The Kennedy Half-Century (115 page)

3
. The U.S. Secret Service was established in 1865 to deal with a massive counterfeiting problem that arose once the Civil War had concluded. “After the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, the U.S. Secret Service was specifically designated to protect the president of the United States.” “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.

4
. See Michael K. Deaver,
Nancy: A Portrait of My Years with Nancy Reagan
(New York: William Morrow, 2004), 140. Del Quentin Webber has explained how difficult it was for Mrs. Reagan to get beyond the assassination attempt: “A natural worrier, Nancy Reagan found herself sobbing uncontrollably at times. She lost weight and became panicky whenever her husband left the White House gates …” Del Quentin Webber,
Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan
(New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 223–24. Stuart Spencer, one of Reagan’s closest campaign advisers, had this to say about Mrs. Reagan after the assassination attempt on her husband: “She was scared to death after that. She even lobbied [the president] not to run again. She had real qualms. If she asked me once, she asked me fifteen times whether he should run again or not. It wasn’t the fear of winning or losing. Every time he went out after that, she had a fear of him getting shot. Why did she talk to Joan Quigley and all these astrologers? She was looking for help … [The president] was very fatalistic about it, but she was scared to death. Big change in her.” Stuart Spencer, interview, excerpted in “Reagan Officials on the March 30, 1981 Assassination Attempt,”
http://millercenter.org/academic/oralhistory/news/2007_0330
 [accessed July 13, 2011].

5
. Transcript of LBJ-Hoover telephone call, 10 A.M, November 23, 1963, reprinted in Max Holland,
The Kennedy Assassination Tapes
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 71.

6
. The successful presidential assassins had political motives of various sorts. Lincoln’s John Wilkes Booth was a Confederate sympathizer. Charles Guiteau had sought a political appointment from Garfield and was embittered by his rejection—although he was also
mentally disturbed, if not insane. McKinley’s Leon Czolgosz was an anarchist who wanted to bring down the established order. And Oswald clearly had some combination of political and personal intentions.

7
. David Herbert Donald,
Lincoln
(New York: Touchstone, 1995), 550.

8
. Hans L. Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson: A Biography
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 351.

9
. See Associated Press, “Arrest Two Girls in Plot: Buenos Aires Police Hold Them, with Two Men, as Anarchists.”
New York Times
, December 13, 1928, and Associated Press, “Anti-Hoover Plot Barred by Raid in Buenos Aires; Reds Seized With Bombs.”
New York Times
, December 12, 1928. “CNN’s Gut Check for December 11, 2012,” CNN.com, December 11, 2012,
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/11/cnns-gut-check-for-december-11-2012/
 [accessed December 12, 2012].

10
. Zangara was a mentally disturbed immigrant.

11
. Amy Davidson, “The F.D.R. New Yorker Cover That Never Ran,”
New Yorker
, May 5, 2012,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/the-fdr-new-yorker-cover-that-never-ran.html#slide_ss_0=1
 [accessed January 30, 2013]; Kirk Semple, “This Means Lore!,”
Miami New Times
, September 1, 1993,
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1993-09-01/news/this-means-lore/
 [accessed June 13, 2013]; “Woman Who Diverted Bullet From FDR Dies,”
Associated Press
, reprinted in
Victoria
[Texas]
Advocate
, November 11, 1962; “Florida Corrections, Centuries of Progress, 1933–1935,” Florida Department of Corrections website,
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/timeline/1933-1935.html
 [accessed June 13, 2013].

12
. During the Clinton administration, Congress passed a law limiting Secret Service protection of former presidents to a maximum of ten years. The cost-cutting measure was rescinded in 2013 by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Former chief executives and their spouses now once again receive lifetime protection. See Olivier Knox, “Obama Signs Law Giving Himself, Bush Lifetime Secret Service Guard,” Yahoo! News, January 10, 2013,
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-signs-law-giving-himself-bush-lifetime-secret-184305122-politics.html
 [accessed January 11, 2013].

