence Against Oswald Described as Conclusive,”
New York Times
, November 24, 1963.
72
. Robert A. Caro,
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 409–10.
73
. James Reston, “Cabinet Convenes,”
New York Times
, November 24, 1963; Gillon,
Kennedy Assassination
, 199–204; E. W. Kenworthy, “Johnson Orders Day of Mourning,”
New York Times
, November 24, 1963; “Johnson Proclaims a Day of Mourning,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, November 24, 1963.
74
. Dan B. Fleming, Jr.,
Ask What You Can Do for Your Country: The Memory and Legacy of John F. Kennedy
(Clearwater, FL: Vandamere Press, 2002), 207–23; Tom R. Taylor,
untitled article in
Quinto Lingo
, November 1971, Box 239, “JFK Tributes 1972,” Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts; “Analysis of World Reaction to President Kennedy’s Assassination,” December 13, 1963, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, RG 263, Box 51, “Personality File of Lee Harvey Oswald,” The National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
75
. James Reston, “Why America Weeps,”
New York Times
, November 23, 1963; “President’s Assassination Brings Statements of Sadness and Shock from Faculty Members,”
Temple University News
, November 25, 1963, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Papers, Box 237, “JFK Commemorative Publications and Tributes, 1963, sent to JPK,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
76
. Interview with Bob Schieffer, March 4, 2013.
77
. Telephone interview with Senator Mitch McConnell, December 2, 2011.
78
. Interview with Lynda Robb, May 22, 2013.
79
. John Glenn to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, Western Union telegram, November 23, 1963, Marlene Dietrich to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Kennedy, RCA Communications Telegram, November 23, 1963, and John Edgar Hoover to the Honorable Joseph P. Kennedy, November 22, 1963, Box 236, “Special Letters, Notes, and Telegrams, etc., 1963,” Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
80
. Tim Weiner,
Enemies: A History of the FBI
(New York: Random House, 2012), 237.
81
. Carolyn H. Williamson to Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, November 27, 1963, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Papers, Box 237, “JFK Commemorative Publications and Tributes, 1963, sent to JPK,” John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
82
. Commander Gerald J. Murray to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, November 23, 1963, Mrs. William J. McCluggage to Mrs. Kennedy, November 29, 1963, Theresa A. Twaddle to Ambassador and Mrs. Kennedy, November 23, 1963, Box 236, “Cards & Letters, 1963,” Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
83
. “Statement by Pope Paul VI, November 23, 1963,” Box 1, Folder 1, William Fine Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.
84
. “Mass card from the Seraphic Mass Association for the support of the Capuchin Foreign Missions, November 24, 1963,” Box 236, Series 10, “Mass Cards from Ireland,” Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
85
. R. Bresnahan to Mrs. Rose Kennedy, November 30, 1963, and Martin J. Maehr to Mr. Joseph P. Kennedy & Family, November 29, 1963,” Box 236, “Cards and Letters, 1963,” Rose Kennedy Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
86
. “Sermon Preached by Reinhold Niebuhr,” Box 1, Folder 1, William Fine Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.
87
. “Sermon Preached by Monsignor John S. Kennedy from Cathedral of St. Joseph, Hartford, Connecticut,” “A Tribute by Dr. Julius Mark, Senior Rabbi of the Congregation, Temple Emanu-el, New York, New York,” “Sermon Preached by Norman Vincent Peale from Marble Collegiate Church, New York, New York,” Box 1, Folder 1, William Fine Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.
88
. Partly because of the black eye Oswald suffered at the Texas Theatre when he resisted arrest, some wrongly suspected Oswald was being beaten by police.
89
. Wayne Thomis, “60 Officers on Scene; Killer Seized,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, November 25, 1963; “A Photographer’s Story: Bob Jackson and the Kennedy Assassination at the Sixth Floor Museum Closing Sunday,”
Dallas Art News
, October 13, 2010,
http://www.dallasartnews.com/2010/10/a-photographers-story-bob-jackson-and-the-kennedy-assassination-at-the-sixth-floor-museum-closing-sunday/
 [accessed March 29, 2011]; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 273–84; Posner,
Case Closed
, 396.
