The Day Kennedy Was Shot (31 page)

The Oneal ambulance was still impounded at the emergency entrance. A nurse's aide promised to mop the blood out of the presidential limousine and forgot it. Two Secret Service men put the bubbletop on the big car. Inside the door, an FBI agent was phoning Gordon Shanklin and rubbing his jaw at the same time. Doyle Williams had hurried into the emergency area, and two overwrought Secret Service men, one with a machine gun, punched him against a wall before Mr. Williams had time to reach for his government identity card.

Father Huber and Father Thompson arrived. Reporters, held back by police, saw the two men, their stoles folded between their fingers, escorted through the emergency entrance. Did this mean that the President was dying? Or do Catholics call a priest in any case? Some said it might mean he was dying. Others rushed back to radio cars to report: “Two priests arrived at Parkland and hurried inside. 12:49
P.M.”
Father Thompson had parked the car and run to catch up with his pastor.

The little black bag was in Huber's right hand. It contained everything but the Blessed Sacrament. A wounded man, the priest reasoned, is in no condition to swallow a desiccated wafer. The press relations man, Steve Landrigan, broke a path for the two priests through a trail of weeping children with dressings on hands and on eyes, running nurses, and Secret Service men who fringed the long corridor with weapons, examining everyone who tried to pass. They turned right, walked another long corridor, swung right again into the trauma section, and, as Landrigan held the door open, Father Huber stepped inside. Father Thompson was behind him.

The priest lifted his eyes and saw a long table under a diffused glare of light. On it was a figure covered to his knees. Father Huber looked at the snowy feet and thought: “There is no blood in this man.” He crouched to open the bag and remove the holy oils, the cotton batting, a prayer book, and to put the thin stole around his neck. He glanced around and saw Mrs. Kennedy standing with a gray-haired man. “Mrs. Kennedy,” the priest whispered, “my sincerest sympathy goes to you.”

His eyes lingered on her face a moment. It was beautiful and empty of expression. It was the face he had missed when the motorcade went by. Father Huber stepped toward the body. The floor was slippery with blood. He peeled the sheet back from the head to the bottom of the nose. The eyelids were closed. For the first time he thought of the sheet covering the head, the closed eyelids, the doctors against the rear of the room. Father Huber had seen his first live President an hour ago. Now he was staring at his first dead one.

The face appeared to be tan and peaceful. In Latin, Father Huber said: “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” The priest lifted his eyes and saw that a large part of the back of the head was missing. The violence of it brought its own compensation: this man died instantly; he felt no pain. Roman Catholics have always concerned themselves with the rhetorical question of the soul leaving the body. Does it leave at the moment of death? Or does it remain a few minutes? What is death? Is it the moment the heart stops, even though other organs—liver, bladder, intestines, brain—may go on in reduced function until they stop?

The Church maintains that the sacrament of Extreme Unction is not valid if the soul has departed. The thumb of the priest dipped into holy oil and traced the sign of the cross on John F. Kennedy's forehead. “Through this holy anointing,” he said softly, “may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed. Amen.” With the power he had, Father Huber gave the departed
Chief of State a special blessing: “I,” he said, louder and in English, “by the faculty granted to me by the Apostolic See, grant to you a plenary indulgence and remission of all sins and I bless you. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The priest remained standing because, had he knelt in the blood on the floor, the body on the cart would have been too high for him. Mrs. Kennedy and Admiral Burkley and Father Thompson stood, their voices repeating part of the prayers.

Someone said, “Please pray, Father,” so he began to recite the prayers for the dying, although this was pointless. However, it gave the widow and some doctors an opportunity to respond in English, to be a party to the pious adieu, and so he went through the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord . . .” Then he tapped the oily forehead with cotton, placed the sheet back over the head, and turned to leave, as depressed as he could remember. Mrs. Kennedy bent over the corpse, as though kissing her husband. She hurried after Father Huber and took his arm.

“Father,” she said, obviously frightened, “do you think the sacraments had effect?” “Oh yes,” he said. “Yes indeed.” Out in the hall, where the brown metal chair still waited for her, the once dauntless spirit of the woman was crushed by the finality of death. “Father,” she implored, “please pray for Jack.” Father Huber agreed. He had already decided to have a Solemn Requiem Mass in his church that evening, before the President's body could return to Washington.

