The Day Kennedy Was Shot (15 page)

Her brother began to shout. She should look on page fourteen; it was awful. It asked the President of the United States a lot of insolent questions. Worse, it was signed by Bernard Weissman. This sounded Jewish. Mr. Ruby was a Jew. Eva Grant, his sister, was a Jew. All the difficult tenement growing up in Chicago was not enough; Adolf Hitler was not enough; now a Jew had to get fresh with the President.

“He's a son of a bitch,” said Mr. Ruby. “The
News
was wrong to accept the ad.” Jack knew a lot of nice guys in the ad department at the
News
and he was going to ask them about this so-called Weissman. Who was he? Where had he come from?

Mrs. Grant listened. She was too ill to argue or to soothe ruffled feelings. Of her brothers and sisters, this one was strange. He had never married, and now he was in the middle years, talking about exercising in the YMCA, taking sauna baths, making a full-time hobby of being friendly to policemen, trying to run a brace of cheap nightclubs with strippers and dirty filthy masters of ceremonies who seldom heeded Mr. Ruby's warning to “clean up them jokes—especially the ones with the Jewish dialect.”

The listening continued. Lately, the conversations between the two had been one-sided. Once, when Eva and Jack were full partners in the nightclub business, she had been shrill and
inexhaustible and she kept track of every dollar that came in or went out. But they had bounced from one place to another, always failing or tempting failure, always a step ahead of the bill collectors, trying to fight competition which was using “amateur stripteasers,” which seemed to draw more male customers and heavier drinkers than the professionals. Now the woman who, perhaps was more mother than sister, more
hamisher
than Jack, was tired.

Tuesday morning—three days ago—he stopped in, not to ask her how she felt after hospitalization and an operation, but to show her a newspaper photograph of President John F. Kennedy and his son John. The more Jack Ruby studied the photo, the more emotional he became. “That man,” he had said, choking, “doesn't act like a President. He acts like a normal everyday man with a family.”

Mr. Ruby seldom permitted anyone to get off a telephone easily. He had phoned the
Dallas Times Herald
, he said, and they told him that they had refused the ad. That, thought Mr. Ruby, was class. Further, he thought that the ad should not have been addressed to “Mr. Kennedy.” They might at least have called him “Honorable Mr. President.” At least, Mrs. Grant was small and middle-aged and patient.

He had phoned the News and, after making certain that he had a minor advertising executive and not an editor, had asked: “Where the hell do you get off taking an ad like that? Are you money hungry or something?” Mr. Ruby groused a little more and then told his sister: “If that guy is a Jew they ought to whack the hell out of him.”

In this, Mr. Ruby, average citizen, was crying aloud against the slurs and slanders which had smashed against his sensibilities in Chicago and in Dallas. This was his real gripe. His admiration for President Kennedy was genuine, but his fear of being a defensive Jew was paramount. Sometimes, in the company of friendly
goyim
, he had to force a wry smile when he was patted
on the back and referred to as a “white Jew.” Always Mr. Ruby had tried to be twice as nice to them as they were to him, but on occasion, especially in his strip joints, his temper deserted him and he lashed out with his fists, knocking a customer to the floor and kicking him down a flight of stairs. Or listening to one too many Jewish jokes and yanking the master of ceremonies off the tiny stage and hurling him across the floor.

Why did such a thing have to be signed “Weissman”? Why, Eva?

The President strode back into the sitting room and gave his wife a big smile. Yes, she was ready. Mary Gallagher had gone on ahead with Mrs. Lincoln and some of the others. Mr. Kennedy told the Secret Service he was ready to leave. The word was whispered through the partly open door of Suite 850, and it passed down the hall and men became even more alert. On the telephone near the fire hose went the final message. “Lancer is leaving the Hotel Texas.” And, as it always did, the message spread downstairs to men with walkie-talkies, to others on rooftops, to Carswell Air Force Base, to Washington, D.C., to Love Field in Dallas, to the communications center at the Sheraton, to interested parties in many places. Lancer was leaving.

Eighth Street was choked with vehicles and mounted policemen. The crowd had been herded to the far curb and, for a moment, a shaft of sunlight brightened the scene. The automobiles were in three rows—congressmen's cars along the outer edge; press buses and staff cars in the middle; the big limousines rented for the President and his personal party at the curb.