13
. I have only covered assassination attempts on U.S. leaders. Unfortunately, the practice is worldwide and all too frequent. To offer just a few modern examples: During a live television debate in October 1960, a Japanese Socialist Party Candidate named Inejiro Asanuma was stabbed to death by a seventeen-year-old anticommunist named Otoya Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi told police that his only regret was that he had been unable to kill two other people, the chairman of the Japanese Teachers’ Union and a Communist named Sanzo Nosaka. As briefly mentioned in the text, on August 22, 1962, French president Charles de Gaulle’s black Citroën DS was spotted speeding through the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart, en route with Madame de Gaulle to their estate at Colombey. A host of would-be assassins unleashed a hail of bullets upon the presidential motorcade. One hundred and forty bullets, most of them coming from behind, killed two of de Gaulle’s motorcycle bodyguards; twelve bullets shattered the Citroën’s rear window and punctured its rear tires. The unarmored car went into a front skid, but de Gaulle’s skilled chauffeur was able to accelerate out of it and drive the presidential party to safety. On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times while blessing crowds in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The gunman was a twenty-three-year-old Turk named Mehmet Ali Agca. The pope came close to death but managed to recover. On June 13, 1981, Marcus Serjeant, a seventeen-year-old British national, aimed a pistol at the queen and fired six rounds (blanks) before being overcome by guardsmen. The queen was on horseback, riding in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, when the shots were fired. On
November 4, 1995, a twenty-seven-year-old Jewish law student fired three shots at Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who died from his injuries.

14
. On December 19, 1960, President Eisenhower sent a letter to President-elect Kennedy that read, “I regret that it did not occur to me, earlier, to offer you as president-elect one facility that might be of some possible use, namely the use of a governmental plane. Knowing something about the problems of the Secret Service and their work in providing for the safety of the president-elect and his family, I think it possible that the use of such a plane, during this interregnum, might be of real utility to you.” Kennedy wrote back on December 21: “Fortunately, I have been able to use the same plane that carried us through the fall and as I do not plan to travel very much between now and the 20th of January I believe it will serve us very satisfactorily.” Personal correspondence, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kansas.

15
. See “Nab 2 Gun Toters at Rally for Kennedy; 1 Is Minister,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, November 5, 1960; “2 Armed Men Seized in Kennedy Crowd,”
New York Times
, November 5, 1960; and “Pair Meant Kennedy No Harm, Police Say,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 7, 1960; see also
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=450993452&sid=2&Fmt=10&clientId=8772&RQT=309&VName=HNP
. The men appeared in Chicago Municipal Court on November 15, 1960, after the election. Unfortunately, those court records, and the accompanying police reports, have been destroyed and no further information is available. Telephone interview with Cook County Clerk of Circuit Court Archivist Phil Costello, July 5, 2011.

16
. Blaine,
Kennedy Detail
, 51–52.

17
. According to the journalist Eliot Kleinberg, Pavlick was also “violently anti-Catholic.” See Kleinberg, “Kennedy Almost Slain in Palm Beach,”
Palm Beach Post
, November 24, 2011.

18
. For a thought-provoking look at what might have happened had Pavlick succeeded, see Jeff Greenfield,
Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan
(New York: Putnam, 2011). Although Pavlick spent several years in psychiatric hospitals after the assassination attempt, the charges against him were eventually dropped. See Eliot Kleinberg, “Palm Beach Police Foiled Plot to Kill JFK,”
Palm Beach Post
, December 1, 2011,
http://www.historicpalmbeach.com/eliot-kleinberg/2011/12/palm-beach-police-foiled-plot-to-kill-jfk/
 [accessed December 6, 2011].

19
. Bill Dedman, “Ted Kennedy FBI File Reveals Threats,” msnbc.com, June 14, 2010,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34248485/ns/us_news-life/t/ted-kennedy-fbi-file-reveals-threats/
 [accessed July 21, 2011]; Jack Pickell, “FBI Message to Hoover Included Glib Remark on Kennedy,”
Boston Globe
, boston.com, June 14, 2010,
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/06/fbi_letter_to_h.html
 [accessed July 21, 2011].

