The Day Kennedy Was Shot (84 page)

One, which might have induced laughter but didn't, was: “If he has been formally charged with killing the President, how is it he says there is no connection to it?” Henry Wade stared at the man. “I just don't know what he says. He says he didn't do it.” An eager voice shouted: “Was he in Russia? Henry, was he in Russia?” Another voice said: “. . . and he no longer has citizenship to the United States. Is this correct, sir?” Wade said: “I can't verify it or deny it.” “Are you looking for any other suspects at all now that you've got—” “We're always looking for other suspects, but we have none at present.”

”Henry, do you think this is part of the communist conspiracy?” “I can't say that.” “Well, do you have any reason to believe that it might be?” “No, I don't have any reason to believe either way.” “What time will you begin in the morning with him?” “Seven or eight o'clock, I would say, roughly.” The material was growing weaker. Mr. Wade sat quietly. “Do you have some prints on him?” The question was a wild shot, but Wade electrified the group when he said: “They are on their way to Washington at present.” “Who?” “Which?” “What's on the way to Washington?” “The gun. The rifle.” “Both guns?” “Both guns.”

Justice of the Peace Johnston watched with fascination. The questioning turned a corner when the reporters reminded Wade that Oswald said he didn't know he had been charged with the assassination of the President. Wade said he had been filed on. Which was right? “I do not know,” the D.A. replied. “He has just been charged. I know he has been advised of the other and taken before the magistrate.” One of the newspapermen put the question to Johnston: “Did he answer that question whether the man had been advised that he's been charged? The man said here that he didn't know he had been, Dave. How about that?”

David Johnston thought it over. “He has not been advised that the charge of the murder of the President, because he is on capital offense on the other.” The reporters could not decipher the sentence. “He has not been advised?” one asked. The judge said: “He has not been advised.” “When will the arraignment be for the President?” Wade reclaimed his press conference. “I imagine in—tonight sometime.” The interviewers could not seem to let go of the question. “He has not been arraigned on the assassination?” “No.”

“Have there been ballistic tests made locally on the gun?” “No, sir.” On and on, the questions probed. The district attorney said: “Is that all?” but no one responded to that. The men kept asking. One struck ore by inquiring: “Sir, can you confirm the report that his wife said he had in his possession as recently as
last night, or some recent time, the gun such as the one that was found in the building?” “Yes, she did.” Several voices said: “She did?” “She did, but—” “She did what? She did what?” “She said that he had a gun of this kind in his possession.” “Rifle? A rifle?” “Last night?” The district attorney sighed. He was mired in this press conference and he couldn't extricate himself. “Last night,” he said. “It's that—the reason I answer that question—the wife in Texas can't testify against her husband, as you may or may not know.” It was a peculiar rationale. If a wife couldn't testify about the rifle, Ruth Paine could swear that she heard Marina say that the rifle had been stored in a blanket in the garage. Further, the fact that a wife cannot testify would appear to impose a degree of restraint on what a district attorney can repeat of her admissions.

“Mr. Wade, was he under any kind of federal surveillance because of his background, prior to today, today's events?” “None that I know of. We don't have any knowledge—” “Do you think you've got a good case against him?” “I think we have sufficient evidence.” “Sufficient evidence to convince—to convict him of the assassination of the President?” “Definitely. Definitely.”

The district attorney started to move away from the desk. The last few questions came. “What did she say about the gun?” “She said the gun, he had a gun, a gun of this kind in his possession last night.” “Does he give any indication of breaking down?” “No, not particularly.” “Are you willing to say whether you think this man was inspired as a communist or whether he is simply a nut or a middleman?” “I'll put it this way: I don't think he's a nut.” “Does he understand the charges against him?” “Yes.”

The district attorney left with David Johnston. Wade said, “You ought to go up to the jail and have him brought before you and advise him of his rights and his right to counsel and this and that.” Someone stuck a hand between them and both men stared at Jack Ruby. “Hi, Henry!” he said. “Don't you know
me? I'm Jack Ruby. I run the Vegas Club. Henry, I want you to know that I was the one who corrected you.” Ruby kept pumping the hand of the district attorney. Wade introduced David Johnston. The nightclub owner shook hands, and passed a card. It featured a line cut of a nude girl in black stockings holding a champagne glass. The wording read: “Vegas Club. Your Host, Jack Ruby.” Wade murmured that Johnston was a justice of the peace. Jack Ruby shook hands again.

