The Day Kennedy Was Shot (79 page)

The caged animals were devouring the keepers. “Do you know whether he will be tried in federal court, county court, or where he will be tried because this was a presidential murder? Do you care to comment on the jurisdictional dispute which has been arising?” No jurisdictional dispute arose. Each agency which checked the statutes arrived at the same quotient: the case belonged to Dallas County and no one else. Wade set them straight: “He has been charged in the State Court with murder with malice. The charge carries the death penalty, which my office will ask in both cases.”

The journalists realized that the long-awaited morning story was coming rich and pure. “Mr. Wade, within forty-eight hours do you think he might be before the jury?” The chief growled: “Let Mr. Wade make a statement.” The district attorney mulled it for a moment. “There are still some more ends that we're
working on. This will be presented to the grand jury just as soon as some of the evidence is examined. It will be examined today, tonight, and tomorrow. He has been filed before, filed in Judge David Johnston's, justice of the peace, Precinct Two of Dallas, and been held without bond on this case and the other case too.
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It will probably be the middle of next week before it goes to the grand jury because of some more evidence that has to be examined by the laboratory.”

Officials are swept through a press conference by exuberance. A difficult case well handled, on the way to solution within a few hours, sometimes establishes a rapport between the hunter and the hounds of the press. It sometimes results in an editorial lynching. The law enforcement element joins forces with the press to overstate the case. “Mr. Wade, can you tell us if he has engaged a lawyer?” The chief decided to field that question. “We don't know that,” he said. “His people have been here but we don't—”

It was a snide response because Fritz—listening—knew that Oswald had not been able to contact the counsel of his choice. The captain did not correct the chief; Curry should have known whether Oswald had a lawyer. It would be Wade's business to know the name of his adversary. “His people have been here” constitutes verbiage which could give the impression that the prisoner had a lawyer; it could also be interpreted as meaning that his family had been with Oswald and that they were taking good care of the matter. The questions began to come faster; they tumbled over each other so that a man might hear three before he could frame words to answer one. “Are there any fingerprints on the gun?” “Mr. Wade, can we get a picture of him?” “Are you going to bring him out?”

The district attorney said “I . . .” “Could we get a room where we could get a picture of him?” “Can we get a press conference
where he could stand against a wall and we could talk to him?” “Has where he will be tried been determined yet?” Wade was beginning to weary. “It will be in the Dallas County Grand Jury,” he said. “Where did he say he was when the President was killed?”

The interrogators, under interrogation, became confused. Fritz, Wade, and Curry turned their faces inward and whispered. The situation in the corridor was out of control. “Wade! Henry!” “Captain Fritz, can we go to the assembly room, sir?” The district attorney stood tall and ran his hand through the wavy gray hair. “We will get in a larger room here,” he shouted. “That's what we're talking about.” The three men returned to the
sotto voce
conference.

“What about the assembly room?” Wade looked at the mass of crushed faces. “Is that all right?” Captain Fritz said: “That's . . .” “Let's go down there,” Wade said. This opened the door to new questions. “Will there be a way to make any pictures?” “—make pictures right then and there?” Wade became helpless again. “I don't know,” he said. “I don't even know where it is.” Someone asked if pictures could be made of Lee Harvey Oswald. This triggered an uproar of shouts. “I don't see any reason to take any picture of him,” the district attorney said.

“Of Lee?” a television man said, incredulity dripping in the tone. “Yes,” said Wade. The newsman looked behind him for confirmation. “Well,” he said, “the whole world's only waiting to see what he looks like.” The district attorney began to lose patience. “Oh,” he snapped, “is that all? The whole world?” “That's all,” the reporter said. “Just the world.” An edge of acrimony set in. The chief, perhaps to continue an amiable relationship with the press, held up both hands and announced: “All right. We'll set it up in the police assembly hall in the basement for Mr. Wade to make his announcement if that's what you want.” The three men returned to their whispering attitude, and Curry broke away to say: “And I'll have the prisoner brought down for you, too, if you like.”