Between the Secret Service follow-up car and Lyndon Johnson's limousine, Larry O'Brien stood bareheaded, entreating Senator Ralph Yarborough to please get in the vice-presidential car. The reporters in the buses could not hear the conversation, but they could see O'Brien's hands making the plea, and they could see the small silky wisps of red hair lift and fall on
O'Brien's head, and they could see Yarborough, studying the curb and shaking his head negatively.

Mr. O'Brien could not exert the blunt, brutal pressure which was available to the President. He tried persuasion and the Senator found that tack easy to resist by stating that nobody cared where he rode or with whom. To the contrary, O'Brien said softly, nodding toward the press bus with its array of eager faces pressed to the windows. Yarborough barely looked up. He knew that his presence in that car, or his absence, could be the big story in the nation's press tomorrow morning.

It could darken the Kennedy triumph and hide it in shadow. The trip, thus far, had been bigger, warmer, friendlier than Kennedy had expected and was a surprise to the knowledgeable and conservative Governor. Now it was threatened by personal pique. The man to send to balm the raw sensitivities was not Lawrence O'Brien. The redhead was a peacemaker for those intelligent elements which did not set themselves against peace; he was a compromiser, a friend, a buddy, a favor-doer before becoming a favor-maker, a collie dog trotting along the perimeter of congressional sheep, urging the stragglers onward, bringing the wanderers back into line, looking to the shepherd in the White House for a compass heading aimed toward greener pastures for all.

But this was a personal vendetta. O'Brien was not a man to threaten. Mr. Kennedy might have sent Mr. Kenneth O'Donnell, who could have turned on his Humphrey Bogart peel of lips and who might have whispered: “You will get in that car, Senator, or you will wish you were dead. The President says that if we have to get a few guys to lift you up and toss you in the back seat, we're to do it. Which way would you like to have it?” If Mr. Robert Kennedy had been in Texas, he would probably have summoned Yarborough to his presence yesterday, in San Antonio, and he might have said: “Senator, we are going to have unity in this goddamn party and we're not going to have the boat
rocked by you. We demand that you sit with the Vice-President on every occasion for the next two days. You don't have to make love to him; just sit beside him so that you are not in the position of handing ammunition to the press. After we go back to Washington, if you want to continue your childish quarrel, go to it, but while my brother is in this state you and Lyndon and John Connally are going to smile like brothers. If you don't, we think your support is too expensive for us and we may have to dump you.”

Yarborough desired to compromise with O'Brien. All right, he said, I won't ride in the car but I'll issue a statement. Larry O'Brien wagged his head no. The sun was back behind the billowing, slate sky, and the faces at the bus windows were less distinct. The Vice-President and Mrs. Johnson emerged from the hotel and, smiling at the applause, got into their car. Yarborough felt that the situation must be abrasive to the President to warrant all this attention, and with head down he said: “Well, if it means that much—.” O'Brien permitted himself a grin of relief.

The Johnsons were comfortable in their car, but it had no jump seats; two Secret Service men were in front; the Johnsons used most of the rear seat. Two cars ahead, they noticed a commotion. The Kennedys had discovered that their car also held but five passengers. The front seat had William Greer, Secret Service agent assigned to drive the President's car, and Roy Kellerman, head of the Dallas office. Governor and Mrs. Connally were to ride with the Kennedys, but there was room for only one of them on the back seat.

The President was apologetic. Nellie Connally said it was understandable, and that her husband should ride with the President. For the short trip to Carswell, she would go back with the Johnsons, who were old friends. Up ahead, at the level of Main Street, the police motorcycle escort had started the assortment of explosions which always signified the imminence of departure. Mrs. Connally hurried back to squeeze in beside the Vice-President.

Sunlight flicked on bright and hot. Seth Kantor, a journalist, found the Eighth Street side too crowded for leaving the hotel. He hurried out the Main Street entrance and down the side street, looking for the press bus. A raincoat was on his arm, and his notes were clutched in his hand. People in the motorcade watched him step off the curb between cars and one foot came to rest in fresh manure. Mr. Kantor went down, left arm trying to break the fall, and the hand braced itself in the manure. Whatever earthy humor there is in such a situation is beyond analysis, but laughter swept the motorcade.