20
. The Secret Service began providing protection for presidential and vice presidential candidates shortly after RFK’s assassination. Congress issued a joint resolution (H.J.Res. 1292) on June 6, 1968, which authorized the Secret Service to “furnish protection to persons who are determined from time to time … as being major presidential or vice presidential candidates who should receive such protection (unless the candidate has declined such protection).”
http://www.cq.com/graphics/sal/90/sal90-331.pdf
 [accessed July 22, 2011].

21
. I witnessed just such a breakdown when Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appeared before my students in February 2008 at the University of Virginia. At a certain point, with the screening going slowly and the candidate’s schedule in jeopardy, many people in line were simply waved through with a cursory glance. I agree with author
Ronald Kessler’s assessment that the Secret Service “began cutting corners in 2003 after it was merged into the Department of Homeland Security.” Under the auspices of DHS, Kessler argues, the Secret Service has been forced to “compete for funds with other national security agencies,” which has “led to a lowering of standards.” See Ronald Kessler, “Secret Service Cost-Cutting Leaves President Vulnerable,” Newsmax, October 17, 2011,
http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Secret-Service-Obama-Iranian/2011/10/17/id/414749
 [accessed October 17, 2011].

22
. Telephone interview with Ari Fleischer, February 19, 2013; David Montgomery, “No Handshake Man at Obama Inauguration,”
Washington Post
, November 20, 2008,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/19/AR2008111904366.html
 [accessed February 20, 2013]; Chidanand Rajghatta, “Bush’s Security and the Handshake Man,”
The Times of India
, February 9, 2003,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2003-02-09/us/27268782_1_weaver-secret-service-national-prayer-breakfast
 [accessed February 20, 2013].

23
. In 2009, Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed a state dinner being held in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A third uninvited guest, Carlos Allen, evaded security by arriving with a group of Indian businessmen who were late for the dinner. See Helene Cooper and Rachel L. Swarns, “At Obama’s First State Dinner, the First Crashers,”
New York Times
, November 25, 2009, and Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, “Secret Service Confirms Third Crasher at White House State Dinner,”
Washington Post
, January 5, 2010.

24
. Of course, it is probably impossible to protect high officials from every threat. In February 2005, Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri of Lebanon was killed when a massive car bomb exploded beside his motorcade. Al-Hariri was traveling in a fully armored limousine at the time with two security cars ahead of him and two more, plus an ambulance, following closely behind. The prime minister’s security agents were also using sophisticated electronic equipment designed to jam remote-controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The attackers were able to bypass these security arrangements by loading a van with a metric ton of explosives and ordering a suicide operative to detonate his deadly cargo when the motorcade passed by. See Scott Stewart, “Lebanon: Lessons from Two Assassinations,”
Stratfor Global Intelligence
, November 15, 2012,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/lebanon-lessons-two-assassinations
 [accessed December 17, 2012].

25
. See Daniel Stashower,
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War
(New York: Minotaur Books, 2013).

26
. Robert Young, “Johnson Guarded by 2,000 in N.Y.,”
Chicago Tribune
, December 9, 1963; Robert Alden, “Johnson to Attend Lehman’s Funeral In City Tomorrow,”
New York Times
, December 7, 1963.

27
. Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen confirmed this White House view in a personal interview, May 4, 2010, Charlottesville, Virginia.

12. THE ASSASSINATION AND THE KENNEDY LEGACY

1
. As explained by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, authors of
Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination
, the “1992 JFK Act requires all government JFK assassination files to be released by 2017, but OMB Watch has stated that ‘well over a million CIA records’ related to the assassination remain unreleased. Even worse, the CIA stated in a
lawsuit last year that they might withhold files related to JFK’s assassination even beyond 2017.” Legacy of Secrecy official website,
http://www.legacyofsecrecy.com/tell.html
 [accessed August 16, 2011].