Reclaiming History (28 page)

But anyone led into thinking that because of Alexander’s tough talk he was just a rawboned hick who happened to have a law degree would be wrong. One can’t spend more than a few minutes with Alexander without sensing that he is very intelligent and has a dry and pungent wit that he enjoys just as much as the person he’s sharing it with.

On the day of the assassination, Alexander was returning to his office from a lunch-hour trip to a hardware store in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas to get supplies for the deer-hunting season coming up, when he heard sirens and saw traffic gridlock near his office in the old Records Building off Dealey Plaza. Learning the president had been shot, he went to his office on the sixth floor. It was virtually empty, since Wade, in view of the president’s visit and motorcade, had told his office to take the afternoon off. Knowing there would be a flood of calls coming in, Alexander asked the switchboard operator to stay on the job, and immediately went to the sheriff’s office in the Jail Building, which was joined to the Records Building, to “see what was going on.” Within minutes he walked to the assassination scene, where his friend, Dallas deputy chief Herbert Sawyer, was coordinating things from a makeshift command post he had set up on Elm in front of the Book Depository Building. When a call came in that a Dallas officer had been shot in the Oak Cliff area, as indicated, he got in the squad car with Bud Owens and Gerald Hill and went to the scene. Alexander knew what all good prosecutors know. If at all possible, you join in the police investigation. It’s much easier to present a case in court that you helped put together than to rely solely on the police. If you do the latter and they do a good job, fine. But if they don’t, it’s legal suicide. Alexander was at ground zero and starting to put his case together against the killer of Officer Tippit.
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As Owens, Hill, and Alexander proceed to the Tippit murder scene, they see an ambulance, sirens wailing, cross in front of them, a police car close behind. The officers know it’s heading for the emergency unit at Methodist Hospital.
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The ambulance bearing Tippit’s body had picked up a patrol car, driven by Officer Robert Davenport and partner W. R. Bardin, a block earlier. In a moment the two are wheeling into the emergency entrance. When Butler and Kinsley open the back of the ambulance, Officer Davenport is shocked to see J. D. Tippit, whom he knew well and had worked with for three years. Davenport and Bardin help get Tippit into the emergency room. Though he appears to be dead, the officers observe “the doctors and nurses trying to bring [Tippit] back to life.”

Up in the call-room of the hospital, Dr. Paul C. Moellenhoff, a twenty-nine-year-old surgery resident, is watching TV coverage of the presidential shooting. Someone from the emergency room calls and asks for the doctor on duty. He’s out, so Dr. Moellenhoff runs down to cover for him.
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A
t Tenth and Patton, Officer Roy W. Walker pulls to the curb and recognizes an old school friend, Warren Reynolds, who gives him a description of the suspect.
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Officer Walker grabs his radio mike as more police cars approach.

“We have a description on this suspect,” Walker broadcasts, “last seen about 300 block of East Jefferson. He’s a white male, about thirty, five-eight, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt, and dark slacks.”

“Armed with what?” dispatcher Jackson asks.

“Unknown,” Walker replies.
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Patrol partners Joe Poe and Leonard Jez pull up just as Walker finishes the broadcast. Owens, Hill, and Alexander are right behind them. Police cars are now arriving at Tenth and Patton en masse.
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Sergeant Owens takes command of the area, instructing Officers Poe and Jez to talk to as many witnesses as possible and guard the crime scene. Someone at the scene informs them that the gunman had cut through a parking lot on Jefferson and dumped his jacket. Sergeant Owens and Assistant District Attorney Alexander and a posse of officers leave in search of the gunman.
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Sergeant Hill tells eyewitness Harold Russell to come with him. Hill takes Poe’s squad car and drives off with Russell in the hopes of spotting the gunman in flight.

Eyewitness Jack Tatum walks up to Officers Poe and Jez with Mrs. Markham in tow. Hysterical, incoherent, and on the verge of fainting, Mrs. Markham recounts the brutal murder for police. It’s tough to understand Markham’s story through her tears. She keeps telling them that she’ll be late for work, and they reassure her that everything will be okay.
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Ted Callaway and cabdriver William Scoggins return to the scene after failing to find the gunman. Callaway swears he would have shot him if he had found him. Police are just glad to get Tippit’s service revolver back from this gung-ho Dallas citizen.
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1:23 p.m.