The television cameramen shouted: “Not right away! We have to get these cameras downstairs!” Others pleaded for additional time. In the rear some began an exodus by stairwell and elevator to stake out the best positions in the assembly room. Curry shouted over the bedlam: “We can do it in about twenty minutes!” It was too important to be rushed. Some shouted back: “We need more time. Don't rush it.”

No one asked the prisoner if he was willing to participate. He had been told by Will Fritz that he need not respond to questions from the press nor pose for pictures. Whether Fritz was overruled by Curry or agreed to the press conference, the fact was that Lee Harvey Oswald had been promised to the press. He would be delivered when the newspapermen were ready. If the thought had occurred to the conferees, they might have guessed that any restrictions placed upon the press would be violated, once Oswald got into that room. It bordered on the ridiculous to ask the press to stand mutely and look at the prisoner. Conversely the prisoner could be expected to use the press conference as a propaganda platform for himself and his political notions. It is possible that Oswald looked forward to this confrontation with satisfaction. It was the keyhole through which he could squeeze from jail to the outside world.

The press scattered like the pigeons on the roof of the School Book Depository and, for a time, it became possible to walk through the third-floor corridor. The elevator door near the press room opened and three men stepped off. The flankers wore big red press badges on their lapels: “President's Visit to Dallas—PRESS.” The man between them had none. He crouched low, pencil applied to pad, writing industriously as they strode past the policeman who was asking for credentials. They were not stopped, and Jack Ruby, the harmless aficionado of law and order, was once again on the edge of excitement. In the corridor he was not challenged. Now and then he heard a friendly call: “Hey, Jack. What are you doing here?” The rum
pled figure smiled apologetically and pointed to the notes and said he was translating for the press of Israel.

No one believed it. He inspired no rancor. To the police he was Jack Ruby, the suppliant Jew who bought police goodwill with free passes, free drinks, good sandwiches, and hot coffee. Sometimes, when a policeman sat in the charcoal darkness of the musty nightclub, Ruby would try to set him up with one of the strippers. Like the sandwiches, it was a service.

The friends in the living room began to melt off. No one suggested that they leave. The clock on the mantle had two gold hands which began the slow climb toward twelve. The people said it was late. If they thought that the President and Mrs. Johnson might sit among them and discuss the grave events, they misjudged their hosts. Mrs. Johnson, in nightgown and dressing robe, slid into the big bed in the master bedroom on the second floor. With the blankets over the small body, Liz Carpenter could see the intermittent spasms of shivering. They hit and went away. They hit again.

Mrs. Carpenter had hurried home to get some nightclothes in case she was asked to stay at The Elms. The new First Lady didn't think it was necessary. She was “freezing,” but she would be all right. She wished that Lyndon would get some rest, but she knew he wouldn't. Across the room, the television set repeated the assassination over and over, as though, by infantile logic, it might become more understandable or come out differently. Every few minutes the bright, good voice of John F. Kennedy could be heard, telling the crowd that no one cared how he and Lyndon dressed but that, when Mrs. Kennedy arrived late, she looked better than “we do.” Mrs. Johnson pulled the quilted blanket over her head. Liz Carpenter departed.

The President stepped away from the dining room table, and his young friends came to their feet. There was a sharp thud outside the window. Mr. Johnson stopped. “What was that?”
he said. From the doorway, Rufus Youngblood said: “They're out there changing the house lines over to the White House number. I expect they're having a little trouble.” The tall Texan shook his head. He could not believe that he was living in an era when someone would have to explain a noise in the dark. He had not time to think that he was the only President ever to have witnessed an assassination, and, no matter how high his courageous resolves, an unexpected noise from any quarter would trigger tension the rest of his life.

