Anniversary of an Assassination: Memories From a Last Motorcade

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, in jubilant mood, smiled widely and shook my hand. We were standing in a makeshift cloth pavilion backstage at the cavernous Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas. The President, the vice president and their wives were ready to mount the rostrum. Some 3,000 restless Democrats eagerly awaited their appearance on Thursday, Nov. 21, 1963.

The evening was ostensibly to honor a powerful long-time Houston congressman, the late Albert Thomas. But the real reason for this unprecedented visit, encouraged by popular Gov. John Connally but silently opposed by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, was 1964 presidential politics.

Johnson knew that the relationship between Sen. Ralph Yarborough and the governor verged on malignancy, that the Democratic Party apparatus reeked of internecine quarreling. Nonetheless, JFK had determined to come; he needed to shore up his sagging popularity in Texas and he wanted to fatten an emaciated party treasury. The election was only one year away.

And now the President was thanking me for the wildly enthusiastic turnout of Houstonians cheering their leader. My advertising agency had been ordered, by LBJ, to ensure that this visit be marked solely by affection and applause. It was.

LBJ grabbed me by the shoulder after the speeches were finished: “It has gone much better than I had imagined,” he said. I had planned to go straight to Austin and prepare for the next evening’s climax event, a massive fund-raising dinner. “Tell you what,” said the vice president. “Don’t go directly to Austin. Let some of your people handle those chores. Go with me to Ft. Worth, spend the night and then go with me to Dallas on our way to Austin. I have a lot of political talking to do with you.” I knew this was LBJ’s way of saying that I had done a good job; yes sir, I would go.

Ft. Worth was rainy, bleak. The weather conspired against us, as did Sen. Yarborough. He didn’t want to ride with the vice president; even after we cajoled him in the car with LBJ, he was sulky. I sat in the front seat on our way to the Texas Hotel, Mrs. Johnson in the center of the back seat, flanked by a scowling Yarborough and a mildly amused LBJ. The conversation can best be described as desultory.

The next morning, after speaking appearances by the Governor and the President, we flew off to Love Field under a dazzling canopy of bright sunlight. The motorcade from the airport would wind through Dallas, loop around Dealey Plaza and wind up at the Trade Center where the President would deliver a speech to the industrial proconsuls of the city. This sun-spangled day was Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.

Some six car lengths behind the President, I rode in nerve-stretched excitement with Liz Carpenter, then LBJ’s executive assistant, Pamela Turnure, secretary to the First Lady and Evelyn Lincoln, secretary to the President. The slowly winding motorcade drove by faces full of unfeigned delight; people were offering a kind of squealing, jumping-up-and-down greeting for the President .

We began the turn around a grassy knoll, under the tracks, to Dealey Plaza. Suddenly, the slow-moving motorcade became the Indianapolis Speedway. The car in front drag-raced from 10 m.p.h. to over 60. None of us had any idea of what happened. Perhaps a rock was thrown at the President? The mind could not imagine much worse; no President had been assassinated in this land for more than 60 years.

Someone, possibly level-headed Liz Carpenter, suggested that we keep on the route and go directly to the Trade Mart. The President had a speech to make and no screwball rock-thrower would stop him.

The Trade Mart was packed with an expectant audience. But no presidential limo in sight. Suddenly a Secret Service man, shirttail flapping as he ran, holding a radio in his hand, told us the President had been shot; so had the governor. No, he didn’t know any more, only that they had been taken to Parkland Hospital.

I ran up to a deputy sheriff, a huge .357 Magnum strapped to his ample hip. Would he take us to the hospital? He would.

We pushed aside debris in his back seat, everyone piled in. With siren keening, we barreled to Parkland. I escorted Mrs. Lincoln to the second floor to the administrator’s office; she was inconsolable.

I leaped down the stairs to the basement, an area crowded with walking zombies, congressmen whose faces were contorted with disbelief, the crush of the nightmare not yet fully comprehended.

Lady Bird Johnson was in a room consoling Nellie Connally. Both had been weeping. “No,” said Mrs. Johnson, “we know nothing about the President or John. We don’t know if they are alive or dead. We are only praying and hoping.”

I wandered upstairs to check on Mrs. Lincoln and felt an arm on my shoulder. It was the late Cliff Carter, chief political agent for the vice president. He spoke very quietly: “The vice president has been looking for you, Jack. He wants to see you, now.” Cliff, dear, kind man, hesitated. His eyes dropped, his hand on my shoulder tightened. “The President is dead, you know.”