Two Secret Service men took the priest by the arms. “Father,” one of them said, “you don't know anything.” He understood. No one pretended to know why the death had been kept secret this long, but he promised not to tell. As he and Father Thompson emerged into sunshine, walking toward their parked car, the reporters engulfed them. “Is he dead?” “What time did he die?” “Tell us what he looked like.” “Who was the doctor who took care of him?” “Did Mrs. Kennedy say anything?” Father
Huber rubbed his mouth and begged God's forgiveness. “He was unconscious,” he said, and hurried into the car.

The voice on Channel One, that of Sergeant G. D. Henslee, carried an unusual pitch of excitement: “Attention all squads,” it said. “Attention all squads. At Elm and Houston reported to be an unknown white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height five feet ten inches, weight 165 pounds, reported to be armed with what is believed to be a thirty-caliber rifle. Attention all squads, the suspect is believed to be a white male . . .” Henslee repeated the description slowly. All over the city, men in prowl cars repeated it to themselves or took notes.

“No further description or information at this time,” he said. “12:45 KKB-364, Dallas.” An unknown voice came on: “What is he wanted for?” Dispatcher Hulse replied: “Signal nineteen (shooting) involving the President.” A great deal had occurred within the span of fifteen minutes and Henslee's announcement that there was a suspect lifted the morale of the men patrolling the far reaches of the city. A policeman can, in an emergency, move up closer to the scene. In Dallas, it is the custom not to report these moves because it would clutter the radio channel with men moving out of assigned areas.

John Tippit, cruising the quiet streets of Fruitdale in area 78, swung his car northward to Area 109 and parked at Eighth Street and the Corinth Street viaduct. This was solid thinking on Tippit's part because he had effectively sealed off one of the seven ways of getting out of downtown Dallas to the south. He remained at the last street in town before one crosses the Trinity River. Then, hearing no additional alarms, he turned west into the big Oak Cliff section. He was now in Patrol Area 109, which embraced Zangs, Beckley, and the Houston Street viaduct.

He put his car into low gear and cruised the curbs.

The hiatus arrived. The energies of the protagonists flagged. The fight was lost; the battle was over; there was time to think of next things next. In the little corridor between trauma rooms, William Greer stood guard over Mrs. Kennedy as Clint Hill phoned the White House. He held the wire open. The operator cut in. “The Attorney General's office wants to speak to you.” A small, tense voice came on. “What happened, Clint?” “There has been an accident.” “How is the President?” Hill knew the President was dead. “The situation is bad,” he said, “we'll get back to you.” Mrs. Kennedy sat again on the brown chair. Her grief was consumed in flames of bitterness. Doris Nelson asked her to wash, and Mrs. Kennedy said “No.” Someone else asked her, and she looked at the bloody gloves, the soaked skirt, the mixture of brain and blood on the stockings and said: “No. I want them to see what they have done.”

Who is they? The world? The nation? The city of Dallas? A young man now walking back to a rooming house? Who is they? Within the grief, there was rancor. The Secret Service could have summoned a change of clothes from
Air Force One.
The hospital was less than two miles from the airport. She would not change, no matter who suggested it. The world was about to get a shocking view of the defenseless widow, bedraggled, bereft, bloodied all day and all night so that they could see what they had done.

For a moment, she roused herself and looked at Mrs. Connally. The eyes of the two women met. Mrs. Kennedy asked softly how the Governor was doing. The hard stare was in the eyes of Mrs. Connally. “He'll be all right.” Four words. No more. She did not ask how the President was—she knew. Nor was there any sympathy to offer, not even a hand clasp. “He'll be all right.”

In spite of the roars of pain, Governor John Connally did well. Dr. Jackie Hunt attended him; so did Dr. Duke; others hurried into Trauma Two and, on orders, some left quickly for
additional equipment. The clothes were cut away and the work of restoring the patient from the ashen skin of shock to a pink of resistance began. The room was less disorderly than the other; the procedures were buttressed by optimism. This one was going to live.

