Five Days in November Page 10

  The Air Force Band sounds four ruffles and flourishes and then plays “Hail to the Chief,” slower and sadder than I’ve ever heard it before. Ordinarily played at 120 beats to the minute, Mrs. Kennedy requested the presidential anthem be played at dirge adagio, eighty-six beats a minute, and when she hears it, she begins to weep. Caroline can’t stand to see her mother so sad; she looks up, and with sweet, caressing words, tries to console her. My face crushes with anguish, as I suppress the sobs that fill my heart.

  It is military tradition to honor a fallen soldier with a twenty-one-gun salute, and the saluting battery from the Third Infantry, stationed several blocks away, awaits its cue. As soon as the band begins to play the Navy hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” the first loud boom sounds, followed by twenty more, each spaced five seconds apart.

  Against the backdrop of the melancholy music and the thundering cannons, the military body bearers remove the casket from the caisson and proceed toward the steps. An honor cordon of seventy Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard members line the steps, while dozens of President Kennedy’s aides and advisors, and a bevy of press, are gathered at the top landing.

  The military pallbearers begin the long climb up the thirty-six steps, and while their faces are expressionless, I know what an extraordinarily strenuous task this is—it is much farther than the airline loading stairs up which the other agents and I carried the president forty-eight hours ago. With the eyes of the world upon them, the young men ascend with supreme dignity.

  With her head held high, Mrs. Kennedy takes her children’s hands once again, and with Bobby alongside them, the four lonely figures follow the casket up the steps. A few paces behind, I try to remain a shadow, my hands down at my sides, my head down.

  It is an interminable climb, but finally we reach the arched entryway that leads to the Rotunda. Senators, congressmen, and close friends of the family are already positioned inside, waiting and watching as the casket is placed on the catafalque in the center of the cavernous round room.

  It has already been a long day, and John, who will turn three tomorrow, has been about as good as an active boy his age can be. He doesn’t understand what’s happening and when he begins to get rambunctious, Mrs. Kennedy gives me a look I know so well. I motion to the children’s detail agents and two of them inconspicuously take John by the hand and lead him out of the Rotunda into a side room.

  There are three eulogies—Chief Justice Earl Warren speaks on behalf of the U.S. Supreme Court, Speaker John McCormack from Massachusetts represents the U.S. House of Representatives, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield from Montana represents the U.S. Senate. Mansfield was a close friend of the president’s, and his moving words are some of the most eloquent I’ve ever heard. But the most touching moment of all is yet to come.

  President Johnson lays a wreath at the edge of the casket, and the room is silent. This is the end of the program—time to file out. But Mrs. Kennedy is not ready to leave. She leans over and whispers into Caroline’s ear, and together they walk hand in hand up to the casket. Caroline looks up to her mother, following her lead. Mrs. Kennedy kneels, and her daughter kneels. The mother’s black-gloved hand touches the American flag draped over the casket, and the little white-gloved hand does the same. Then, in a majestic moment, mother and daughter bring their lips to the flag, a final kiss to the man they loved so deeply, and who was senselessly taken from them far too soon.

  Women heave audible cries, and tears stream down the stoic faces of senators, congressmen, generals, corporals, and Secret Service agents. Photographers hold their cameras through blurry eyes and capture this moment that brings the nation and the world together in heartrending sadness.

  Finally, it is time to leave. The agents bring John to his mother, and as he looks up at the military men, covered in medals and awards for valor, he must wonder what could possibly have made such brave men cry.

  Blinking back tears, the other agents and I accompany Mrs. Kennedy and the children back down the east steps of the Capitol. From this vantage point, high above Washington, I am stunned by the sea of humanity that awaits below. Thousands upon thousands of people stand in an orderly manner, queued eight and ten people deep behind a rope, waiting to enter the Rotunda. The president’s body will lie in state until tomorrow morning, allowing the general public to pay their respects. We gather into the cars and as we drive the reverse route back to the White House, we are met by a migration of people who are headed toward the Capitol.

  The state funeral will be held tomorrow, and already we have received word that close to one hundred heads of state are flying in from all over the world to pay their respects. Mrs. Kennedy is well aware of the historical significance of this tragic event, and while there are certain protocols to follow for a state funeral, she wants it to be personal. One thing clear in her mind is that the procession will be a walking procession. Her intent is to walk behind the horse-drawn caisson carrying the casket from the U.S. Capitol to St. Matthew’s Cathedral for the funeral Mass, and then across Memorial Bridge all the way to Arlington National Cemetery for the burial. It is insane.

  Jerry Behn is deeply concerned about the security surrounding the funeral, and especially the fact that Mrs. Kennedy is insisting on walking.

  “Clint,” he says, “you’re the only one who can talk her out of this. You must explain to her how dangerous this will be. If she walks, all the heads of state will walk, too. It’s a security nightmare. Charles de Gaulle has had four assassination attempts on his life, and he’s going to be right there in the middle of things. You’ve got to convince her this is a bad idea. We’ll be sitting ducks.”

  I understand Behn’s concern, but I also know Mrs. Kennedy, and once she puts her mind to something, it is next to impossible to talk her out of it.

