The Day Kennedy Was Shot (91 page)
Read The Day Kennedy Was Shot Online
Authors: Jim Bishop
I am certain that, without the unqualified assistance of Chief James Rowley and the Secret Service, and Cartha de Loach and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this book would have been a guessing game. The agents of both services who worked on this case in Dallas or in Washington were made available to me for individual questioning. Their report sheets showed exact times on events, even small ones. At the National Archives, I hefted the cheap rifle Oswald used, examined the revolver used
to kill Officer Tippit, and counted the bits of bullets which have been recovered.
I am grateful to President Lyndon Johnson for a private interview on the assassination. It was the first time he had discussed it and, from the manner in which it affected him, it may be the last. Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, always gracious, is the only person I interviewed who wept. Malcolm Kilduff, assistant press secretary, and Jack Valenti, President Johnson's most confidential aide, cudgeled their heads to recall every scrap of pertinent information.
William Greer, who drove SS-100-X, has retired from the Secret Service. I visited him at his home in Maryland. His wife was ill and it was not a time to badger a man with ugly memories, but he sat and said: “Go ahead. It will take my mind off other things.” The men of Gawler's Sons were discreet and ethical. Cliff Carter, who sat with President Johnson that night at The Elms, has a long and accurate memory.
Father Oscar Huber would not have seen me except that he was so angry at an earlier book about the assassination. This was also true of Roy Truly and othersâsome of whom assert that they were listed as having been interviewed but weren't. Father Huber, a spiritually complacent man, becomes feverishly angry when he considers an author who claims that the priest, leaving Parkland Memorial Hospital, said: “He's dead.” “I did not!” Father Huber says, “and I wrote that guy a letter and offered to pay his airfare back to Dallas to prove it to him. He never answered my letters.”
All of the interviews helped to add chips and bits to the research. But the 10,400,000 words of the so-called “Warren Commission Report” is and must remain the primary source of all material on the assassination. It is often repetitious and disorderly, and it required two years for me to read and annotate, but it was worth it. Two sets of the twenty-six volumes were used for cutting out affidavits and placing them in the right
minute of the eighteen loose-leaf notebooks I kept on November 22, 1963.
Others who helped to make this book as complete as time and diligence can make it are: My wife Kelly, who helped with interviews, stenographic notes, copying documents, and retyping the manuscript; my daughters Karen and Kathleen, who helped to paste notes in the proper book, sometimes placing a “2:05
P.M.”
note in the “2:05
A.M.”
book; Mrs. Deloris Goldaker, who typed notes off and on for four years; and Miss Millicent Harrison, who separated the originals from the four carbon copies.
To assist the future researcher, following is a list of the sources used in researching and writing this book.
Following is a list of the sources used in the researching and writing of this book.
 1.
The Warren Commission Report
(Condensed Version). Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.
 2. The Editors of
The New York Times
and Viking Press,
The Kennedy Years.
New York, Viking Press, Inc., 1964.
 3. Warren Leslie,
Dallas City Limit.
New York, Grossman Publishers, 1964.
 4.
Miami Herald;
editions 1963â1968.
 5.
The New York Times;
editions 1963â1968.
 6. The Associated Press; 1963â1968.
 7. United Press International; 1963â1968.
 8. Pierre Salinger and Sandor Vanocur (eds.),
A Tribute to John F. Kennedy.
Chicago, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Inc., 1964.
 9. Bill Adler (ed.),
The Kennedy Wit.
New York, The Citadel Press, 1964.
10. Â
Four Days.
Compiled by United Press International and
American Heritage
magazine, 1964.
11. Â
JFK Memorial Book.
Special edition.
Look
magazine, November 17, 1964.
12. Â Paul Ballot,
Memorial to Greatness.
Aspen Corp., 1964.
13. Â John W. Gardner,
To Turn The Tide.
New York, Harper & Row, 1962.
14. Â
Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
, Volumes 1 through 26. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.
15. Â
John F. Kennedy,
Profiles in Courage.
New York, Harper & Row, 1955.
16. Â G. Lieberson and J. Meyers,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy . . . As We Remember Him.
New York, Atheneum Press. Columbia Records, 1965.
17. Â James MacGregor Burns,
John Kennedy: A Political Profile.
