Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (4 page)

When Air Force One landed at Love Field the sky had cleared and a bright sun brought Indian summer weather to North Central Texas. By the
noon hour, many people were in their shirtsleeves. The occasional cool
breeze from the north was welcomed by Texans weary of the interminable
summer heat, which often lasts well into the fall. It was the sort of day that
stirs the blood, causing people to seek action outdoors, whether it is
working in the yard or attending the local football game.

This day there was another reason for wanting to get outside. The
President was coming to town. The local media had been full of the news
for days. The Dallas Morning News carried headlines that morning reading, LOVE FIELD BRACES FOR THOUSANDS and DETAILED SECURITY NET SPREAD
FOR KENNEDY. That morning's edition had even run a small map of the
President's motorcade route, which would take him from Love Field to the
new modern Trade Mart. However this map only indicated the motorcade
would travel west on Main Street through the downtown area, through the
well-known Triple Underpass, and on to Stemmons Freeway and the Trade
Mart, where President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to attend a 12:30
P.M. luncheon.

The city's other daily paper, the Dallas Times Herald, had given a more
detailed description of the route. In a story published the previous Tuesday
headlined YARBOROUGH GETS JFK TABLE SPOT, it told how liberal senator
Ralph Yarborough had been invited to sit with Kennedy at the head table
during Friday's luncheon. It also mentioned that the motorcade would
"pass through downtown on Harwood then west on Main, turning back to
Elm at Houston and then out Stemmons Freeway to the Trade Mart."

This was one of the only newspaper mentions of the zigzag in the
motorcade route, which would violate Secret Service procedures and place
the President in a small park area surrounded by tall buildings on one side
and shrubs and trees on the other.

The motorcade had been scheduled to pass through the downtown
business section during the noon hour so office workers could watch the
parade during lunch. This strategy worked well. Literally thousands of
Dallasites turned out in the balmy sixty-eight-degree weather for a view of
Kennedy, already acknowledged as one of this nation's most controversial
presidents.

For his part, Kennedy really had had no choice but to visit the Lone Star
State. With the 1964 election year coming up, everyone-even his enemiesagreed he seemed unbeatable. However, Kennedy still needed to win over
a few states in order to acquire the broad mandate he was seeking. Texas
was one of them.

Texas politics were in disarray. The Democrats had been aghast the
previous year when a Republican, former schoolteacher and radio disk
jockey John Tower, had been elected to fill Johnson's Senate seat. Tower
was the first Republican to win a Texas Senate seat since the Civil War.
The Democratic Party, dominant in the state since Reconstruction, was
split between conservatives, headed by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and Governor John B. Connally, and a small but noisy group of liberals,
led by Senator Ralph Yarborough. The party rift was serious. Yarborough
and Connally were hardly speaking to each other. And Texas conservatives
were highly vocal against Kennedy's policies toward Cuba, civil rights, and
a nuclear test ban with Russia, not to mention his plan to rescind the 27.5
percent oil depletion allowance, a mainstay of Texas oil wealth.

Democratic unity was needed badly as the 1964 election year approached. And a presidential visit to Texas seemed just the remedy.

Houston was the oil capital of the state while Fort Worth and San
Antonio were big defense industry centers. It would be easy to tell those
folks what they wanted to hear. Dallas was a problem. No visit to Texas
could ignore Dallas, yet the city had earned a reputation for being both
politically bedrock conservative and intolerant of any deviation from that
position.

A month earlier, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson had been pushed, spat upon, and hit in the head with a picket sign
while visiting in Dallas. Just the previous Tuesday, cashiered Army major
general Edwin A. Walker had made the news by shoving a TV cameraman during a Dallas speech by Governor George Wallace of Alabama.

Stevenson, along with others close to Kennedy, warned the young
president not to journey to Dallas. But in early June plans for a trip to
Texas were finalized during a meeting between Kennedy, Connally, and
Johnson in El Paso. In October, a motorcade was added to the plans.

On November 22, the apprehension of the Kennedy entourage about the
trip was still evident, especially in light of a full-page newspaper ad that
ran that morning in the Dallas Morning News suggesting the President was
soft on communism and guilty of traitorous activities.

