These Few Precious Days (40 page)

THE NEXT DAY JACK FLEW
to New York to give a speech, opting this time to dispense with what he called the “fuss and feathers” of a motorcycle escort from the airport into Manhattan. At one of the ten midtown lights that stopped the presidential limousine as it made its way to the Carlyle, a woman bolted from the sidewalk and ran up to the car, firing off a flashbulb in the startled president’s face. “She might well have been an assassin,” a New York police official told
Time
magazine in an issue that was actually on the stands the week
before
Dallas. The incident,
Time
said in its eerily prescient piece, “aged the Secret Service detail ten years.”

That evening, Jack sneaked out the side door of the Carlyle to attend a small party at the Fifth Avenue apartment of Stephen and Jean Smith. Over dinner, Adlai Stevenson described in harrowing detail what it was like to be spat upon and threatened by a Dallas mob. He urged the president not to go—with or without Jackie. “It is simply too dangerous, Mr. President,” said the man who had been the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956. “There’s something very ugly going on down there.”

Oleg Cassini was at the party that night, and listened while Stevenson spoke. “Adlai Stevenson had been in politics his entire life. He was not a fearful man, and he was certainly accustomed to facing hostile crowds,” Cassini said. “He was telling the President that this was different, that he might be placing himself in danger.”

As they stood in the hallway saying their goodbyes to the Smiths, Cassini turned to Jack and asked, “Why do you go? Your own people are saying you should not go.” Jack shrugged and smiled. “We shook hands and I thought nothing of it,” Cassini said. “I was always asking why he did this, and didn’t do that. It was a comment made
en passant
.” It was the last time Cassini saw the president.

While Jackie returned that weekend to ride her beloved Sardar at Wexford, her husband headed down to Florida to watch the launch of a Polaris missile and review troops at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base before flying on to Palm Beach. Once back at his father’s estate with Dave Powers and a few other old friends—Kenny O’Donnell, Harvard classmate Torbert Macdonald, Smathers—Jack took a late-afternoon swim and then sat back to watch the Navy–Duke football game on television.

That night after dinner, Jack settled into a padded rocking chair, lit up a cigar, and talked politics with the old gang. Although he was still concerned about the “ugly mood” in Texas, the president was looking forward to the coming campaign and confident of reelection. Once again, he sang “September Song”—this time, Powers said, with even more emotion than usual.

That Sunday, Jack and his friends watched TV coverage of the Green Bay Packers–Chicago Bears game, then screened the ribald new movie
Tom Jones,
starring Albert Finney. The period farce quickly bored the president, and after twenty minutes he headed for La Guerida’s saltwater pool. While sunbathing with Powers on the terrace, he talked about the ambitious plans he and Jackie had for the summer of 1964. Between the house on Squaw Island and the new lease they just signed on a large property abutting Hammersmith Farm—not to mention Wexford—there would be lots of opportunity for relaxation and fun during breaks in his campaign schedule. “I can’t wait,” he said. “Can’t wait.”

On the way back to Washington the next day aboard Air Force One, Jack let Smathers know that he still had misgivings about the upcoming trip. He was especially disappointed that Vice President Johnson hadn’t been able to handle the squabble between Governor Connally and Senator Yarborough himself. “Damn it to hell,” JFK told his friend half jokingly, “I’ve got to go out to Texas. Your friend Lyndon is causing me trouble.”

“Lyndon Johnson helped you get elected,” Smathers replied. “You owe a lot to him.”

“How do I get out of it?” JFK asked.

“You can’t get out of it, Mr. President,” Smathers stressed. “You’ve got to go. You’re doing the right thing.”

Jack grudgingly agreed, but went on to say that he just wished “we had this thing over with.” Smathers never forgot what his friend said next, although it was a phrase he had heard Jack utter dozens of times over the years. “You’ve got to live every day like it’s your last day on earth and it damn well may be!”