He bowed away from the group and asked two strangers: “Are you Joe DeLong?” “No,” one said. “Why do you want him?” “I got to get to KLIF. I have some sandwiches.” “How about us?” Ruby hurried away. “Some other time,” he said. He had trouble getting the night number of the radio station. The doors were locked after 6
P.M.
There was no way to bring the sandwiches unless he could get someone to unlock the door, and to do this he required the night phone number.

There was a surging excitement in his chest.
^*
He felt that he had been deputized as a reporter. He was helping the press to get the facts straight. Ruby asked nothing in return. He had a compulsion to be a part of this great story. He had to be “in it.” Sandwiches were not enough. Correcting Mr. Wade was not enough. Giving out cards to his nightclubs was not enough. Some recipients smiled, crumpled the card, and dropped it. Others had the effrontery to ask: “What will this get me?” No, it was far better to be part of history than to study it.

Ruby saw a man walking by with a microphone and handed a card to Icarus M. Pappas of WNEW, New York City. Mr. Pappas glanced at it and stuck it in a pocket. Another man carried a portable machine stenciled KBOX. The nightclub owner asked him for the phone number of KLIF and got it. There was a row
of phone booths, and Jack Ruby got into one next to Mr. Pappas, who was phoning New York. KLIF answered the ring and Ruby said: “I'm Jack Ruby. I have some sandwiches and good pickles for DeLong and the night crew. I hear you're working late.”

Outside the booth he could see Pappas trying to attract the attention of Henry Wade. “Hold it a minute,” said the deputized reporter and brought the district attorney to the radio reporter. He popped back into the booth and said: “How would you like an interview with Henry Wade? I can get him for you.” The man at KLIF thought it was fine. Wade was talking to Pappas when Ruby took him by the arm gently and said: “There's a call for you, Henry.” Wade went into the booth and was interviewed.

When it was over, Wade held the receiver for Ruby. “Now,” said Ruby into the phone, “will you let me in?” The night man said: “All right. I'll leave the door open for five minutes. Just five minutes.” The station was a block away. To Ruby it represented a crisis. He could walk the block within five minutes, but the sandwiches and soda were in the car. If he reached the car, he might as well use it to drive to the radio station.

He was up on the main floor, almost trotting, when someone grabbed his arm. “Jack,” said a bright young face, “where is everything happening?” It was Russ Knight, radio reporter of KLIF. He carried a portable taping machine. The novice reporter thought about it for a moment. “Come on downstairs,” he said. Knight was from the station whose attention he was soliciting. It was important to show as many of these people as possible that Jack Ruby could do things for them that they could not do themselves. In the basement, Ruby said: “Henry, this is Russ Knight of KLIF” and hurried back to the main floor.

In a minute, he was out in the cool midnight air, hurrying to the parked car. On the front seat, Sheba sat waiting. Ruby sometimes referred to her as “my wife.” He started the car and moved it quickly to the curb in front of KLIF. There, across the sidewalk, was the door. Ruby parked, grabbed the big bags,
slammed the door, and hurried to the building. The door was locked. The reporter had missed his first deadline.

He stood in front of the door, breathing. He waited ten minutes. Russ Knight came down the street, returning to KLIF with a fresh interview with Henry Wade. “I brought some sandwiches and soda for you guys,” Jack Ruby said. Knight unlocked the door. They went upstairs to the radio station. The Good Samaritan had bought his way in for $9.60.

The several parts of the funeral had been hammered together. Nothing was “finalized,” but Sargent Shriver and his White House “pickup team” could see the outlines and the stages at 1
A.M.
The handsome, square-jawed man who directed the Peace Corps could not sit in Dungan's office any longer. Walking was a necessity. He chose to go all the way across the White House to inspect the decoration of the East Room.

