Killing Kennedy (30 page)

The president has had a terrible day. The ongoing racial unrest down in Birmingham and the pitched battles over civil rights legislation here in Washington have left him in a foul mood. But the Bradlees are perhaps the Kennedys’ closest friends in Washington, and the president knows that, with them, his words are off the record. So Jackie did well by inviting Ben and Tony. JFK sits in his shirtsleeves sipping a drink and blowing off steam by talking politics across the table. Much of the conversation revolves around what he plans to do if he is reelected. “Maybe after 1964,” Kennedy repeats over and over. “Maybe after 1964.”

But 1964 might not be a year of victory, and John Kennedy knows that. Things are darkening in Camelot. Even Jackie’s recent vacation has turned out to be a liability. Her fondness for European culture and fashion have long contrasted with the more down-to-earth sensibilities of the American public. The First Lady’s extraordinary popularity once made her impervious to political attacks. This is no longer the case.

Less than two months after she suffered the brutal pain of losing a child, Republicans in Congress have decided that she is fair game. They publicly bash her for the Greece trip, accusing the First Lady of being nothing more than a pleasure-seeker. “Why doesn’t the lady see more of her own country instead of gallivanting all over Europe?” wonders Congressman Oliver Bolton of Ohio.

The press is also writing lengthy stories about the frequent parties on the Onassis yacht. Some writers are painting the First Lady as self-indulgent. “Does this sort of behavior seem fitting for a woman in mourning?” asks the
Boston Globe
. One published photograph even shows a carefree Jackie being assisted onto the
Christina
by a strapping, young, bare-chested, and sun-bronzed male crew member. Another image, of Jackie sunning herself in a bikini, was splashed on front pages all around the world. For the first time, the First Family is under siege from the media.

The UPI newspaper syndicate is even questioning the First Lady’s morals, suggesting that her sunbathing is too sensual. “Mrs. Kennedy allows herself to be photographed in positions and poses which she would never permit in the United States,” reads the story. The writer goes on to add archly that it would be common courtesy for the president and First Lady to reciprocate by inviting Aristotle Onassis to the White House next time he’s in the United States.

Now, at the White House dinner table, the First Lady’s deep tan is the most obvious reminder of her husband’s political fragility. But she seems oblivious to the pain she’s causing. Jackie defends Onassis to her husband and the Bradlees, telling them that the Greek is an “alive and vital person”—which, of course, only makes the president angrier.

John Kennedy does not know everything that did, or did not, happen on board the
Christina
. He does know about the massages, caviar dinners, and shots of vodka. He also understands that his wife is drawn to the
Christina
’s opulence and to the vast wealth of Aristotle Onassis. What the president doesn’t know is whether his wife was unfaithful, though it’s most likely that she was not, especially accompanied as she was on board by her sister, who had designs on Onassis. But the president senses that something is troubling his wife, and he has already confided to Ben Bradlee about “Jackie’s guilt feelings.”

Now he uses that guilt to his advantage.

“Maybe now you’ll come to Texas with us next month,” the president says with a cautious smile. He is determined that Jackie make this journey. And not just to answer the charges that she has seen more of Europe than of America. The First Lady is far more popular in the South than he is, particularly among female voters. Jackie hasn’t made a campaign appearance since 1960, but her presence in Texas might deflect some of the animosity surrounding the president’s visit. “Jackie will show those Texas broads a thing or two about fashion,” JFK says.

The fact is that Jackie actually
wants
to be at his side—no matter what. She is tired of being away from her husband.

It was in this spirit that Jackie bared her soul to JFK in a handwritten letter on October 5, shortly after the
Christina
put out to sea.

“If I hadn’t married you my life would have been tragic, because the definition of tragic is a waste,” she wrote in the privacy of her personal stateroom, named for the Greek island Chios. As is her habit, Jackie substitutes dashes for normal punctuation. The First Lady goes on to admit that she’s actually sorry for their daughter, Caroline, because it will be impossible for her to marry a man as wonderful as her father.

The Kennedy marriage can be restrained at times; many things are left unsaid. But on other occasions the simmering passion is so palpable that the American people sense it just by watching JFK and Jackie stand side by side. The heat between the president and the First Lady is undeniable, and that sentiment flows through her written words. Jackie writes line after line on the
Christina
that day, until the simple love note stretches to seven pages long.

“I loved you from the first day I saw you,” Jackie’s letter confesses. Their ten-year anniversary had been September 12. “Ten years later, I love you so much more.”

Now, two weeks later, in the White House, this man whom she so adores wants to take her on a trip to Texas. How can she possibly say no?

“Sure, I will, Jack. We’ll just campaign,” the First Lady responds. Whatever happened on the
Christina
is in her past. Her future is gazing at her intently with those beautiful greenish-gray eyes of his.

“I’ll campaign with you anywhere you want.”

The First Lady then reaches for her red appointment book and pens the word
Texas
across November 21, 22, and 23.

PART III

Evil Wins

18

O
CTOBER 24, 1963

D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS

E
VENING

Jacqueline Kennedy has no clue. If she could see the hell her good friend Adlai Stevenson is enduring in Dallas this balmy evening, she might not be so optimistic about making the upcoming Texas trip with her husband.

Known as “Big D,” Dallas is a dusty, dry town, miserably hot in the summer and annoyingly cool in the winter. It is surrounded by some of the most unremarkable scenery in all America. It is a hard city, built on commerce and oil, and driven by just one thing: money. The television series
Dallas
will one day be seen as a caricature of this fixation on garish wealth, but the real Dallas is not that different.

