After Jackie Page 2

  *

  Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. two hours later. Jack, Bobby and Ethel Kennedy were met on the tarmac by their brother Edward and his wife Joan as well as every single member of the President's Cabinet. Tears and unrelenting sadness were evident on every face in that august crowd.

  Still under extremely tight security, Jack waited while Jackie's remains were gently placed in a hearse. The President then slowly eased into his limousine and was sped back to the White House. Waiting for him there, upstairs inside the living quarters, was his young daughter Caroline. John Jr. had already gone to bed. Ignoring his own pain, Jack picked Caroline up and held her in his arms. He knew she was aware that something awful had happened and he was barely able to look into her face. Sitting down in his rocking chair he pulled his daughter onto his lap and he stroked her hair. As Bobby stood in the far comer of the room Jack held Caroline close and told her what happened: that a bad man had shot her Mommy and that she had died.

  "Will Mommy go to Heaven?" the little girl asked her father tears forming in her eyes.

  "Yes sweetheart, she will. But you'll get a chance to say good-bye to her before she goes.

  "OK, Daddy," Caroline said, tears now running down her young face. In the next moment, Bobby walked over, swept his niece up into his arms and carried her off to her room where her aunt Lee Radziwill, Jackie's sister, was waiting to spend the night with her. When Bobby returned, the White House physician was administering a sedative to the President. When the doctor was finished, Bobby helped his brother out of the rocking chair and walked him down the hall to bedroom he had last shared with Jackie.

  Bobby waited by Jack's side until he fell asleep. Then he left the family quarters and walked down to the Oval Office. He had just sat down at the President's desk when the buzzer on the intercom rang. It was Lyndon Johnson. Robert Kennedy allowed him to enter.

  "Thanks for seeing me," the Vice President said to the Attorney General. "I just wanted to let you know how much you and the President have our sympathies. If there's anything Lady Bird and I can do, please just ask."

  Bobby slowly got up from the chair, paced behind Jack's desk and stared at him for a few seconds. Then, he exploded. "You want to know what you can do?" he shouted. "You can get the hell out of here. I don't even want to look at you! I'm holding YOU personally responsible for all of this. Texas is YOUR state as YOU always say. It was you who insisted that the President go there. You're finished Lyndon. You're never going to have any kind of meaningful role in this administration, again. You hear me? NEVER! Now get outl"

  "Bobby, I...."

  "That's Mr. Attorney General to you. And didn't you hear me? I said GET OUTI"

  Johnson, his head hanging low, turned and quietly shuffled out of the Oval Office. Bobby sat down and caught his breath. The events of the day had taken their toll on him as well.

  *

  There would be time for grieving later, serious work had to be done now. Robert Kennedy, in his capacity as United States Attorney General, called for a high level meeting in the Cabinet Room. Within minutes the participants arrived. Attending were the Director of the FBI, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of the CIA, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. They discussed what information they already had and the need to find out who or what else were implicated in this assassination attempt.

  While Bobby was meeting in the White House Cabinet Room, members of the Kennedy family began to congregate in the family quarters. Ted and Joan Kennedy, Sargent and Eunice Shriver, Prince Stanislous and Lee Radziwill all met with Ethel to begin preparations for Jackie's funeral. Ethel would take the lead in making the arrangements.

  On Saturday morning November 23, 1963 President John Fitzgerald Kennedy awoke in the White House. He looked to the other side of the bed and sadly remembered the tragic events that had taken place in Dallas less than twenty four hours earlier. Slowly he rose from the bed and walked painfully over to the window. To his astonishment he saw that the streets outside the White House were packed with people, crowds stretching as far as his eyes could see. And as he looked more closely, he could see that virtually every one of them was holding a single rose. In the hours that had passed since the First Lady had been assassinated the nation had spontaneously adopted the rose as a commemoration of her memory.

  Jack turned on the television in his bedroom. All regular broadcasting was suspended and every channel was covering nothing but the events of November 22: his attempted assassination; Jackie's murder and the arrest of Lee Oswald. Kennedy pulled on a pair of chinos and a polo shirt and leaning on his cane went into the family quarters. There he met his sister-in-law Lee Radziwill who told him that Caroline and John Jr. were still asleep. Jack then limped into the nursery and saw that his son was just awakening. With some difficulty due to his back and the leg wound, the President picked up his namesake and carried him to the window. "Do you see all those people out there?" he asked.

  "Yes," the little boy replied. His eyes widened as he stared at the crowds surrounding the White House.

  "They're all there because they love your Mommy very much. And your Mommy loves you very much. But God needed her and called for her and she had to go. And now she's with Him in Heaven."

  The boy only understood that something very sad had happened to his mother. John F. Kennedy Jr. began to cry.

  As the President comforted his son, Caroline walked into the nursery. Her father reached out to her and pulled her in with an outstretched arm. Then the three surviving Kennedys, alone for the first time since the tragedy, huddled together and began the long period of mourning for the wife and mother they would never see again. For the first time since Jackie's death, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began to cry.

