The Kennedy Half-Century (92 page)

27
. “Top 125 Most Memorable Political Moments. #1 Assassination of JFK (November 22, 1963),” Museum of Broadcast Communications,
http://www.museum.tv/exhibitionssection.php?page=440
 [accessed March 10, 2011]; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 57.

28
. Mary Ann Watson,
The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 214–15.

29
. Steven M. Gillon,
The Kennedy Assassination
—
24 Hours After: Lyndon B. Johnson’s Pivotal First Day as President
(New York: Basic Books, 2009), 55–57; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 223–25; Hill,
Mrs. Kennedy and Me
, 293; interview with H. B. McLain, March 17, 2011.

30
. Another strange story involves a phone call that was received at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio (headquarters of the 4th Army) a few minutes before the assassination. Between 12:15 and 12:30 CST, a base operator contacted the Deputy Chief of Staff Operations and Training office and asked for help in directing a call from an unidentified man who wanted to speak with the “Silver Dollar War Room.” The operator was told to put the caller through to extension 2703. At approximately 12:25, the caller said, “This is Silver Dollar calling to test communications. I read you loud and clear, loud and clear. How do you read me?” A voice on extension 2703 replied, “I read you loud and clear, loud and clear.” The caller then said, “Roger, over and out,” before hanging up. “Silver Dollar” turned out to be the code word for the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, a specially equipped Air Force jet that had been designed to carry the president and his national security advisers during a nuclear war. Records show that the NEACP plane was in the air between 10:40 A.M. and 2:30 P.M. CST on 11/22. The question is why. Was it just an eerie coincidence? And who was the unidentified male caller? Larry Haapanen and Alan Rogers, “A Phone Call from Out of the Blue,” Mary Ferrell Foundation website,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=4275&relPageId=13
 [accessed May 31, 2011]. In recent years, other strange radio conversations have surfaced that deserve closer scrutiny. A tape of never-before-heard radio traffic from Air Force One was discovered in General Chester Clifton, Jr.’s belongings after he died. Topics on the Clifton tape include General Curtis LeMay’s whereabouts on 11/22; a debate about where to take JFK’s body for the autopsy; and tantalizing
references to various unknown individuals with code names like Monument and WTE. See John Loviglio, “Lost JFK Assassination Tapes on Sale,” Associated Press, November 15, 2011,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hyPT4jp006hsWvJ6SJRquXZ_1qyw?docId=2dccd4eca1584b24974c118c4a50311e
 [accessed November 15, 2011]. Audio excerpts from the Clifton tape can be found at
http://www.raabcollection.com/kennedy-air-force-one-tape/
 [accessed November 15, 2011].

31
. “JFK: Inside the Target Car, Part 1,”
Discovery Channel
, YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e246B581jHo
 [accessed April 20, 2011]; Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 243–45.

32
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Appendix 8: Medical Reports from Doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, Tex.,” 529–30. JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration website,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix8.html
 [accessed March 11, 2011]; Gerald Posner,
Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK
(New York: Anchor Books, 1994), 287–88.

33
. Blaine with McCubbin,
Kennedy Detail
, 229; Posner,
Case Closed
, 287.

34
. Although based on the Eisenhower-Nixon succession agreement (or “Disability of President Memo”), the JFK-LBJ agreement included a telling addition: “There is no provision of the Constitution or of law prescribing any procedure of consultation, but the president and vice president felt, as a matter of wisdom and sound judgment, that the vice president would wish to have the support of the Cabinet as to the necessity and desirability of discharging the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president as well as legal advice from the attorney general that the circumstances would, under the Constitution, justify his doing so.” In other words, JFK and RFK revised the Ike-Nixon agreement in order to rein in LBJ and give RFK more power over the succession. The memo that Eisenhower sent to Nixon is friendlier and less formal: “However, it seems to me that so far as you and I are concerned in the offices we now respectively hold, and particularly in view of our mutual confidence and friendship, we could do much to eliminate all these uncertainties by agreeing, in advance, as to the proper steps to be taken at any time when I might become unable to discharge the powers and duties of the president.” Undated memo from JFK to LBJ, Vice Presidential Papers, 1961 Subject File, Box 119, Folder, “Vice President, Office of,” Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas; Louis Galambos, Daun Van Ee, Elizabeth S. Hughes, Janet R. Brugger, Robin D. Coblentz, Jill A. Friedman, and Nancy Kay Berlage, eds.,
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The Presidency: Keeping the Peace
, vol. XIX (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 711–14.

35
. Gillon,
Kennedy Assassination
, 60–64; “U.S. Constitution: Article II, Section 1,” Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/art2.asp
 [accessed March 14, 2011].

36
. Personal interview with Robert McClelland, January 14, 2011, Dallas.

37
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 291.

38
. G. Paul Chambers,
Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010), 38; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 83–84; Posner,
Case Closed
, 292–93.

39
. Cronkite was not the first journalist to report Kennedy’s death on the air. That sad distinction belonged to Eddie Barker, news director of KRLD television in Dallas. Barker’s unconfirmed report was based on a single but reliable source who worked at Parkland
Hospital. Interview with Eddie Barker, November 20, 2003,
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/kennedy/barker.html
 [accessed March 5, 2012].