90
. “Analysis of World Reaction to President Kennedy’s Assassination,” December 13, 1963, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, RG 263, Box 51, “Personality File of Lee Harvey Oswald,” National Archives at College Park, Maryland; Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali,
“One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–64
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 347–50; Earl Lively, Jr. and Herbert A. Philbrick, “The Strange Death of President Kennedy” [outline], Box 223, Folders 9 & 10, Herbert Philbrick Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC.
91
. “John Fitzgerald Kennedy Grave Research Report,” LBJ Papers—EX FG 1 3/26/68, Box 18, FG 1, 3/26/68–4/18/68, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.
92
. “A Widow’s Courage Catches at the Heart of a Nation as Kennedy Lies in State,”
New York Times
, November 25, 1963; White,
Making of the President 1964
, 15–16; Mike Mansfield, Earl Warren, and John W. McCormack,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Eulogies to the Late President Delivered in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), available on John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website,
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Miscellaneous-Information/Eulogies.aspx
 [accessed March 30, 2011]; William Manchester,
The Death of a President: November 20–November 25, 1963
(New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 541–42; James Piereson,
Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism
(New York: Encounter Books, 2007), 59.
93
. Manchester,
Death of a President
, 542; Robert Drew,
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
[bonus film:
Faces of November
]. DVD (New York: New Video Group, 2008).
94
. “John F. Kennedy: The Last Full Measure,”
National Geographic
125 (March 1964): 307–55; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 291; Philip Hannan with Nancy Collins and Peter Finney, Jr.,
The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots: Memoir of an Extraordinary Life
(Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2010), 18–22.
95
. Hannan,
Archbishop Wore Combat Boots
, 22; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 295.
96
. “The Last Full Measure,” 350; Barbara Perry,
Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 185–86; “President John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” Arlington National Cemetery website,
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/visitor_information/JFK.html
 [accessed March 31, 2011].
2. “ALL THE MARBLES”
1
. Ruth Aull and Daniel M. Ogden, Jr., eds.,
Official Report of the Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, August 13 through August 17, 1956, resulting in the re-nomination of Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois for President and in the nomination of Estes Kefauver of Tennessee for Vice President
(Richmond: Beacon Press, 1956), 36; Willard Edwards, “Details Given of 1st Day of Convention,”
Chicago Tribune
, August 14, 1956.
2
. John F. Kennedy,
The Pursuit of Happiness
, VHS, produced by Dore Schary (Chicago: International Historic Films, 1985); Aull and Ogden,
Proceedings
, 36.
3
. The CBS decision angered the convention delegates who began shouting “Throw ’em out!” when Paul Butler raised the issue. Sig Mickelson, vice president in charge of news for
CBS, said, “At no time did we make any commitment to carry the Democratic National Committee film ‘Pursuit of Happiness.’ We did not know the film was considered an official part of the keynote address.”
4
. Theodore C. Sorensen,
Kennedy
(New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 86; “40-Vote Bay State Delegation Delays Preference Vote,”
North Adams Transcript
, August 14, 1956; Aull and Ogden,
Proceedings
, 47. Kennedy made a wise decision when he agreed to star in the film. It allowed him to link his name with a long list of Democratic heroes (Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Bryan, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Truman).
5
. Clement attacked the Republicans, referring to Richard Nixon as the “Vice-Hatchet Man” and accusing Eisenhower of peering “down the green fairways of indifference.” At times Clement sounded more like a fire-and-brimstone preacher than a national leader: “You can justify begging God for guidance. You can justify studying the record and after you have done it going out and fighting and singing in unison, you and I together of every race, creed and color, let’s go forward singing in unison the immortal victory hymn, ‘Precious Lord, Take Our Hands and Lead Us.’ ” Aull and Ogden,
Proceedings
, 61. The New York journalist Red Smith almost single-handedly made Clement a laughingstock with a memorable quip: “The young governor of Tennessee, Frank G. Clement, slew the Republican Party with the jawbone of an ass here last night …” Jack Bass and Walter De Vries,
Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 289.

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