  I arrange to meet Mrs. Kennedy upstairs in the Treaty Room. She is alone, and invites me to sit down. She listens politely as I explain the concerns we have. Because President Kennedy was so beloved, we are expecting hundreds of thousands of people to line the routes between the Capitol, the White House, St. Matthew’s, and Arlington Cemetery, and while we are using every available law enforcement resource available, we will still be undermanned. The fact is, our president was just killed in broad daylight three days ago, and now we will have a hundred more heads of state all gathered in one place. If anyone wanted to create chaos, there would be no better event.

  “Please, Mrs. Kennedy, won’t you reconsider your intention of walking with the procession?”

  She thinks about it for a while and then offers a compromise. Out of consideration for our concerns, she won’t walk the entire way—just from the White House to St. Matthew’s. It’s a little over a mile.

  I relay the information to Mr. Behn, and while it’s not what he was hoping for, at least it is not for the entire route. We will have one and a quarter miles of sheer exposure.

  A few hours later, Mrs. Kennedy calls me.

  “Oh, Mr. Hill . . . ,” she begins. I know whenever I hear the words “Oh, Mr. Hill,” I am about to get a request to do something outside the parameters of my job description.

  For the past three years, I’ve almost always willingly obliged.

  “Yes, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Oh, Mr. Hill . . . Stash has just arrived from Europe and he really wants to pay his respects to the president. Do you think you can arrange it?”

  Stash—Prince Stanislaus Radziwill—is Mrs. Kennedy’s sister Lee’s husband, and I’ve come to know him well. He is a fantastic guy and we’ve shared a lot of good times.

  “I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Kennedy. What exactly does he want to do?”

  “He wants to go to the Capitol and I’ve heard you can’t get in for hours. Can you help him?”

  The emotions I’m trying so hard to bury come surging back as I think about Stash visiting the casket. He and the president were close friends and I know he must be devastated.

  “Of course I can, Mrs. Kenne
dy. Tell him to meet me in the Diplomatic Reception Room and I’ll take him to the Capitol.”

  I arrange for a White House car and driver to meet us at the South Portico. I open the back door and allow Stash to slide in, and then, automatically, I move to take the front passenger seat. I am a government employee, not a close personal friend.

  “Clint,” Stash says. “Come on and sit in back with me.”

  As we proceed block by block down Pennsylvania Avenue, we are both stunned by the crowds waiting to get into the Rotunda. A line—a mass, really—stretches around the Capitol, winding through Washington’s streets for forty blocks. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  I escort Stash to the front of the line and show my credentials to the officers stationed at the door. The scene inside the Rotunda leaves me breathless. In two separate lines, people file past the flag-draped casket, two by two, moving continuously, but as slowly as possible, to savor their precious moments with the dead president. There is silence but for the sobbing and sniffles, and the ceaseless whisper of feet shuffling across the Rotunda’s stone floor.

  I identify myself to the officer in charge of the honor guard and explain that Prince Radziwill is President Kennedy’s brother-in-law and would like to pay his respects. Without question, the officer opens the velvet rope barrier so that Stash can approach the casket. As the anonymous mourners continue their orderly march around him, Stash kneels next to the casket, his head in his praying hands, clutching a rosary, and convulses with sobs.

  When I bid him good night later back at the White House, Stash looks at me, his eyes still pooled with tears, and says, “Thank you, Clint. I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

  It is yet one more heart-ripping moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

  Sunday, November 24, has been another day of unimaginable events. The press were piled up inside the Dallas County Jail awaiting the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald this morning. When Oswald emerged, handcuffed to the imposing Dallas police detective Jim Leavelle, a man thrust himself through the crowd and shot Oswald point-blank. The shooter, Jack Ruby, is well known by local police, and he was immediately taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder. Detective Leavelle accompanied Oswald in the ambulance and was with him the moment he took his last breath. After the bullet pierced him, Oswald never uttered a word.

  So certain were the Dallas detectives that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy that, within hours after Oswald’s death, they formally closed the case.

  It is just before midnight when I leave the White House, on November 24. I look down Pennsylvania Avenue at the lighted dome of the Capitol, where the American flag flutters sadly at half-mast, watching over the endless parade of mourners who, in extraordinary devotion and despair, are compelled to wait for hours in the cold blackness of night for the chance to say good-bye to their beloved president.

  DAY FIVE

  NOVEMBER 25, 1963

  23

  * * *

  Procession to the White House

  President Johnson has declared Monday, November 25, a national day of mourning. It is also John F. Kennedy Jr.’s third birthday. It is going to be an emotional day, compounded by unprecedented security challenges.

  The president’s body will be moved from the Capitol to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and then on to Arlington National Cemetery for the interment. The entire leadership of the United States will be present, along with leaders from almost every country in the world, and they will be outdoors marching through the streets of Washington, D.C., exposed like never before. It is truly a security nightmare, all conceived by the person whom I am responsible to protect—Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. The only thing I can do is to remain vigilant, focused on the job at hand, and pray that everyone else does the same.