Looking back on the day he urged JFK to go ahead with his fateful trip to Texas, Smathers admitted, “I wish to God I hadn’t said it.” He was not alone. Less than forty-eight hours before the Kennedys left Washington, Pierre Salinger was getting ready for his own trip to Japan with Secretary of State Dean Rusk. “I wish I weren’t going to Texas,” the president told his press secretary.

Salinger had just finished reading a letter from a woman in Dallas imploring him to tell JFK to cancel the trip. “I’m worried about him,” the letter read. “I think something terrible will happen to him.”

Salinger said nothing to the president about the letter; instead he brushed aside Kennedy’s concerns. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassured JFK without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s going to be great and you’re going to draw the biggest crowds ever. Going with Mrs. Kennedy will be terrific.”

On the eve of their departure for Dallas, the first couple hosted a reception for the U.S. Supreme Court justices and seven hundred other members of the judicial branch. Jackie had spent the morning riding in Virginia, and as usual supervised every detail of the evening with Nancy Tuckerman—right down to the music—over the phone. True to form, she also tried to weasel out of going at the last minute.

This time, the president said no. “You’re not getting out of this one, Jackie,” he said, reminding Jackie that the attorney general and his wife, Ethel, were also going to be there to greet the justices and would be “very disappointed” if she didn’t show. In fact, he went on, it was Bobby’s thirty-eighth birthday, and he and Ethel would be there for the judicial reception even if it meant RFK would be late for his own party later that night.

Shortly after Clint Hill deposited Jackie back at the White House that afternoon, he met with fellow Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and Floyd Boring to discuss the upcoming Texas trip. All three men were surprised Jackie was going but, Hill later wrote, they were also convinced “that the President and Mrs. Kennedy seemed so much closer since Patrick died, and we felt it might actually be beneficial for her to get out in public.” Still, Hill worried that such an exhausting trip might trigger a relapse. Jackie, he thought at the time, “had only just started laughing again.”

Wearing a claret silk velvet two-piece evening suit over a white silk charmeuse shirt, Jackie joined Jack in welcoming Chief Justice Earl Warren and other Supreme Court justices in the Yellow Oval Room before proceeding downstairs. As the first lady mingled with their distinguished guests in the Blue, Red, and Green rooms, it quickly became clear she was the main attraction. Jackie had been away for months, and many of the guests literally tripped over each other welcoming her back. This was, in fact, Jackie’s first official appearance at a formal White House function since Patrick’s death.

The president and first lady stayed for less than forty-five minutes; Bobby and Ethel left not long after for Hickory Hill. With the judges and their spouses still downstairs waltzing to the strains of Lerner and Loewe’s
Camelot
—each number chosen by the first lady—Jack and Jackie packed for the next morning’s flight to San Antonio, the first stop on their Texas trip. Jackie packed several suits and dresses by Cassini, but the president insisted she wear one outfit in particular, and that she wear it in Dallas: a double-breasted pink wool Chanel suit with gold buttons, a navy blue collar, and matching pink pillbox hat.

At around 10:40 the next morning, Marine One landed on the South Lawn to pick up the president and his party. John was along for the ride as far as Andrews Air Force Base; Jack and Jackie had already said goodbye to Caroline before she went off to her little school in the White House solarium.

Once they got to Andrews, the president got off the helicopter, turned, and bent down to say goodbye to his son, who was still strapped into his seat. John often protested at times like these, and this was no different. “I want to come!” he cried. “I want to come!”

Mommy leaned over, kissed her little boy, and reminded him that when they got back it would be his birthday. John would have none of it. Squirming and wailing, arms outstretched, he was simply inconsolable. Secret Service agent Bob Foster took over from here, trying to distract the indignant toddler while his parents walked up the gangway to Air Force One.

As they boarded the plane, Jack turned to O’Donnell and smiled. “I feel great,” he said. “My back feels better than it’s felt in years.” Their takeoff had been delayed slightly; true to form, the first lady, despite getting up at 6 a.m. to have her hair done by the celebrity stylist Kenneth, was running a little late.