A leaflet handed out to some of the people lining the motorcade route
was not as subtle as the newspaper ad. It pictured Kennedy under a
headline reading WANTED FOR TREASON.

Yet after landing at Love Field about 11:45 A.M., the Kennedy entourage
found the Dallas crowds large, enthusiastic, and friendly. With horns
honking, radios blaring, and the shouts and cheers of the crowd ringing off
the sides of the office buildings, the scene was chaotic despite what had
been hailed as one of the tightest security efforts in recent memory.
- - - - - -- - -- - - - -

As the motorcade swept toward the central business district, it reached
speeds of almost thirty miles per hour. But once downtown, the crowds
became larger, often spilling out into the street, and the pace slowed
considerably.

The motorcade was the center of attention.

we might have ridden into an ambush."

-Kennedy aide David Powers

Leading the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963, was an
enclosed sedan driven by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry. Sitting to
Curry's right was Secret Service advance man Winston G. Lawson. In the
back seat, behind Curry, sat Dallas county sheriff J. E. "Bill" Decker
and, to his right was Secret Service special agent-in-charge Forrest Sorrels.

More than two car lengths behind this car was the presidential limousine, a specially-made long blue Lincoln Continental convertible sedan
designated Secret Service Car No. 100-X.

Driving the limousine was Secret Service agent William Greer, the
oldest man in the White House detail. Next to Greer sat Roy Kellerman,
assistant special agent-in-charge of the Secret Service White House detail.

In the center of the car in fold-down jump seats were Governor Connally,
on the right, and Mrs. Connally. In the rear, on a padded seat that could be
raised or lowered mechanically sat Kennedy with Mrs. Kennedy on his
left.

Behind the limousine about a full car length was a follow-up car for
Kennedy security guards, a 1956 Cadillac convertible touring sedan specially equipped for the Secret Service and designated SS Car No. 679-X.

Following this security car was a 1964 Lincoln four-door convertible
carrying Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and Senator
Ralph Yarborough. The driver was Texas state trooper Hurchel Jacks and
Secret Service agent Rufus W. Youngblood rode to the right of him. Their
car was trailed by Johnson's Secret Service guards and the rest of the
motorcade, consisting of five cars for local dignitaries, three cars for press
photographers, one bus for White House staff, and two press buses.

A pilot car, which preceded the motorcade by a quarter of a mile
checking for "motor vehicle accidents, fires and obstructions along the
route," contained Dallas deputy police chief G. L. Lumpkin, two Dallas
homicide detectives, and Lt. Col. George Whitmayer, commander of the
local Army Intelligence reserve unit.

Oddly, while a press pool station wagon had been designated to follow
Kennedy's Secret Service follow-up car (it had the number 5 taped on its side), for some unexplained reason it was shoved farther back in the
motorcade. This prevented the media photographers from witnessing the
assassination or capturing it on film.

Everyone in the presidential limousine appeared to be enjoying the
open-air ride and the cheering admiration of the crowd, although Mrs.
Kennedy was beginning to feel warm in her pink wool suit and pillbox hat.
As the motorcade cruised into the downtown area, apprehensions of the
Dallas visit seemed to dissipate as quickly as the morning's overcast.

Bob Hollingsworth, veteran Washington correspondent for the Times
Herald, had accompanied the Washington press corps to Dallas. He noted:

On into Harwood and then into Main the motorcade traveled and the
amazement over the size of the crowd turned to awe. For those of us
who had been with the President since he left the White House for
Texas Thursday morning, this was the largest, the most enthusiastic and
the best reception he had received in Texas.

The awe of the news reporters was reflected in the silence that prevailed
within the long, dark-blue Lincoln Continental limousine of the President.
Few words were spoken by the car's occupants as they basked in the
tumultuous shouts and cheers of the dense crowd packed along Main
Street.

Up ahead clear blue sky could be seen as the presidential car began
entering a small triangular-shaped plaza at the end of the long, dark corridor
of tall buildings.