As Shriver stood, he beckoned to David Pearson and Lloyd Wright to follow him. He walked sturdily, purposefully through the curving empty corridor of the main floor. Somewhere ahead, he heard John F. Kennedy speaking. It was strange and depressing to hear once more the clear New England accent of a man who would not be heard in this building again. Mr. Shriver continued ahead. In a small office, empty, a television set was on. Pearson and Wright followed their man to the doorway and watched him take an empty chair.

The President, with chin high, was addressing the people of West Berlin. He was stirring and forceful and, beneath the stand, scores of thousands of Germans turned bright expectant faces upward, like cool petals to a warming sun.
“Ich bin ein Berliner!”
shouted Kennedy in limping German and a deep roar of approval came up from the crowd. Sargent Shriver stood. He left the set on, as though he didn't want to be a party to stilling that voice forever.

At the office of the President, Shriver paused again. A United States marine, stiff in dress blues, guarded the empty
place. He flicked the office lights on, and the bright interior became the natural frame for the voice coming from a box. Every place, every sound was designed to salt sorrow with recollection. The outside walk, between the swimming pool and the Rose Garden, clicked with the Kennedy heels, the Kennedy chuckles when the children rushed him from ahead, the Kennedy laughter when he was in the pool with Dave Powers and Dave said: “I had to learn the breast stroke because it's the only way I can swim and talk to you.” Next to the boxed hedge, the President dozing fitfully behind sunglasses on the lounge, hands behind head, the lean figure as straight as an exclamation point, secretly watching his wife and the children at the swings and the slides.

Shriver was a couple of strides ahead of Wright and Pearson, as the President used to be a couple ahead of O'Donnell and Salinger. The ridiculous recollections could go on and on. Shriver continued along the grand corridors, empty except for a pair of Secret Service eyes at posts along the way. He walked along the main corridor to the East Room and inside. The artist who had studied the Lincoln funeral, William Walton, was lighting a cigarette. Shriver nodded to him and to Richard Goodwin, who had another book in his hand.

“She wants the East Room to be prepared for him,” said Walton, knowing that there was only one “she”—”like it was for Lincoln.” The visitors had known this for hours. So had Walton and Goodwin and Schlesinger. It is possible that Walton was relating this to himself. “If they are going to get here about two-thirty, I doubt that we can match the Lincoln scene. . . .”

There was an artistic disinclination to do the room á la Lincoln. Goodwin said: “They were pretty rococo in those days.” Shriver looked over some of the drawings of ninety-eight years ago and agreed. The catafalque was heavy with black bunting. Mirrors were covered with black gauze, as though the sight of an image alive might bring bad luck. The hanging crystal chande
liers were swathed with circular black; the windows were edged with crepe. It was overdone. To imitate it would be deliberately depressing. Shriver agreed with Walton.

“I think we can capture the right feeling,” said Walton, “and yet adapt it a little more to Jack Kennedy.” The artist decided to make the room mournful without making it sob. The mirrors would have slender skeins of black around the frames, but not across the glass. Bits of black here and there in the room would establish the proper aura of respect for the dead, without darkening the place and robbing it of life.

Pearson said: “Maybe there ought to be a crucifix.” Like everything else thought of or devised that night, it was “sent for.” Christ Himself must be in good taste. When a bloody crucifix was tendered, Sargent Shriver declined it and sent for one in his Maryland home. Someone brought up the option of open casket versus closed. The artist was positive that the President would prefer to have it closed. “Jack didn't like to be touched,” he said quietly to David Pearson. “I doubt whether he would like to be stared at now.”

The elevator door opened on the fourth floor and Deputy Chief Lumpkin and four detectives stepped off. Within the embrasure of heads was Lee Harvey Oswald. He carried his handcuffs forward of his body and he watched the procedure of transfer from Homicide and Robbery Division to the municipal jail with no interest. One of the jailers asked if he had been fingerprinted and mugged, and a detective said: “I think so.” The prisoner knew he had not been photographed. The frisking was repeated. A prisoner's card was filled out by the jailers as a receipt for the custody of Oswald.