  *

  At that moment Lee Oswald, the most despised man in America, was being led out of Dallas Police Headquarters surrounded by FBI agents as well as an elite team of Marines flown in during the night from Quantico Virginia. Chaos seemed to rule the scene. Few policemen appeared to know what was going on. But the FBI had control of the situation and a tight line of U.S. Marines held an angry mob at bay. Among the crowd was a local nightclub owner by the name of Jack Ruby. Straining to get a glimpse of Oswald, Ruby fingered the revolver in his coat pocket. But Oswald was surrounded by a wall of tan Marine uniforms. No sign of the assassin was visible. Frustrated. Ruby pulled his hand out of his pocket and turned to leave. There was no way he was going to get anywhere near the man who had murdered the First Lady.

  *

  At one o'clock that afternoon a limousine pulled up to the front entrance of the White House. Stepping out were President Kennedy's two predecessors in the Oval Office, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower accompanied by their wives, Bess and Mamie. They had come to pay a condolence call. Spectators watching from the street marveled at the sight of two former Presidents, each twice the age of the fallen First Lady coming to pay their last respects. No one had ever seen anything like it before.

  Meanwhile, the President was spending most of the day reassuring his allies around the world that despite the minor wound which he had suffered the day before he was all right. And that as the leader of the free world he was still in control. When Congressional leaders called he assured them that his New Frontier initiatives would continue unhindered and unchanged. When his friend Ben Bradlee. the Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Post called, the President actually granted him an exclusive interview. All through the day, as people called to show their concern and offer their condolences, John Kennedy seemed determined to somehow comfort them instead.

  And he met with Bobby's ad hoc task force which was investigating the assassination attempt. These were serious men shocked by an egregious crime. General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs reported that Oswald was in military custody undergoing rigorous interrogation. FBI Director Hoover inititiated the
most comprehensive investigation in the Bureau’s 30 year history. CIA Director John McCone along with Secretary of State Dean Rusk were using their far reaching espionage contacts to comb through all international intelligence to examine any network linking Lee Oswald to foreign governments. And Defense Secretary Robert McNamara brought the military readiness to the highest level. At the request of RFK Chief Justice Earl Warren became the coordinator of this powerful group of men.

  Throughout everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, the President had not lost sight that he was still his country's Chief Executive. Whoever had attacked him, had attacked the United States of America. They would have to be dealt with swiftly and severely.

  *

  That night Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy returned to the White House. Her casket was brought to lie in state in the East Room. For one last time, Jackie had returned to her beloved White House where she had charmed the heads of state from every comer of the earth and had in the process become the most famous, loved and respected woman in the world. The entire Kennedy family as well as all the Bouviers came to share their grief. The Reverend Billy Graham, the most well known clergyman in America and perhaps the world, had arrived to lead them all in prayer. But stepping up before the tear~filled room, the legendary orator was all but struck dumb. The Rev. Graham regained his composure. "Let us all bow our heads and pray for this most remarkable woman," he said, "who is surely at God's side at this very moment."

  *

  Beginning the afternoon of November 23 and continuing into Sunday November 24, the streets of Washington, D.C. became crowded with more than a million people of all ages, races, religions and nationalities. They had all come to pay tribute to the fallen First Lady. In their hands, most carried a single rose, making the streets of the capital resemble nothing so much as a massive, swaying rose garden. An endless line of mourners slowly moved down Pennsylvania Avenue and into the White House. One by one they entered the East Room and filed by the simple, white, unadorned casket containing the body of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. The grief on their faces reflected the grief that now shrouded the entire nation. The emotion these people displayed was palpable - a sadness had taken over America. The national spirit had been shaken. For a generation that had been unused to tragedy, a generation that had been raised to believe in and rely upon the right, power and supremacy of the United States of America, the sudden and meaningless murder of the First Lady opened fresh wounds and created new vulnerabilities Sunday, the 24th day of November, 1963 would always be remembered as a national day of mourning.

  •

  At 10:00 a.m. on Monday, November 25,1963 Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, began a service in the East Room for family and close friends of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. "Ten years ago," the Cardinal said, "I was honored and blessed to preside over the marriage of Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier. I knew then that theirs was truly a match made in Heaven. Jackie had every bit of John's vitality, his energy and his idealism. She was passionate, giving and caring. Even then I told a friend that I expected these two to inhabit this very house. The Cardinal paused to clear his throat, many in the room had already raised handkerchiefs to their faces. "Yes, we will all miss Jackie, none of us more than her beloved husband and children. There will be times when we will raise our eyes skyward and ask God why? Why did He have to take a woman so young and alive, a woman whose absence will be felt so painfully by so many of the people she has left behind? We may never have a satisfactory answer to this question. But God has His own reasons, and I can only believe that, as much as she will be missed on earth, Jackie has gone on to more important work in Heaven."