New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1959.
18. Â
The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy. Presidential Campaign of 1960.
Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961.
19. Â
Public Papers of the Presidents of the U.S. John F. Kennedy, 1963.
Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.
20. Â John Hersey, “Survival”; reprinted in
Here To Stay.
New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1963.
21. Â Jacques Lowe,
Portrait: The Emergence of John F. Kennedy.
New York, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1961.
22. Â William Manchester,
Portrait of a President.
New York, Little, Brown and Company, 1962.
23. Â Joseph McCarthy,
The Remarkable Kennedys.
New York, The Dial Press, Inc., 1960.
24. Â Hugh Sidey,
John F. Kennedy, President.
New York, Atheneum Press, 1963.
25. Â Jim Bishop,
A Day in the Life of President Kennedy.
New York, Random House, Inc., 1964.
26. Â Anne H. Lincoln,
The Kennedy White House Parties.
New York, The Viking Press, Inc., 1966.
27. Â NBC News Staff,
Seventy Hours and Thirty Minutes.
New York, Random House, Inc., 1966.
28. Â Fred J. Cook, “The Warren Commission Report”: Part I, “Some Unanswered Questions”; Part II, “Testimony of the Eye Witnesses.”
The Nation
, 1966.
29. Â
Photoplay
magazine; editions 1963â1968.
30. Â Charles Roberts,
The Truth About the Assassination.
New York, Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., Publishers, 1967.
31.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A
Thousand Days.
Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.
32. Â William Manchester,
Death of a President.
New York, Harper & Row, 1967.
33. Â Theodore C. Sorensen,
Kennedy.
New York, Harper & Row, 1965.
34. Â Sylvia Meagher,
Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities and The Report.
Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1967.
35. Â Jean Stafford,
A Mother in History.
New York, Farrar, Straus, Giroux Inc., 1965.
36. Â
Esquire
magazine, December 1966.
37. Â Richard J. Whalen,
The Founding Father.
New York, The New American Library, 1964.
38. Â Penn Jones, Jr.,
Forgive My Grief.
Midlothian, Texas, Midlothian Mirror, 1964.
39. Â Gore Vidal, “The Holy Family.”
Esquire
magazine, April 1966.
40. Â
Inaugural Spectacle.
Special edition,
Life
magazine, 1961.
41. Â Harold W. Chase and Allen W. Lerman (eds.),
Kennedy and the Press.
New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1965.
42. Â William H. A. Carr,
JFK, An Informal Biography.
New York, Lancer Books Inc., 1962.
43. Â Deane and David Heller,
Jacqueline Kennedy.
New York, Lancer Books Inc., 1962.
44. Â Mark Shaw,
The John F. Kennedys.
New York, The Noonday Press, 1959.
45. Â Arnold Bennett,
Jackie, Bobby and Manchester, The Story Behind the Headlines.
New York, Bee-Line Books Inc., 1967.
46. Â Edward Hymoff and Phil Hirsch,
The Kennedy Courage.
New York, Pyramid Books, 1965.
47. Â Lonnelle Aikman,
The Living White House.
Washington, D.C., National Geographic, 1966.
48. Â Stanley P. Friedman,
The Magnificent Kennedy Women.
New York, Monarch Books Inc., 1964.
49. Â Evelyn Lincoln,
My Twelve Years with Kennedy.
New York, David McKay Co. Inc., 1965.
50. Â Theodore H. White,
The Making of a President.
New York, Atheneum House, Inc., 1961.
51. Â
Assassination of a President. The New York Times
, special edition, 1963.
52. Â Robert J. Donovan,
PT 109, JFK in World War II.
New York, Fawcett World Library, 1961.
53. Â Paul B. Fay, Jr.,
The Pleasure of His Company.
New York, Harper & Row, 1966.
54. Â Mark Lane,
Rush to Judgment.
New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1966.
55. Â
Ramparts
, November 1966.
56. Â NBC News Staff,
There Was a President.
New York, Random House, Inc., 1967.
57. Â
Time
magazine; editions 1963â1968.
58. Â Sylvan Fox,
The Unanswered Questions About President Kennedy's Assassination.
New York, Award Books, 1965.
59. Â
U.S. News and World Report;
editions 1963â1968.