There were cutdowns and X-rays and sutures and the injection of intravenous fluids. The cries of the Governor were encouraging. He was neurologically alert; he could feel pain and could protest. The doctors agreed that, after the first emergency procedures, Governor Connally should be taken upstairs to an operating theatre. Dr. Giesecke made the arrangements and hurried back to help with the cart.

The duty of all doctors in both trauma rooms was to determine the extent of injury and to repair and preserve life. None were detectives; none were acting as pathologists. Each, in his work, had his individual opinions of the wounds he saw, but they would have no weight in law. Most doctors who saw Kennedy's head wound thought that it came from the rear. The same doctors, studying the exit wound in the neck, thought the bullet came from the front. The Governor might have been hit at least twice: once through the back along the frame of the fifth rib, which was partially shattered; once in the wrist.

The doctors at Parkland stuck to their primary province, the preservation of life and the restoration of health. Carrico and Clark remained in Trauma One for a few moments. Professionally, they had no right to feel depressed, but they had lost a President and they had seen the stricken face of his widow. They could have examined the body at their leisure, but as Carrico said: “No one had the heart.” The State of Texas, under law, must perform an autopsy in all homicides. They ordered Miss Hinchcliffe to clean up the body.

The police herded the School Book Depository employees on the ground floor, back between the elevators and the order box.
Roy Truly was at a trot, trying to assist by rounding them up and counting them off. Some police were on the roof and these men established that the wall was too high for anyone to fire over it and down. The pigeons, fatigued from taking wing as shots were fired and as police popped out onto the roof, were still circling the plaza. Other policemen were on other floors, looking up among the sprinkler pipes, delving between book cartons.

Truly told the police to check off the name of Charles Givens. He was a Negro employee who was absent. The manager walked around, looking at faces, and he said: “Where is Lee?” Police were taking names and addresses, and no one turned when he asked the question. The foreman, William Shelley, was asked the question: “Have you seen Lee around lately?” and Shelley said no. The manager did not want to get an innocent employee in trouble, so he asked
his
boss, Mr. Campbell, about it. “I have a boy over here missing,” he said. “I don't know whether to report it.” Campbell threw the question back at Truly. “What do you think?” he said. Truly picked up a phone and got the warehouse. He asked for the Oswald address and telephone number. The warehouse gave him Fifth Street in Irving and Mrs. Paine's telephone number.

The manager was aware that “Lee” might not be involved in any trouble, but he relayed the “missing” data to Deputy Chief Lumpkin, who took Truly upstairs to Captain Fritz. The Homicide division was fine-combing the sixth floor. Fritz, still wearing his cowboy hat, said: “What is it, Mr. Truly?” The name Lee Harvey Oswald was given to him as missing. “Thank you, Mr. Truly,” the captain said. “We will take care of it.”

At the little house in Irving, Mrs. Paine was making lunch for the children while Mrs. Oswald sat in the living room facing the television set. Ruth could hear the commentary in the kitchen, and kept shouting brief Russian translations. When the shooting was related, Mrs. Paine wiped her hands and came into the living room. The news was as incredible as it was in
homes all over the world. As soon as it was verified, Marina went into her bedroom and wept. The unexpected violence, the possible loss of a Chief of State so near home developed into an emotional wrench.

A few minutes later, Marina came into the living room, wiping her eyes, holding the infant. “By the way,” Mrs. Paine said, translating as she listened, “they fired from the building where Lee works.” For a moment, Mrs. Oswald's heart seemed to stop. Without a word, she put the baby on a couch and went through the kitchen into the garage. She switched on the overhead garage light and started to breathe again. The blanket roll where her husband kept his rifle was intact. She could see the contours of a long object inside. For Marina, it was a great relief.

When she returned to the house, Mrs. Paine was placing candles on a table and lighting them. “Is that a way of praying?” Marina asked. Her friend nodded. “Yes,” she said. “My own way.” Did Mrs. Oswald think of FBI Agent James Hosty? She didn't like this man; she felt that his sporadic visits to Irving were badgering. Her husband had done nothing wrong. Sometimes, when the FBI man arrived, Lee was not at home and Marina resented the sly questions coming from the calm man with the pencil and paper, then listening to Ruth's translations, then replying curtly in Russian, and hearing Ruth retranslate to English and watching the man write something.