Killing Kennedy

did.
    The argument now becomes an old-fashioned Texas standoff—a physical showdown between the Secret Service, Dr. Rose, and members of the Dallas Police Department. There are forty men present. Pushing and shoving break out. The Secret Service is determined to have its way, but the Dallas police won’t back down. Finally, Kennedy’s close friends Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers order Secret Service agents to grab JFK’s coffin and bull their way through the police. “We’re getting out of here,” O’Donnell barks as the undertaker’s cart on which the casket rests is rolled toward the exit door. “We don’t give a damn what these laws say. We’re leaving now!”
    The president’s body is loaded into Vernon Oneal’s 1964 white Cadillac hearse. Jackie Kennedy sits in the rear jump seat, next to her husband’s body. Clint Hill and other agents jam themselves into the front seat. Bill Greer is still inside the hospital, but Roy Kellerman isn’t waiting for him. Secret Service special agent Andy Berger takes the wheel and races for Love Field at top speed. As he watches the hearse peel out, Vernon Oneal wonders aloud how and when he’s going to be paid.
    There is no stopping when the Cadillac reaches the airport. Tires squealing, Special Agent Berger races the hearse onto the tarmac, ignoring the signs reading “Restricted Area” and “Slow—Dangerous Trucks.” He speeds past the Braniff and American Airlines hangars, oblivious to all dangers until the hearse screeches to a halt at the back steps leading up to Air Force One. Kennedy’s friends and bodyguards then personally manhandle the six hundred pounds of coffin and president, banging it off the stairwell leading up into the plane and tilting the casket at awkward angles. They load the body onto Air Force One through the same rear door John Kennedy stepped out of three hours earlier. That moment was ceremonial and presidential. This moment is morbid and ghastly.

    President Lyndon B. Johnson, with Jackie at his side, takes the oath of office on Air Force One following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. (Cecil Stoughton, White House Photograph, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
    Jackie Kennedy waits until her husband’s body is on board before climbing up the steps. The inside of Air Force One is like an inferno; the air-conditioning has been off for hours. The blinds are down, and the cabin is dark out of fear that more assassins are on the loose and will shoot through the plane’s windows. Yet Lyndon Johnson insists on being sworn in before Air Force One leaves the ground. So it is that the Kennedy staff and the Johnson staff stand uncomfortably next to one another as federal judge Sarah Hughes, who was personally appointed to the bench by LBJ and now has been hastily summoned to the presidential jet of which John F. Kennedy was so fond, administers the oath.
    “Do you, Lyndon Baines Johnson, solemnly swear…”
    “I, Lyndon Baines Johnson, solemnly swear…”
    LBJ stands tall in Air Force One. To his left, still wearing the bloodstained pink suit, is Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. The former First Lady has not changed clothes. She is adamant that the world have a visual reminder of what happened to her husband here.
    Standing before Johnson is the judge.
    Several feet behind them, in the rear of the plane, lies the body of John F. Kennedy.
    After the swearing-in ceremony, Jackie sits down in a seat next to the coffin as the long ride home begins.
    *   *   *
    It is Sunday morning, November 24. The nation is devastated by the assassination of John F. Kennedy and is riveted to the television with depressed fascination as events unfold. Jackie Kennedy is now out of sight, privately mourning her husband’s death. So the eyes of America turn to Lee Harvey Oswald. The assassin has become infamous since Friday, particularly after telling a crowd of reporters, “I’m just a patsy.”
    That impromptu midnight press conference at Dallas police headquarters was surreal. Reporters were allowed to physically crowd the handcuffed Oswald. Many in Dallas, and across America, are so infuriated by JFK’s death that they would gladly exact revenge. Yet the Dallas police do little to shield Oswald.
    One of those enraged is Jack Ruby, who worked his way into the press conference unmolested, with a loaded Colt Cobra .38 in his suit coat pocket.
    The lack of security around Oswald continued throughout the press