  When I arrive at the White House around eight o’clock, Paul Landis and I meet in my office to discuss the day’s schedule. My first call, once again, is to Provi, to see how Mrs. Kennedy fared through the night.

  “This place is madhouse,” she says in her endearing, thick Spanish accent. “Too many people!”

  She is frazzled with all the houseguests upstairs. All the president’s siblings and their families are here now, as well as his mother, Rose. The one person missing is the president’s father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. Confined to a wheelchair since his stroke two years ago, it would be impossible for him to come from Hyannis Port. But never before have there been this many friends and relatives staying overnight since the Kennedys have lived in the White House, and I’m sure it is pure bedlam upstairs. Provi tells me Mrs. Kennedy is concerned that John’s birthday will get lost in all the other activity.

  “We will make sure that John’s birthday is recognized,” I promise. “And it would help everyone if you can make sure Mrs. Kennedy is on time this morning. We are scheduled to leave at nine forty-five.”

  The military has a set procedure and plan for state funerals, and while Mrs. Kennedy has made a number of requests that alter some of the established traditions, the strictly timed schedule involves hundreds if not thousands of participants from all the military services and various branches of government. My experience with the Kennedys has been that they don’t always pay attention to timetables, so I am somewhat concerned about staying on schedule. If we get a late start, it will have a domino effect on the entire day’s agenda.

  My anxiety is largely due to the fact that on this day, in which the focus of the entire world will be on Mrs. Kennedy and her two children, there are just five of us responsible for their protection. Bob Foster, Lynn Meredith, and Tom Wells will be with John and Caroline, while Paul Landis and I are responsible for Mrs. Kennedy. The rest of the White House Detail agents are assigned to President Johnson and his family. It has always been Mrs. Kennedy’s desire to keep her children out of the public eye, and she has been successful in doing so, making the job of protection far easier for us. Today, however, they will be exposed like never before. You just don’t know what kind of warped individual might be looming among the masses, ready to wreak havoc, knowing the world is watching.

  At 8:30 A.M. the doors to the Capitol Rotunda are closed to the public. In less than twenty-two hours, more than a quarter of a million people have filed past President Kennedy’s casket, with thousands more waiting all night, unable to get in in time.

  Just as the private quarters are a “madhouse,” so too are the public rooms of the mansion. All morning long, the visiting dignitaries arrive in preparation for the walk from the White House to St. Matthew’s. In less than three years in office, President Kennedy had personally visited with so many foreign leaders, both on their turf and his own, and had made such a strong impact that, upon news of his death, travel arrangements were made immediately. The unlikely gathering of kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, from every corner of the globe is herded into the East, Green, Blue, Red, and State Dining Rooms.

  Our scheduled departure time has come and gone, but finally Mrs. Kennedy emerges from the elevator—no one will bemoan the grieving widow for being a few minutes late—joined by her two brothers-in-law, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Even in such desolation, she is a vision of elegance and grace, in a tailored two-piece black suit and a black hat, affixed to which is a sheer veil that shrouds her face. She has decided to allow Caroline and John to miss the brief ceremony at the Capitol.

  I’ve arranged for the Chrysler limousine to be waiting outside, and as soon as Mrs. Kennedy and the president’s two brothers are situated in the back, I take my place in the front passenger seat next to the White House driver.

  Police have blocked off the route to the Capitol so that there are no other vehicles on the road, but the streets are lined with thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder many rows deep. They have come from near and far—buses filled with students and caravans of families in cars, some having driven through the night from as far away as Minnesota and
Maine. It is an overwhelming public outpouring of grief, and as we drive the short distance to the Capitol, the widow and the two brothers are deeply moved.

  At the base of the Capitol’s east steps, squadrons of soldiers and marching bands from all branches of the military are organized and waiting. There is silence as Mrs. Kennedy, flanked by Bobby and Ted, walks up the sweeping steps of the Capitol, with Agent Landis and me closely behind.

  The military honor guard has kept vigil over the president’s body, changing guard every thirty minutes throughout the night, and they stand there now as Mrs. Kennedy and the president’s brothers solemnly walk up to the casket and kneel. They pray for just a few seconds, and then retreat, and walk back down the stairs, with Landis and me conspicuously in their wake.

  As we descend, the body bearers remove the casket from the catafalque and carry it out of the Rotunda to the top of the steps. The U.S. Coast Guard Band sounds ruffles and flourishes and plays “Hail to the Chief.” President Kennedy is about to depart the U.S. Capitol for the last time. Then, to the hymn “O God of Loveliness,” the body bearers descend the steps with the heavy casket with such decorum that it appears as if the coffin is filled with feathers.

  Once again, the casket is strapped and secured to the gun carriage behind the team of gray horses, and as soon as the family members are back in the cars, the procession begins. This time it is not the muffled sound of drums but the musical strains of the U.S. Marine Corps band I hear as we begin the slow pace up Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Mrs. Kennedy requests that the windows be rolled down so she can hear the music. As we inch along, back to the White House, to the sounds of the trumpets and trombones, we see ladies weep into white lace handkerchiefs, men wiping away tears, and sailors and soldiers raising their right hands taut to their furrowed brows as they salute their fallen commander.