The motorcade broke into the open space of Dealey Plaza, named after
George Bannerman Dealey, a pioneer Dallas civic leader and founder of
the Dallas Morning News. The 3.07-acre plaza, the site of the first home in
Dallas as well as the first courthouse, post office, store, fraternal lodge and
hotel, has been called the "birthplace of Dallas." It was acquired by the
city for the construction of the Triple Underpass, which allows railroad
traffic to pass over Commerce, Main, and Elm streets. The property was
christened "Dealey Plaza" in 1935 and placed under the authority of the
city's Park Board in 1936 with the official opening of the underpass.

Both incoming and outgoing traffic between downtown Dallas and the
major freeway systems to the west is channeled through Dealey Plaza. It is
bounded on the east by Houston Street. Facing onto Houston are the new
County Court House (still under construction that day), the historic old
County Court House, the Criminal Courts Building containing the county
jail and the Sheriff's Office, the Dallas County Records Building, and the
Dal-Tex office building. Just west of the Dal-Tex building, across Houston, is the red-brick building that in 1963 contained the Texas School
Book Depository and publishers' offices.

Bisecting Dealey Plaza is Main Street, with Commerce Street branching off to the south and Elm Street curving in on the north. These three main arteries converge on the west side of the plaza at the railroad bridge
known as the Triple Underpass. Facing Houston Street on the west are
fountains and monuments to Dealey. On the north and south sides of the
plaza are two small arbors or pergolas, flanked on the east by a line of
trees and shrubs and on the west by a wooden stockade fence about five
feet high.

With a phalanx of Dallas police motorcycle officers clearing the way
ahead, the big limousine carrying the Kennedys made a 90-degree turn
from Main onto Houston in front of the Dallas County Sheriff's Office.
Almost two dozen deputies and other lawmen stood on the sidewalk
watching. All had been ordered not to take part in motorcade security.

The bright sun began warming the car's occupants as they approached
the Texas School Book Depository. Atop the building was a large Hertz
Rent-A-Car sign containing a digital time and temperature display. In front
of the Depository, the limousine slowed to a crawl to make a 120-degree
turn onto Elm Street, although turns of more than 90 degrees were
prohibited by the Secret Service. The turn was so tight that Greer almost
ran the limousine up onto the north curb near the Depository's front door,
according to Depository superintendent Roy Truly.

The car continued a slow glide down the incline of Elm into Dealey
Plaza, maintaining its position in the center lane of the three-lane street.
The crowds thinned out as the Triple Underpass approached and security
men began to relax. About three car lengths ahead of the presidential
limousine in the lead car, Agent Lawson, a former Army counterintelligence man now with the Secret Service White House detail, was sitting in
the right front seat. He looked at his watch. It was 12:30 P.M. Picking up
the car's microphone, he radioed the Trade Mart saying: "We'll be there
in about five minutes."

In the presidential limousine, Kennedy was waving to his right at a
group of people standing near a sign reading STEMMONS FREEWAY. His
right arm and hand were slightly over the side of the car. Mrs. Kennedy
had been waving to her left, but her thoughts were on the Texas heat. Mrs.
Kennedy later told the Warren Commission: "And in the motorcade, you
know, I usually would be waving mostly to the left side and he was waving
mostly to the right, which is one reason you are not looking at each other
very much. And it was terribly hot. Just blinding all of us." Sensing
her discomfort, Mrs. Connally turned and said: "We'll soon be there."

Mrs. Kennedy recalled seeing the Triple Underpass ahead: "We could
see a tunnel in front of us. Everything was really slow then. And I
remember thinking it would be so cool under that tunnel."

Mrs. Connally had been wanting to mention the warm and enthusiastic
welcome for some time, but she had held back. Now she could contain
herself no longer. Turning to Kennedy, she said: "Mr. President, you
can't say that Dallas doesn't love you." According to Mrs. Kennedy, the
President smiled and replied: "No, you certainly can't."

Soon after his remark, Mrs. Connally heard a frightening noise off to
her right. She looked in that direction and caught a peripheral glimpse of
Kennedy raising both hands to his neck. She heard no sound from the
President, but noticed a blank, "nothing" expression on his face.