Fifty years from now, Dallas will be a cosmopolitan metropolis, home to a diverse population and a wide range of multinational corporations. But in 1963 the population of 747,000 is overwhelmingly white, 97 percent Protestant, and growing larger and more conservative by the day, as newcomers flood in from rural Texas and Louisiana.

Dallas is a law-and-order town. Sort of. It’s the kind of city where heavy fines on sin have driven the prostitutes to nearby Fort Worth, but one where murders are on the rise. Dallas is full of Baptist and Methodist churches, but it’s also home to a place like the Carousel Club, a downtown strip joint owned by a fifty-two-year-old suspected mafioso named Jacob Rubinstein—aka Jack Ruby—where cops and newspapermen often drink side by side.

But most of all, Dallas is a city that does not trust outsiders or their political views—–particularly those of liberal Yankees. And the local citizens are not passive in their disdain. Jewish stores are sometimes defaced with swastikas.

On this particular night, Adlai Stevenson is experiencing what some have called Dallas’s “general atmosphere of hate” firsthand. He is a devoted Democrat who ran against, and was defeated twice by, Dwight Eisenhower. Texas is decidedly not Stevenson country, even though a big crowd is now seated at the Memorial Auditorium. The occasion is United Nations Day. Last night, the right-wing zealot General Ted Walker spoke at the same venue, delivering a rousing anti-UN speech that was attended by the man who once tried to kill him: Lee Harvey Oswald.

Now, as Stevenson tries to speak, he can barely be heard. Time and again he is heckled and booed by a fringe group known as the National Indignation Convention. They intentionally mispronounce the stately diplomat’s name, calling him “Addle-Eye.”

Stevenson patiently tolerates the abuse, standing still at the lectern, hoping calm will take hold. But this proves impossible. So he finally confronts one heckler: “Surely, my dear friend, I don’t have to come here from Illinois to teach Texas manners, do I?”

Then things get worse.

Twenty-two-year-old Robert Edward Hatfield races up to the podium and unloads a violent gob of spit into Stevenson’s face. As police seize Hatfield, he spits on them as well. Adlai Stevenson has had enough. Wiping his face, he walks out of the auditorium. But the chaos doesn’t end. A waiting crowd of anti-UN protesters confronts him. Rather than let Stevenson walk back to his hotel peacefully, the protesters block his path and jeer at him. One agitator, forty-seven-year-old Cora Frederickson, actually hits the ambassador over the head with her picket sign.

Still, Stevenson tries to be diplomatic. The sixty-three-year-old politician waves off the Dallas police rushing over to make their second arrest of the night. “What is wrong?” Stevenson asks the woman who hit him. “Can I help you in any way?”

“If you don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know why. Everyone else does,” she shoots back with an angry Texas twang.

John Kennedy does not like Adlai Stevenson. But the president is shaken when he hears of the vicious attacks. Now the many negative reports he has heard about Dallas are being confirmed. Trusted friends are warning him to cancel this leg of his Texas trip. As far back as October 3, Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas confided to John Kennedy that he was physically afraid of entering Dallas, calling it “a dangerous place.”

“I wouldn’t go there,” he told JFK. “Don’t you go.”

Evangelist Billy Graham is also warning the president to stay away from Dallas. Henry Brandon of London’s
Sunday Times
is so sure Kennedy’s visit will be volatile that he himself is making the trip just to chronicle the tension. Texas congressman Ralph Yarborough’s two brothers live and work in Dallas, and both make a point of telling him that the city hates Kennedy. And in early November, Byron Skelton of the Texas Democratic National Committee will have a premonition that JFK may be placing himself in grave danger by coming to Dallas. Skelton will repeatedly warn the president to stay away.

But John Kennedy is the president of the United States of America—all of them. There should be no place in this vast country where he has to be afraid to visit.

As he is fond of saying before attempting a hard golf shot: “No profiles, only courage.” So it is with Dallas. JFK has decided to visit Big D. There is no backing down.

*   *   *

Half a world away, it is All Souls’ Day in Saigon. This is a time of prayer in the Roman Catholic Church. So it is that Ngo Dinh Diem, president of Vietnam, receives Holy Communion alongside his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu.

But there is another reason the brothers are praying, and John Kennedy should know why. A U.S.-backed coup has overthrown the Diem government. As the military action was unfolding, JFK met with his top advisers to discuss the future of Vietnam—and the fate of Diem and his brother. The meeting dragged on so long that Kennedy even sneaked out halfway through to attend Mass, before returning for the meeting’s conclusion.

In a far more frantic manner, President Diem and his brother sneaked out of the presidential palace during the coup, literally running for their lives. Like JFK, they went to Mass. Now the brothers are taking refuge inside the sanctuary of Saigon’s St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.

Shortly after 10:00
A.M
. they are recognized, and the president and his brother prepare to be arrested and deported from the country. Diem has readied himself for this moment by stuffing a briefcase with U.S. banknotes.

General Mai Huu Xuan of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) leads a convoy consisting of an armored personnel carrier and two jeeps into the church courtyard. Diem surrenders, asking only that the convoy stop at the palace before taking him and his brother to the airport. General Xuan refuses and orders that his captives be immediately taken to army headquarters. Soldiers then tie the hands of the president and his brother behind their backs, and the two are placed inside an armored personnel carrier—ostensibly for their own protection. Two ARVN officers join them in the back of the vehicle before the heavy steel door is closed.

The convoy stops at a railroad crossing. One of the ARVN officers then calmly places his finger on the trigger of his semiautomatic weapon and fires a bullet into the back of President Diem’s skull.

19