No longer anxious about the trip, Jackie and Jack spent much of the flight gossiping with Powers and O’Donnell about Bobby’s wild birthday party the previous night at Hickory Hill. The only sour note on the flight had to do with the weather. The advance report Jack had been handed failed to predict the heat wave that was sweeping across Texas. The president now worried that Jackie’s pastel wool suits, especially the pink Chanel number he had picked out for Dallas, would be uncomfortably warm.

Before the plane touched down in Texas, Jackie changed into one of Cassini’s lightweight designs—a white, short-sleeved suit with a cowl collar, worn with a narrow black belt, long white gloves, and a black beret. Despite the heat, the first lady knew she needed some way to keep her hairstyle from being obliterated as they drove through the streets with the top down.

As soon as the president and his wife stepped out of the rear door of Air Force One, a roar went up from the five thousand people waiting to greet them at San Antonio Airport. Jack headed straight for the crowd to shake hands, while someone handed the first lady a bouquet of yellow roses—the first of many. It was a repeat of that day in 1960 when Jack had returned to Hyannis Port after winning the nomination, only this time Jackie wasn’t going to be left behind. She followed her husband to the fence. Jackie, noted CBS correspondent Bob Pierpoint, looked like someone “who was very much in love with her husband and even in love with the fact that he’s a politician.”

More than 125,000 people lined the motorcade route, cheering wildly and waving signs that read
BIENVENIDO MR. AND MRS. PRESIDENT, JACKIE COME WATERSKIING IN TEXAS, WELCOME JACK AND JACKIE
, and simply
WE LOVE YOU, JACKIE
! “See,” Jack told her as they waved to the crowds, “you do make a difference.”

The first stop was Brooks Air Force Base, where Jack spoke at the dedication of the new School of Aerospace Medicine. As he was being shown the facilities, JFK lingered at the school’s oxygen chamber before turning to one of the scientists. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that space medicine might improve treatment for premature infants like my son Patrick?”

From San Antonio, they moved on to Houston, where they drew even bigger and more enthusiastic crowds. It was obvious to everyone why. “Mr. President, your crowd here today was about the same as last year’s,” Powers told his boss, “but a hundred thousand more people came out to cheer for Jackie.” As far as this fence-mending operation was concerned, said longtime JFK political aide Larry O’Brien, “Jackie is a pretty good carpenter.”

TO BE SURE, SHE WAS
again proving herself to be a huge asset on the stump. Speaking to the League of United Latin-American Citizens in relatively effortless Spanish (midway through she stumbled over the word
Massachusetts
), a radiant Jackie charmed not only her Hispanic audience but old Texas hands like Lyndon Johnson and John Connally. Immediately following Jackie at the lectern, LBJ admitted that anything he could say was “anticlimactic” and praised her as the president’s “lovely, gracious lady.”

At a testimonial dinner in the Houston Coliseum that night for Texas congressman Albert Thomas, all eyes remained on the first lady—a fact that clearly delighted JFK. “The people just love that gal,” LBJ remarked to his aide Jack Valenti. “They sure do.”

On the flight to Fort Worth, it was obvious that the packed schedule of motorcades, dedications, and testimonial dinners was beginning to take its toll. Jackie smoked her way through half a pack of Newport menthol cigarettes (she had recently switched from L&M’s) and, for the first time in weeks, the tremor in Jack’s hands was back, triggered by nervous exhaustion. “He’d had it for years,” noted Jamie Auchincloss. “That’s why he often had his hand tucked in his blazer pocket—to hide the trembling.”

They arrived shortly before 1 a.m. at their three-bedroom suite on the eighth floor of Fort Worth’s Texas Hotel. Normally, Jackie would have noticed that wealthy local art collectors had covered the walls with Picassos, Van Goghs, and Monets in honor of their distinguished guests, but not tonight. They were both simply wrung out.