Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation (37 page)

Hear and Watch John F. Kennedy

www.presidency.ucsb.edu/medialist.php?presid=35

A rich, fascinating list of 41 live links to Kennedy’s radio remarks, TV interviews, inaugural address, speeches before the United Nations, addresses to the country about the Cuban missile crisis, and much more.

R
ECOMMENDED
V
IEWING

Cuban Missile Crisis: Three Men Go to War
. Murray and Emer Reynolds, directors. DVD. PBS, 2012. 60 minutes, NR.

The JFK-Nixon Debates, 1960
. DVD. Soundworks Recording Studio, 2011. 76 minutes, NR.

The Presidents: The Kennedys
. DVD. PBS, 1992. 221 minutes, NR.

The Speeches Collection
, Vol. 1. DVD. MPI Home Video, 2002. 240 minutes, NR. (Contains important speeches by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.)

The Search for Kennedy’s PT-109
. Peter Getzels, producer and writer. Warner, 2002. 60 minutes, NR.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anthony, Carl Sferrazza.
As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in the Words of Her Friends and Family
. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

^_____
.
The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Ballard, Robert D., and Michael Hamilton Morgan.
Collision with History: The Search for John F. Kennedy’s PT 109
. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2002.

Blaine, Gerald, and Lisa McCubbin.
The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence
. New York: Gallery Books, 2010.

Byrne, Paul J.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: To the Brink of War
. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books, 2006.

Caro, Robert A.
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Clarke, Thurston.
Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America
. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004.

Connally, Nellie, and Mickey Herskowitz.
From Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy
. New York: Rugged Land, 2003.

Cooper, Ilene.
Jack: The Early Years of John F. Kennedy
. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 2003.

Corrigan, Jim.
The 1960s Decade in Photos: Love, Freedom, and Flower Power
. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 2010.

Dobbs, Michael.
One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

Donovan, Robert.
PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II
. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001 (40th anniversary edition).

Gitlin, Todd.
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
. New York: Bantam Books, 1987.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns.
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.

Harrison, Barbara, and Daniel Terris.
A Twilight Struggle: The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1992.

Heiligman, Deborah.
High Hopes: A Photobiography of John F. Kennedy
. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2003.

Hill, Clint, and Lisa McCubbin.
Mrs. Kennedy and Me
. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.

Hossell, Karen Price.
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Speech
. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann-Raintree, 2005.

Kennedy, Caroline, and Michael Beschloss.
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
. New York: Hyperion, 2011.

Kennedy, John F.
Profiles in Courage
. New York: Harper, 1956.

Kennedy, Robert F., and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969.

King, Martin Luther Jr.
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Levine, Ellen S.
Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories
. New York: Putnam, 1993.

Levinson, Cynthia.
We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March
. Atlanta, Ga.: Peachtree Books, 2011.

Lieberson, Goddard, ed.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: As We Remember Him
. New York: Atheneum, 1965.

McWhorter, Diane.
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Manchester, William.
One Brief Shining Moment: Remembering Kennedy
. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983.

O’Reilly, Bill.
A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity
. New York: Broadway Books, 2008.

O’Reilly, Bill, and Martin Dugard.
Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot
. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2012.

Panitt, Merrill, ed.
TV Guide
. “America’s Long Vigil: A Permanent Record of What We Watched on Television from November 22 to 25, 1963.” January 25, 1964.

Reeves, Richard.
Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House
. New York: Abrams, 2010.

Rubin, Gretchen.
Forty Ways to Look at JFK
. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005.

Sandler, Martin W.
Kennedy Through the Lens: How Photography and Television Revealed and Shaped an Extraordinary Leader
. New York: Walker & Company, 2011.

Schlesinger, Arthur M.
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1965.

Sorensen, Theodore C.
Kennedy
. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

Tougas, Shelley.
Birmingham 1963: How a Photograph Rallied Civil Rights Support
. North Mankato, MN: Compass Point Books, 2011.

White, Theodore H.
The Making of the President, 1960
. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1969.

Widmer, Ted, selector.
Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy.
New York: Hyperion, 2012.

SOURCES

T
HIS BOOK REQUIRED BOTH
primary and secondary source research. Much of the primary material came from interviews and reporting that the author has done over the years. In fact, he won a Press Club of Dallas Award for his reporting on the JFK assassination while at WFAA-TV. Extensive new information was gathered from a variety of law enforcement agents, in particular Richard Wiehl, the FBI agent assigned to investigate and debrief Marina Oswald after the shooting. We are grateful to Mr. Wiehl, who has never spoken before on the record about his findings.

Kennedy’s Last Days
is completely a work of nonfiction. It’s all true. The actions of each individual and the events that took place really happened. The quotations are words people actually spoke. Those details are made possible in large part because JFK is a contemporary historical figure whose entire presidency was thoroughly documented by all manner of media.

The sheer volume of material available on the life and death of John F. Kennedy allowed for unexpected research delights when compiling the manuscript. Not only were there a number of first-person manuscripts that provided specific details about meetings, conversations, and events, but there are also numerous Internet videos of JFK’s speeches and television appearances, which brought his words and voice to life during each writing day. For readers, taking the time to find and watch these will add immeasurably to learning more about John Kennedy.

To hear about life inside the Kennedy White House from Jackie herself, listen to
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
, a series of recordings she made not long after the assassination. It is remarkable to hear the honesty with which the former first lady speaks, particularly when she opens up about so many of the most famous and powerful figures in the world at that time. As with her husband, her wit, warmth, and sheer presence are palpable.

The author owes a special debt to the team of Laurie Austin and Stacey Chandler at the Kennedy Library. No research request was too big or too small, and suffice it to say that it was quite a historical rush to receive, for instance, copies of John Kennedy’s actual daily schedule, showing his precise location, the names of different people at various meetings, and the time each afternoon he slipped off to the pool or to “the Mansion.” To read these schedules was to see the president’s day come alive and gave a vivid feel for what life was like in the White House. When in Boston, a visit to the Kennedy Library is a must.

Special recognition must also go to William Manchester’s
The Death of a President
, which was written shortly after the assassination and built around first-person interviews with almost everyone who was with JFK in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Manchester’s work was written with the complete cooperation of Jackie and the Kennedy family. The level of detail is fantastic for that very fact and proved invaluable as the ultimate answer to many questions when other resources conflicted with one another.

The backbone of this text are books, magazine articles, videos, the Warren Commission Report, and visits to places such as Dallas, Washington, and the Texas Hill Country. The author owes a debt of gratitude to the many brilliant researchers who have immersed themselves in the life and times of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Their works are listed in the bibliography.

These are some particularly helpful resources:

The White House Museum website, which offers a fine map of the entire building, along with its history in words and pictures. The Kennedy Library’s website is also a great source of detail on life in the White House.

When it was necessary to know what the weather was on a specific day, the
Farmers
’
Almanac
for that year was very useful.

The reader can go online and watch Jackie’s excellent White House tour.

The Kennedy Library’s website has a feature that allows you to browse the
New York Times
by date. This provides much of the background information on the travels of the president, the atrocities in East Berlin, and other events.