There were other factors. In the United States, a Vice-President lives in the silent womb of history. He is not expected to hear or feel or understand—only to grow. A sudden propulsion from darkness to light, from sufferance to power, from ridicule to majesty is too much for the intellect and the neurological aspects of a man. “We really have a big job to do now,” Johnson said. He started upstairs and waved Valenti and Moyers and Carter to follow. The soft protests that they had no clothes, not a toothbrush between them, did not impress the President. His response to all such excuses remained the same: “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

They were led into the bedroom, hearing the voice on television. The President began to remove his jacket and tie. He hung them on a wooden clothes tree in the center of the room. The three men noticed a small mass huddled on the right side of the big bed. They began to retreat. Mr. Johnson called them back. “We won't bother Mrs. Johnson,” he said. His tone was pleading. “There is so much to do, so much to talk about. Sit with me for awhile.”

The trousers were draped over the valet. The big form disappeared into the bathroom. The waiting men were apprehensive. They watched the carousel of catastrophe on the television set. The President came out in loose striped pajamas and slippers. “Let's get one thing settled,” he said. At the door he pointed. “Bill,” he said to Moyers, “you may use the bedroom on the third
floor. Cliff, there's a second bedroom down this hall. It's Lynda's room.” This brought a smile to Moyers and Valenti, who envisioned this huge Texan reclining under a frilly canopy, with pandas and dolls on the counterpane and Carter's ham-sized feet hanging in midair at the foot of the bed. “Jack, you take the bedroom next to mine.”

Having secured the night arrangements, the President slipped into the left side of the bed. Adjacent to it was a night table with a lamp and a telephone. Valenti found a chair and placed it near the phone. He sat, continuing his notes as the others talked. Bill Moyers stood. Cliff Carter was on the edge of the right side of the bed at the foot. The President placed a pillow halfway up the head of the bed and composed himself with both hands clasped behind his head. Sometimes he listened to the television; at others he exchanged ideas and refined them. He asked Jack to please make a note to remind him tomorrow to get in touch with the Governors of the states, perhaps suggest a conference in Washington.

The address to the Congress would be important. Someone suggested that the emergency had such anarchistic possibilities that perhaps Mr. Johnson should make the talk before the Kennedy funeral. This, he thought, could be interpreted as unseemly haste, even panic. However, it was another note for Valenti's pages to be cleared with congressional leaders in the morning. He would accede to their decision on this.

None of the Johnson group was sure when the funeral would be held, even though Johnson had phoned his condolences to Sargent Shriver. Moyers had been Johnson's liaison all evening between the Executive Office Building and the White House, and it was Moyers' impression that the services would be held on Monday. If that were so, the new President could not address both houses of Congress until Tuesday or Wednesday, a long time to keep the nation waiting. Moyers thought that a press conference tomorrow, or a presidential statement,
might cover the intervening days and build confidence among the people.

The bedclothes on the right side were turned back and Mrs. Johnson, still huddled in robes, stood with a pillow in her hand and murmured: “Good night, all” and left the room. Before she did, the President leaned across the bed for his nightly kiss, murmuring: “God bless you, honey” and returned to the conversation. “The important things now,” he said, emphasizing with a finger hitting an opposite palm, “are a Cabinet meeting, a Security Council meeting, a White House staff meeting—maybe we ought to call those boys together at nine tomorrow morning, before the Cabinet meeting—and the address to both Houses.”

“. . . and now,” the voice of television said, “we bring you some biographical film clips of the new President of the United States—Lyndon Baines Johnson.” Conversation stopped. The men studied the film material, dissected the commentary. The man watching from the pillow had a huge face, lined vertically so that the features tended to melt toward the chin. A stranger, unconscious of the true state of affairs, might assess the scene as a middle-aged man getting bad news from a consultation of young doctors.

On screen, they saw a skinny Texan with a big grin mounting the steps of the Capitol, a Congressman with a message. They saw him campaign at home for a seat in the United States Senate and go down to defeat by a fistful of votes; he made speeches in the Senate well; he posed with Franklin D. Roosevelt, his idol; he was with bald Sam Rayburn, the teacher; he worked in an office with his dark and modest young wife beside him; he took a dangerous step for a Texan by espousing civil rights legislation; he became a majority leader, the youngest in history; a myocardial infarction brought him down, and he was shown in Bethesda Naval Hospital; the mean and vicious fight between Kennedy and Johnson for the Democratic Party nomination; the need of each for the other on a winning election ticket.