60. Â Harold Weisberg,
Whitewash.
New York, Dell Publishing Co., 1965.
61. Â Harry A. Squires, “Will the Spell be Broken?” Southland Supplement,
Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram
, 1963.
62. Â Lawrence Van Gelder,
Why the Kennedys Lost the Book Battle.
New York, Award Books, 1967.
63. Maude Shaw, “White House Nannie.” Southern News Services Ltd., 1965.
64. Â Thomas G. Buchanan,
Who Killed Kennedy?
New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1964.
65. Â Pierre Salinger,
With Kennedy.
Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.
66. Â Newspaper columns by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson 1963â1968. Copyright by Bell-McClure Syndicate.
67.Â
Newsweek;
editions 1963â1968.
68. Â
Articles by Peter Lisagor.
Miami Herald-Chicago Daily News
, 1967.
69. Â Robert Oswald and Barbara Land,
Lee, A Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald.
New York, Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967.
70. Â Jim Matthews,
Four Dark Days in History.
Carmel, Calif., Special Publications Inc., 1963.
71. Â Interviews by Jim Bishop.
72. Â R. B. Denson (ed.),
Destiny in Dallas.
Dallas, Denco Corp., 1964.
73. Â Josiah Thompson,
Six Seconds in Dallas.
New York, Bernard Geis Associates, 1967.
74. John Connolly, “Why Kennedy Went to Texas.”
Life
magazine, 1967.
75. Â Article by David Pearson.
Miami Herald
, November 22, 1967.
76. Paul Ballot (ed.),
The Thousand Days.
New York, The Citadel Press, 1964.
77.Â
Look
magazine; editions 1963â1968.
78. Â Frances S. Leighton, “First Lady's First Day.”
This Week
magazine, United Newspapers Magazine Corp., 1964.
79. Â
The Daily News;
editions 1963â1968.
80. Â
Life
magazine; editions 1963â1968.
81. Â Jimmy Breslin, “Death in Emergency Room One.”
The Saturday Evening Post
, 1963.
82. Â Radio Free Europe; transcripts 1963â1968.
83. Â Mrs. John Connolly, “Since That Day in Dallas.”
McCall's
magazine, 1964.
84. Â Jessamyn West, “Prelude to Tragedy, The Woman Who Sheltered Lee Oswald's Family Tells Her Story.”
Redbook
magazine, 1964.
85. Â Dr. Renatus Hartogs and Lucy Freeman,
The Two Assassins.
New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1965.
86. Â
Encyclopedia Brittanica
, 1965 edition.
87.Â
The Warren Report.
Published by Associated Press, 1965.
88.
Operating Room Nurses Journal
, November 1967.
89.
Jim Bishop,
A Day in the Life of President Johnson.
New York, Random House, Inc., 1967.
90. Â Relman Morin,
Assassination. The Death of President Kennedy.
A Signet Book. New York, The New American Library, 1968.
91. Â Evelyn Lincoln,
Kennedy
&
Johnson.
New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968.
92. Â The National Archives.
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your e-book reader's search tools.
A
Ables, Don, 378â379, 504
Abt, John, 303â305, 320, 400â401, 457â458, 554
n
, 605, 639
n
, 656, 686
Acme Brick Company, 373â376
Adamcik, John (Detective), 359â362, 477â478, 492, 544, 600â601, 612
Adams, Vickie, 167
Advance Syndicate
, 42
Air Force One
(Presidential Aircraft 26000), 6, 85, 97â98, 100â105, 107â112, 116â125,245â246, 250â251,261â263,271â273, 295â296, 299â300, 305â313, 315â318, 320â322, 327â329, 342, 347, 353â359, 371, 393â399, 401â402, 407â413
Air Force Two
(Aircraft 86970), 85, 107â112, 116â125, 296, 307, 322
Akin, Dr. Gene, 201
Albert, Carl B., 522
Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Birge, 86â87
Alexander, William, 472â473, 587, 614, 654
American Booksellers Association, 607
American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 132, 133, 197
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 303, 304, 553, 602â606, 627â628, 639
n
, 656â657, 686
Andrews Air Force Base, 311, 320â322, 344â347, 371, 401â402, 407â418, 433, 490, 615, 646â647