I began to weep, uncontrollably. Cliff put his arm around me. “Get hold of yourself, Jack. You got to.”

I did the best I could, wiping my face as we went to meet a secret service agent named Lem Johns who said, “The vice president wants you with him, Mr. Valenti. I am to transport you to Air Force One immediately. “

Johns and I commandeered a police cruiser and a driver who must have been related to A.J. Foyt. We caromed off the curb and flew several feet off the surface of the highway to Love Field.

Air Force One had been moved to a remote corner of the airfield, cordoned off with three circles of guards, menacing, unsmiling, heavily armed.

The 707 command plane of John Kennedy, with the number 26000 on its tail, was configured in sections: The forward part had some 30 seats reserved for staff and press. Midships was an office for the President. Behind the office was the President’s private quarters with two twin beds, telephone equipment, a closet, a toilet and a shower. Nothing opulent, almost Spartan, but affording total privacy. Aft, was the galley, chairs for the Secret Service, and a space that would soon accommodate the flag-draped coffin of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy would sit back there after the coffin arrived for the long trip home, her face frozen in grief, eyes opaque and unshining, her pink dress splotched with dried blood--the late President’s blood.

Once on board I walked quickly to the office area. Most of the congressmen had gathered there. We murmured to each other, hardly knowing what to say. Then, framed in the narrow corridor was the huge figure of Lyndon Johnson. His face was grave; He nodded to each of us and found his way to the President’s table. Before he sat down, I heard Rep. Thomas speak up. “We are ready, Mr. President, to carry out any order you may have.” It was so wildly strange. This man, whom Thomas had called Lyndon for almost 30 years, now was the President.

We were witness to as rare a historical event as any citizen will ever know. A President is struck down and, save for the avalanche of grief and frustration, we would watch a peaceable transfer of the most awesome power ever collected by mortal man. It would be accomplished not in joy and triumph, but based on rules of transfer written down by men long since dead.

The President beckoned to me. I leaned down, and then bent on my knees to put my ear next to his mouth. He whispered: “I want you on my staff. Call Mary Margaret and tell her you are flying back with me to Washington.”

I had absolutely no knowledge of what being on his “staff” meant. I had never even been inside the White House. I said to the President, “But I don’t have any clothes and I don’t have a place to live.”

The President looked at me sharply. “Well, we have telephones on this aircraft. Call home and get Mary Margaret to send you clothes--and until your family arrives, you will live with me.” So I did, on the third floor of the White House for almost two months. I don’t recommend such close proximity to a President who sleeps four hours a night and has no firm notions about sane working hours.

My first official act on the plane was to call Nicholas Katzenbach, the deputy attorney general, to ask about the oath of office; we didn’t seem able to find a copy. Then, shame-faced, we found it, of course, right in the Constitution.

Constitutional lawyers state that when a President dies, the vice president automatically becomes chief executive, armed with all the attendant powers and responsibilities. No oath is necessary. But LBJ was not beguiled by what is merely legal. He knew the nation and the world were inspecting this alien cowboy assuming command of the greatest industrial and military power on the face of the earth. He knew that symbolism and perception meant far more than a mere legal opinion.

So he issued several immediate commands: He ordered Federal District Judge Sarah Hughes to be brought to the aircraft to administer the oath. He would not leave Dallas without his predecessor’s coffin on the plane. He softly, gently asked Mrs. Kennedy if she would stand beside him for the oath-taking. He had to show to the world that the Kennedy legacy was in place, that the linear connection to Kennedy policies would not fracture. The picture to be flashed around the world--the taking of the oath, with LBJ and the widow of John Kennedy standing side-by-side--would prove that what John Kennedy began, Lyndon Johnson would continue. That was the theme of his first speech to the joint session of the Congress.

Much has been made of so-called hostility between Johnson and Kennedy men on that ride back to Washington. If it was there I never saw or felt it. As soon as the oath was administered, the President said very softly, “Let’s get airborne.”

LBJ then set about organizing his first hours as the President. He telephoned Washington to have meetings ready when he landed. He ordered back, from Japan, a plane carrying the secretary of state and other high officials. He would want to talk with former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He spoke slowly, easily, quietly. Odd, how much I remember one insignificant little thing. I was seated next to him in the office area when LBJ asked the steward for a glass of water. LBJ’s hand, reaching for the glass, passed inches in front of my eyes; the presidential hand, huge, splayed, thick with veins was steady--without sign of trembling. I looked at my own hands and I couldn’t hold them steady.