At Methodist Hospital, Dr. Moellenhoff is joined in the emergency room by Dr. Richard A. Liquori. The physicians make no further effort to resuscitate J. D. Tippit. Dr. Liquori thinks the bullet wound in the temple could have caused instant death. He turns to Officer Davenport and tells him he’s declaring Tippit dead on arrival. Davenport shakes his head in despair and leaves the room to notify police headquarters. Tippit’s body will be transported to Parkland Hospital for an autopsy. Before it is, Captain Cecil Talbert asks Dr. Moellenhoff to remove a bullet from Tippit’s body, one that had not penetrated deeply, so the police can determine what caliber weapon was used in the shooting. “One 38 [caliber] slug and a button from Tippit’s shirt” are removed from the wound.
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1:25 p.m.

FBI agent James P. Hosty Jr. hurries into the FBI squad room on the eleventh floor of the Santa Fe Building in downtown Dallas. He scans the room for Kenneth C. Howe, his immediate supervisor. Hosty was eating a cheese sandwich in a café when he heard that Kennedy had been shot. He’s already been out to the Trade Mart, Parkland Hospital, and now, under orders from Howe, back at the bureau offices.

Hosty sees that Howe, in his fifties, is visibly close to the edge.

Because of Kennedy’s progressive civil rights stance, Howe, like so many, suspects that the right wing may be behind the assassination, and Hosty is the only Dallas agent that monitors the right-wing groups. He knows he’s in the hot seat now. Just then, Agent Vince Drain calls from Parkland Hospital to report that the president is dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Silence falls over the FBI office. A few secretaries start to sob quietly.

Hosty jumps on the telephone and calls Sergeant H. M. Hart, his counterpart in the Dallas police intelligence unit. In a matter of minutes, they agree to coordinate their investigation of right-wing extremists. As he hangs up the telephone, Hosty, like most of the law enforcement officers involved, can’t help but think that the shootings of Officer Tippit and President Kennedy are somehow connected. But how?
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I
n the 400 block of east Jefferson, Sergeant Owens climbs from the squad car and directs a flock of arriving officers into the parking lot behind the Texaco service station. Another group of lawmen, including Assistant District Attorney Alexander, storm into two large vacant houses on Jefferson used for the storage of secondhand furniture. Warren Reynolds had told the police he saw the gunman running toward the houses.
Dallas Morning News
reporter Hugh Aynesworth is with the police searchers. A handful of cops run up a flight of rickety stairs, while another posse paws through the clutter of furniture, weapons cocked.

“Come out of there you son of a bitch, we’ve got you now!” one of them hollers.

Suddenly an officer falls through a weak section of the second-story flooring with a thunderous sound, his descent stopping at his waist. Before witnessing the humorous sight of the officer being half in and half out of the ceiling, all of them had instantly drawn their guns. Aynesworth, realizing he’s the only one in there without a gun, runs for the exit, leaving police to do their duty. It doesn’t take long for police to determine that there’s nothing but junk in either building.
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Captain Westbrook and several officers proceed to the adjacent parking lot behind the Texaco service station, where the suspect lost his civilian pursuers, to conduct a further search. Quickly, an officer points out to Captain Westbrook a light-colored jacket tossed under the rear bumper of an old Pontiac parked in the middle of the parking lot. Westbrook walks over and inspects the clothing. Looks like their suspect has decided to change his appearance.
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Motorcycle officer J. T. Griffin reaches for his police radio to notify the dispatcher, and fellow officers, of the discovery.
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“We believe we’ve got [the suspect’s] white jacket. Believe he dumped it on this parking lot behind this service station at 400 block east Jefferson.”
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A moment later, dispatch supervisor Sergeant Gerald Henslee contacts Captain Westbrook on police radio channel 2.

“Go ahead,” Westbrook says as he reaches a nearby radio.

“D.O.A. [dead on arrival], Methodist [Hospital].”

“Name?” Westbrook asks.

“J. D. Tippit.”
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1:26 p.m.

At the makeshift headquarters in Parkland Hospital’s emergency section, Secret Service agent Lem Johns reports to Agent Youngblood that he has lined up two unmarked police cars, along with Dallas Police Chief Curry and Inspector Putnam, who’ll act as drivers, to get Johnson back to Love Field.