  The mourners nodded and wiped away tears as Cardinal Cushing stepped down and joined them. As the Cardinal sat, President Kennedy arose. Taking his daughter's small hand in one hand and his son's in the other, John Kennedy limped up the aisle to his wife's casket. Reaching it, he knelt and kissed the white wooden coffin. Spontaneously, both Caroline and John Jr. knelt and kissed the casket as well. With that simple gesture, the three surviving Kennedys said good-bye and then watched tearfully as the First Lady's remains were carried out of the White House for the trip to St. Matthew's Cathedral where a public service was to be held.

  The massive St. Matthew's was filled well before the Presidential motorcade arrived. The crowd included a sizable list of international leaders and dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Winston Churchill, Charles DeGaulle, Golda Meir, Jawaharlal Nehru, Konrad Adenauer, Emperor Hirohito, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev and even the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. Slowly, members of the President’s motorcade filed in and took their reserved seats in the front of the Church. The last to enter were the President and his two children. As they slowly walked down the aisle, their eyes cast downward, every other eye in the Cathedral was upon them.

  After Cardinal Cushing celebrated the Mass, Robert Kennedy walked to the pulpit. Even though he smiled in greeting the congregation, everyone present could tell he was forcing back tears. "You know." he told the mourners, "I married young, a few years before Jack even though he's eight years older than I am. And one day, not long after I got married, I went up to Jack and I nudged him in the ribs and I said 'well, what are you waiting for?'” And he laughed and said to me 'an angel'” The crowd gave a tearful smile. "And you know, he found her. Jackie was an angel. Anyone who ever spent five minutes with her could tell you that. You are all here because you all know that. And now she's with the rest of the angels." He paused, wiped his eyes. "She loved her husband and her children. She loved me and Ethel and our children. She loved all of you. She loved her country and she loved her world. The world needed someone like her. It's a terrible tragedy that she was taken from us so soon. A horrible tragedy. But when I think of Jackie in the future I will not think of how soon she left us. I'll think of how much she did for all of us in the short time she was here. We will not see her kind again."

  Bobby bowed his head and stepped down. There was a silence throughout St. Matthews. Then the crowd gasped audibly as a tall, sturdy figure walked up the aisle to the pulpit. Without using the microphone, Charles deGaulle sent his booming voice out into the cathedral. Speaking in French, he spoke on behalf of all the people of the world. Of the sadness they all felt on that day. He celebrated the beauty and the grace that was Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Then, finishing his remarks, he said in heavily accented English, "Good-bye Jackie, you have made the world a finer and more beautiful place. We will all miss you dearly."

  As President deGaulle finished his eulogy and stepped down, the organist played Ave Maria. The pallbearers stepped forward and picked up the white casket. They carried it down the aisle, past thousands of tear filled eyes, out the front door and down the steps where a white hearse was waiting to carry the First Lady to Union Station for her final trip to Massachusetts. Once again the streets of Washington, D.C. were mobbed with tearful Americans, attempting to have one last opportunity to say farewell to the fallen First Lady. And once again the city was a sea of roses.

  The President and his children as well as the entire Kennedy and Bouvier families, climbed into a line of black limousines that followed the hearse in a motorcade to Union Station. Arriving they boarded a special train which slowly transported the First lady's casket north to Massachusetts. Large crowds visibly shaken, weeping openly and bearing roses lined the train tracks 300 miles north to Cape Cod.

  *

  That evening many of the assembled dignitaries left the U.S. capital for their homelands. But some extended the visit, using the opportunity to confer with their embassy staffs. Others convened with allies at ad hoc summit meetings. Although Havana was only two hours away, Fidel Castro decided to spend the night at the Hay Adams Hotel, in the very non-communist Presidential Suite.

  As they were charged by Director Hoover the FBI monitored all the comings and goings of these foreign diplomats. With the continued
tensions of the Cold War very much a reality, Castro received a great deal of attention during his visit to the U.S. It was therefore with much interest that the FBI observed as a young, dark haired woman entered the suite where Premier Castro was spending the night. And that interest increased enormously when this same woman left Castro's rooms early the next morning. Such a bright woman should have realized that this visit would pique the interest of U.S. intelligence agencies. And without question it did. The FBI shifted into high gear at that very moment. The surveillance of Consuela Diego had begun.

  *

  On Tuesday morning November 26, 1963 in a private service, the Boston Archbishop Cardinal Cushing presided over the interment of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in the family plot in Holyhood Cemetery near Hyannisport. Immediately after the burial, the President and his children boarded a Navy helicopter and flew to Boston's Logan Field where they boarded Air Force One for the trip back to Washington. Despite his grief, he had already decided that what he and the country needed most was for him to throw himself back into his work as the Chief Executive of the United States of America. The country, its confidence badly shaken, needed to know that the President was still on the job, in control and more determined than ever to protect freedom and justice in America and throughout the world. And John Fitzgerald Kennedy needed to embark on the difficult task of rebuilding his life after Jackie. His hope was that he could accomplish both at the same time.

  CHAPTER 3