Two congressmen left their cars (Henry Gonzalez and Olin Teague) to help the reporter to his feet. They brushed his clothes and both observed that, journalistically, no matter where Kantor went, he managed to step in this substance. Malcolm Kilduff hurried to Kantor's side to inform him that, unless he could find a way of diminishing the residual odor, he would have to ride on top of the press bus. Kilduff, assistant press secretary to Pierre Salinger, was the man in charge of the press on the Texas trip.

O'Brien escorted Yarborough to the Johnson car and helped him in beside the Vice-President. Under his breath, Lyndon Johnson muttered, “Fine” to O'Brien, and Mrs. Johnson, in the middle, turned a friendly smile to the Senator. On the far side of the seat, the door opened and Nellie Connally was trying to squeeze in. Gallantly, the Senator began to back out. Larry O'Brien saw the broad hips he had just assisted into the car backing out toward him. He glanced at Mrs. Connally in mute appeal. She, gracious and confused, backed out as O'Brien's shoulder jammed the Yarborough hips back into the car. Mrs. Connally got out of the car, walked around the back, and got in the front seat between a policeman and Secret Service man Rufus Youngblood.

No one, except O'Brien and Johnson, seemed to comprehend this complex game of musical automobiles, but the Secret Service men nodded to each other from the back of the motor
cade to the front, and the Fort Worth police stopped all traffic on Main and slowly began the run to Carswell. The crowd cheered, the Kennedys waved, and the excitement around the Hotel Texas died in a pall of blue smoke.

The people of Fort Worth were confused by the route chosen by Kellerman and O'Donnell. The direct way to Carswell would have been Route 20, the east-west freeway, between Trinity Park and Forest Park and then the residential section of Arlington Heights to White Settlement and the base. It was 10:40
A.M.
and the decision-makers wanted to use a half hour, so the motorcade swept up Henderson Avenue and onto Jacksboro Highway in a north-northwesterly direction, although Carswell was west of the hotel, then a big swing left onto Ephriham Avenue, which melts into General Arnold Boulevard, passing the airport on the opposite side, to the south.

Someone in authority must have thought that this would be good exposure for the President, but, as the morning breeze cupped the ears of the riders, they saw but a thin rime of citizens standing on the curb. In the press bus, reporters saw a few shapely women out on the sidewalk in housecoats. One said: “Hustlers?” A second said: “This early?” Seth Kantor, looking ahead, saw a big automatic farm forklift at the side of the road with two men sitting high in the shovel waving to the Kennedys. They were old friends: Harry Rubin and George Levitan. Mr. Kantor had been married in Levitan's house eleven years ago.

The sun, still tentative, seemed a bit more positive and flashed light and heat across the lush fairways of Rockwood Park and Shady Oaks. President Kennedy squinted at the sky and smiled. He was a man who liked to make his best showing, and a good portion of truculent, independent Dallas might come out on the streets to swell the attendance if he could have sunshine as an ally.

His wife, flicking the lower strand of dark hair back from her eyes, held onto the little pink hat and said the weather was
warm for November. It was, but in this matter her husband would not attribute it to the vagaries of high and lows and unusual isobars. It was General Godfrey McHugh's fault. Kennedy had asked him specifically to get a good advance reading on the weather, and McHugh had the pooling of several meteorologists at his command: the Dallas Weather Bureau; the Air Force; Carswell; Fort Worth; the national meteorological projection for all areas, issued at the observatory in Washington, and McHugh had come up with “cool.” It wasn't cool; it was hot, and Mrs. Kennedy was now in cold-weather wool. Before noon, the temperature might climb to the seventies. If it did, the President's temperature was going to climb higher, especially in the presence of Godfrey McHugh.

The pace of the clock was deliberate and unhurried, the large second hand flicking a leg like a British soldier executing a slow march. It is the most exasperating of man's inventions because it must prevail and can never be dominated. The timepiece displays an impassive face and man moves at a pace faster than he wishes. He fights this index to events and movement and must always lose the final engagement.