“Let’s go,” Johnson says.

They rush out in a football formation, Johnson the quarterback surrounded by a wedge of agents, those at the rear walking backward, hands on their guns. A second formation comprising Mrs. Johnson and two congressmen, Jack Brooks and Homer Thornberry, are close behind. The bewildered crowd at the emergency entrance scarcely has time to react before Johnson dives into the rear seat of Chief Curry’s car. Youngblood crowds in behind him, as Thornberry slides in front. Mrs. Johnson and Congressman Brooks and a bevy of agents jump into the second car. As the cars begin to pull away, Congressman Albert Thomas runs up, calling out, “Wait for me!” Youngblood, not eager to present a sitting target right in front of the hospital, tells Curry to drive on, but Johnson overrules him. “Stop and let him get in.”

The cars are stopped momentarily by a delivery truck on the access road to the hospital, but the police motorcycle escort gets them through, and they are off again, sirens wailing. Both Youngblood and Johnson ask Curry to turn off the sirens. They don’t want to attract any more attention than absolutely necessary. Youngblood radios ahead to have Air Force One ready to receive them. They will be coming on board immediately.
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Malcolm Kilduff stands outside Parkland Hospital watching as the new president heads for Love Field. He turns and heads back into the hospital, where he knows he’ll have to make the hardest announcement of his life. A crowd of journalists crazy for something official, anything at all, flock around him. All of them know, from Father Huber’s indiscretion, that President Kennedy is dead. Someone has already lowered the flag out in front of the hospital to half-mast. Kilduff refuses to oblige them, repeating mechanically that he will make no further statement until the press conference begins.
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1:29 p.m.

For the first time, Dallas police headquarters learns that there may be a connection between the Kennedy and Tippit shootings. When Deputy Chief of Police N. T. Fisher calls into channel 2 police radio dispatcher Gerald Henslee and asks if there is “any indication” of a connection between the two shootings, Henslee radios back, “Well, the descriptions on the suspect are similar and it is possible.”
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1:30 p.m.

Vernon B. O’Neal, proprietor of O’Neal’s Funeral Home, and his bookkeeper, Ray Gleason, arrive at Parkland’s emergency entrance and open the back of the Cadillac ambulance. Secret Service agents and White House correspondents spring forward to help lug the four-hundred-pound casket requested by the Secret Service out onto the undertaker’s lightweight, portable cart assembled there.
*
Ken O’Donnell gets the signal that the casket has arrived. He returns to the corridor outside Trauma Room One and finds Jackie Kennedy still sitting on the folding chair surrounded by Clint Hill and members of President Kennedy’s staff.

“I want to speak to you,” he says to Mrs. Kennedy, motioning for her to follow him. They move a short distance down the passageway, away from the casket being wheeled in. The First Lady guesses that he doesn’t want her to see it. Dr. Kemp Clark appears beside O’Donnell, and Jackie pleads with him, “Please—can I go in? Please let me go back.”

“No, no,” he said softly.

Finally, she leans toward him.

“Do you think seeing the coffin can upset me, Doctor? I’ve seen my husband die, shot in my arms. His blood is all over me. How can I see anything worse than what I’ve seen?”

There is nothing left for Clark to do but accede to her wishes.

Mrs. Kennedy is right behind Vernon O’Neal as they push the casket into Trauma Room One. She wants to see her husband one more time before they close the coffin, to touch him and give him something. She moves to the president’s side, takes off her wedding ring, which he had bought her in Newport, Rhode Island, just before their grand wedding there, lifts her husband’s hand, and slips it on his finger. She wants desperately to be alone with him, but she knows it cannot be. She steps into the passageway outside.

“Did I do the right thing?” she asks Ken O’Donnell. “I wanted to give him something.”

“You leave it right where it is,” he says.

“Now I have nothing left,” she says.
*
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After seeing the condition of the president’s body, Vernon O’Neal knows that it’s going to take some time to make sure that the casket’s expensive pale satin lining isn’t irretrievably stained. Nurses Margaret Henchliffe and Diana Bowron, along with orderly David Sanders, line the coffin with a sheet of plastic, then wrap the body in a white sheet before placing it in the casket. Additional sheets are wrapped around the head to keep it from oozing more blood. The whole process takes twenty minutes.
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