Killing Kennedy

3” means an emergency of the highest importance to Dallas-area hospitals. The term is almost never used. So when Parkland dispatcher Anne Ferguson requests more details, she is simply told, “The president has been shot.”
    The time is 12:33 P.M.
    Three minutes later, the presidential limousine roars into Parkland, blowing past the sign reading “Emergency Cases Only.” Bill Greer parks in the middle of the three ambulance bays.
    But there is no stretcher waiting, no emergency team rushing to help the president. Incredibly, a breakdown in communications has stymied the hospital’s emergency response. The trauma team has barely been notified.
    So those inside the presidential limo simply wait.
    Nellie Connally lies atop her husband, even as a moaning Jackie Kennedy holds John Kennedy’s head.
    Halfback pulls up, right behind SS-100-X. Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell, men who have been in the political trenches with JFK since the 1946 congressional campaign, rush to the Lincoln, hoping for the best. The president still has a faint pulse—which continues to push pint after pint of blood out through his head wound.
    “Get up,” Secret Service special agent Emory Roberts commands Jackie Kennedy.
    She doesn’t move. She has positioned her arms and jacket so that no one can see JFK’s face or head. The First Lady does not want her husband remembered this way.
    Roberts delicately lifts Jackie’s arm so he can see for himself if the president is dead. One look is all he needs. Roberts backs off.
    Dave Powers sees the fixed pupils gazing sightlessly into the distance and breaks into tears. O’Donnell, who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, reverts to his soldier days and snaps to attention as a sign of numb respect.
    Even if Jackie were to try to move right now, she would have nowhere to go. The slumped body of John Connally blocks the car’s door, meaning that the governor of Texas must be moved before the president of the United States can be lifted from the Lincoln.
    It is Dave Powers, not hospital personnel, who finally sets aside his tears and lifts Connally out by the legs and onto a gurney. The governor is conscious, though just barely. His wounds are life threatening, and the emergency physicians at Parkland will be very busy today trying to save Connally’s life. (They will succeed—a rare bit of good news on a brutal day.)
    Though Connally has been wheeled inside to Trauma Room Two and no longer obstructs the car door, Jackie Kennedy still refuses to let go of her husband. When she lets go, she knows he’s gone forever. This will be the last time she holds him. The First Lady curls her body forward so that the president’s blood-soaked face and her breasts come together. She weeps quietly, pushing her body closer and closer to her husband’s.
    “Mrs. Kennedy,” Special Agent Clint Hill says, “please let us help the president.”
    Jackie doesn’t respond. But she knows that voice. It is the soft command of a man who has protected her from danger night and day.
    The voice of Clint Hill is the only voice Jackie responds to in her moment of shocked grief.
    Hill softly places his hand on her shoulder. The First Lady trembles, in mourning.
    The quiet crowd of Secret Service agents and Kennedy staffers around the Lincoln do not speak. The seconds tick past.
    “Please, Mrs. Kennedy. Please let us get him into the hospital,” Hill implores.
    “I’m not going to let him go, Mr. Hill,” Jackie says.
    “We’ve got to take him in, Mrs. Kennedy.”
    “No, Mr. Hill. You know he’s dead. Leave me alone.”
    Jackie sobs. Her body jerks as pain courses through her.
    Hill realizes something. It’s bad enough that she is seeing the man she loves with his head blown off, but she doesn’t want anyone else seeing him like that. And as the media descend onto Parkland Hospital even in the midst of Jackie’s lonely Pietà, there is no way in the world Jackie will allow John Fitzgerald Kennedy to be photographed in this state.
    Clint Hill is exhausted. He has worked long hours on this trip and gotten by on little food and even less sleep. But there’s nothing he won’t do for Jackie Kennedy. Knowing in an instant that it is the right thing to do, Special Agent Hill removes his suit coat and sets it gently atop the president’s body.
    Jackie Kennedy, her pink suit and white gloves now covered in the president’s copious blood, wraps her husband’s head and torso in Clint Hill’s