40
. “Top 125 Most Memorable Political Moments,” Museum of Broadcast Communications website,
http://www.museum.tv/exhibitionssection.php?page=440
 [accessed March 15, 2011]. Some of those closest to the president were unaware of his passing until later that evening. Gerald Blaine, one of the Secret Service agents assigned to protect Kennedy, first heard the news when his plane touched down at around seven P.M. “The flight contained all of the agents in Austin and also John Bailey, the Democratic Committee chairman,” Blaine told me. “All Air Force [planes] were put on radio silence. It was only after we landed at Andrews Air Force Base that we found out the president was dead.” E-mail from Gerald Blaine, January 9, 2013.

41
. Max Holland believes that Lee Harvey Oswald may have had as much as eleven seconds to fire three shots. Other researchers disagree. See Dale K. Meyers and Todd W. Vaughn, “Max Holland’s 11 Seconds in Dallas,”
Secrets of a Homicide
, June 25, 2007,
http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2007/06/max-hollands-11-seconds-in-dallas.html
 [accessed November 21, 2011]. Holland also believes that the first bullet that missed Kennedy may have struck the “mast arm” of a traffic light on Elm Street, but he admits that further tests are necessary to confirm his theory. See “The DeRonja-Holland Report,” November 20, 2011,
Washington Decoded
,
http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2011/11/the-.html
 [accessed November 28, 2011].

42
. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 609.

43
. Robert Caro, the award-winning LBJ biographer, says that it was RFK, not one of Johnson’s aides, who called Katzenbach for the oath. See Robert Caro,
The Passage of Power
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 328.

44
. As time passed, LBJ and RFK would bicker over the details of their conversation. LBJ gave the impression that taking the oath in Dallas had been Bobby’s idea, which is doubtful on its face. RFK certainly rejected this version of events. Kennedy and some other family loyalists portrayed LBJ as a power-hungry politician who needed immediate control and who perhaps feared that if he didn’t take the oath in Dallas that the Kennedys would somehow find a way to keep the presidency from him. A more neutral appraisal—while not denying that these motives may have played a role—would certainly admit the importance of reassuring a shaken nation of continuity in the Oval Office. Nothing could do that like the visible swearing-in of the next president. And Johnson was already legally the president, oath or not. The Constitution was clear on that point, even before the ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment regarding presidential succession in 1967. Gillon,
Kennedy Assassination
, 114–15.

45
. Bishop,
Day Kennedy Was Shot
, 231–44.

46
. Ibid., 210.

47
. Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 10.

48
. Amanda Hopkinson, “Cecil Stoughton: Kennedy’s In-House Photographer, Best Known for Capturing the Swearing-in of LBJ,”
The Guardian
, November 20, 2008,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/photographer-obituary-cecil-stoughton
 [accessed March 16, 2011]; “President Lyndon B. Johnson Taking the Oath of Office: November 22, 1963 and Beyond,” Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum website,
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/kennedy/index.htm
 
[accessed March 16, 2011]; Bishop,
Day Kennedy Was Shot
, 243.

49
. The announcement was also broadcast over channel two at 12:45 P.M.

50
. “Report of the President’s Commission, Chapter 4,” 165–76. The journalist and assassination researcher Henry Hurt is not convinced that Oswald killed Tippit, and he has raised questions about the timeline of events and the credibility of the eyewitnesses. See Hurt’s book
Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
, especially chapter 7 (“Tippit’s Murder: Rosetta Stone or Red Herring?”).

51
. Ibid., 176–78; Bosley Crowther, “Oozing Conflict: ‘Cry of Battle’ Opens at the Victoria,”
New York Times
, October 12, 1963,
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C01E0DC133CEF3BBC4A52DFB6678388679EDE
 [accessed March 17, 2011].

52
. “Report of the President’s Commission, Chapter 4,” pages 178–80; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History
, 104–6. The Texas Theatre has been preserved and is both a community center and a tourist attraction in Dallas. But the row of seats where Oswald was sitting was removed by a previous owner and is in the hands of a private collector.

53
. Jeff Carlton, “Paul Bentley; Detective Helped Arrest Oswald,”
Boston Globe
, July 25, 2008,
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/07/25/paul_bentley_detective_helped_arrest_oswald/
 [accessed March 17, 2011]. There is also existing film of Oswald being driven away from the theater. Bentley was related to L. C. Graves, one of the officers escorting Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. He later told Graves, “I arrested him and you let him get shot!”

54
. William E. Scott,
November 22, 1963: A Reference Guide to the JFK Assassination
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), 25; “Report of the President’s Commission, Chapter 4,” 179–80.

55
. “Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? 9: Capture,”
Frontline
, PBS website,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/view/
 [accessed March 21, 2011].

56
. Telephone interview with Jim Lehrer, April 20, 2011. Understandably, Lehrer has chosen not to identify the agent. Actually, it is entirely possible that the bubbletop would have been removed anyway. Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the Dallas trip, had been told that unless the weather clearly prevented it, the bubbletop was not to be used. The White House staff apparently wanted Dallasites to get a good look at the Kennedys. We will never know for sure what might have happened. “Report of United States Secret Service,” Dillon Papers, Box 43, Kennedy Library. The bubbletop was made of quarter-inch Plexiglas and was designed to fit in the trunk of the presidential limousine when not in use. It was not bulletproof. The Secret Service had approached Swedlow, Inc., a plastics manufacturing company, about designing a bulletproof model, but Swedlow’s engineers could not come up with a suitable model. In October 1963, the Secret Service enlisted the help of a retired army colonel who “furnished the Service with names of two commercial concerns” in mid-November—far too late to help John F. Kennedy.

57
. The reporter, Bill Mercer of KRLD, had outdated information. Henry Wade, Dallas County’s district attorney, did not formally charge Oswald with the murder of JFK until 1:30 A.M. on November 23.